A note on some recent Chicago gun control laws: Still no gun stores or shooting ranges in Chicago

People know that handguns were banned in Chicago up until 2010.  Then there were extreme restrictions on where you could posses a gun even in your home (e.g., not in your garage or on your porch).  There were other strict gun control laws.  It might be hard to believe, but Chicago has had rules that banned the sale or transfers of guns.  It has banned training facilities.

A federal judge on Monday [Jan 7, 2014] overturned Chicago's ban on the sale and transfer of firearms, ruling that the city's ordinances aimed at reducing gun violence are unconstitutional. 

U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang said in his ruling that while the government has a duty to protect its citizens, it's also obligated to protect constitutional rights, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. However, Chang said he would temporarily stay the effects of his ruling, meaning the ordinances can stand while the city decides whether to appeal. . . .

Now Cook County, like Seattle, has a tax on ammunition.  From the Illinois Business Daily (May 30, 2016):

A per-bullet tax on ammunition set to take effect in June in Cook County is expected to provide over $300,000 in new revenue a year, but the tax faces serious opposition at the state level. 

“The gun tax is nothing more than a modern day poll tax against the poor,” John Boch, executive director of the pro-gun Guns Save Life group told Illinois Business Daily in an email. “Gun control is racist, classist and sexist--we don't support those things.” 

The latest tax is part of a $4.5 billion budget approved last November for the county, which includes roughly $500 million in new spending funded primarily by various sales tax increases, including the ammo tax. 

A bill currently in the Illinois General Assembly, however, could stop those ammunition tax increases and even possibly roll back previous ones. House Bill 4348 would take away the power for local governments to impose sales tax increases on weapons and ammunition, stating that cities and home rule communities “may not impose any tax, fee or other assessment other than the normal sales tax rate for goods, on any firearms, firearm attachments or firearm ammunition.” Boch said he hoped the bill would preempt any legal action the group might take against the new taxes. . . . 

Besides the famous McDonald case, other Court cases that have cut back on Chicago's gun laws are: Ezell v. City of Chicago (7th Cir. 2011) (right to arms would be meaningless without right to “maintain proficiency” by “training and practice” at a shooting range); Illinois Ass’n of Firearms Retailers v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. 2014) (right to arms includes “the right to acquire a firearm” so city ban on all gun stores is void).  So the courts struck down the bans, but the question is how many shooting ranges or gun stores there are in Chicago.  It looks like there are currently no shooting ranges in Chicago. Try Googling "'shooting ranges' Chicago."  As of January this year there was one attempt at "pitching plans to open the city's only gun store and gun range," but nothing has happened so far.

Illinois is one of the 42 Shall-Issue states, so in an important sense it is more liberal than most of the 8 May Issue states, but, with a 16 hour training requirement and $150 fee, it takes about $500 to get a concealed handgun permit. This is by far the most costly of the different Shall-Issue states.

This inability to have easy access to training or a store as well as the costs of getting a permit means that law-abiding poor people will find it very difficult to legally defend themselves.