Now HERE'S a Frivilous Lawsuit

[amigocabal]

Suburbs face lawsuit seeking tougher regulation of gun shops

An anti-violence coalition sued three suburban villages Tuesday, saying they need to do more to regulate gun stores whose weapons have been recovered in large numbers at crime scenes in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, and the Rev. Robin Hood, a West Side pastor, are among the plaintiffs in the civil-rights lawsuit against the villages of Riverdale, Lyons and Lincolnwood.

Lyons officials said they already have met with Chicago police to address their concerns about a gun shop there, while an attorney for Lincolnwood said officials there could not see “any conceivable basis for liability” on the part of the village.

The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, says those villages have “lax or insufficient methods of administration in licensing and regulating gun dealers.”

Here is the law they allege is the basis of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare those three suburbs in violation of the Illinois Civil Rights Act and issue an injunction requiring them to strengthen their regulation of gun stores.

Here is the textof the law. Nothing in there requiring tougher regulations on gun stores. Its only applicabilityy is that the regulations must be enforced in an even-handed manner with respect to "race, color, national origin, or gender".

Did the lawyers not advise the plaintiffs of this?

[Simon_Jester]

Having skimmed the article you just linked to, you missed something.

The lawsuit is arguing that the current regulatory regime is working to enrich white people in the suburbs while killing black people in the inner city, which IS discrimination. Just as segregated schools are illegal because they are NOT even-handed

And the law in question says that:

"No unit of State, county, or local government in Illinois shall... utilize criteria or methods of administration that have the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination because of their race, color, national origin, or gender."

Now here, white people in one area are profiting while black people in another area are getting shot dead because these particular municipalities aren't taking steps to prevent already-illegal gun purchases by a bunch of criminals.

Sounds to me like that's a reasonable basis for an anti-discrimination lawsuit. It may not be a winning basis, the lawsuit may fail, but it isn't frivolous. Frivolous means "you have got to be playing some silly game here." This is not a silly game. A sane person could conclude that the lawsuit is justified.

[TheHammer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit.

Based on the facts presented, this seems like frivolous action. The only way I could see them winning this lawsuit would be if they could prove that the municipalities in question willfully failed to enforce laws. The better target here would be the gun stores themselves if they were in fact participating in illegal gun sales. So is the issue then legal gun sales that they are seeking to have the municipalities impose tougher Chicago-like restrictions on?

It seems as though the plaintiffs wish to compel these subdivisions to enact laws or regulations that do not exist under State and Federal statute. As Courts do not write laws, I do not believe they can compel a local government to do so. Any judgement to the contrary would almost certainly be appealed as a separation of powers issue.

[amigocabal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit.

Based on the facts presented, this seems like frivolous action. The only way I could see them winning this lawsuit would be if they could prove that the municipalities in question willfully failed to enforce laws. The better target here would be the gun stores themselves if they were in fact participating in illegal gun sales. So is the issue then legal gun sales that they are seeking to have the municipalities impose tougher Chicago-like restrictions on?

It seems as though the plaintiffs wish to compel these subdivisions to enact laws or regulations that do not exist under State and Federal statute. As Courts do not write laws, I do not believe they can compel a local government to do so. Any judgement to the contrary would almost certainly be appealed as a separation of powers issue.

It is similar to a case currently before the Supreme Court regarding Colorado's refusal to have its own laws prohibiting marijuana. As a matter of fact, the civil rights arguments would apply with equal force in that case.

[TheHammer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit.

Based on the facts presented, this seems like frivolous action. The only way I could see them winning this lawsuit would be if they could prove that the municipalities in question willfully failed to enforce laws. The better target here would be the gun stores themselves if they were in fact participating in illegal gun sales. So is the issue then legal gun sales that they are seeking to have the municipalities impose tougher Chicago-like restrictions on?

It seems as though the plaintiffs wish to compel these subdivisions to enact laws or regulations that do not exist under State and Federal statute. As Courts do not write laws, I do not believe they can compel a local government to do so. Any judgement to the contrary would almost certainly be appealed as a separation of powers issue.

It is similar to a case currently before the Supreme Court regarding Colorado's refusal to have its own laws prohibiting marijuana. As a matter of fact, the civil rights arguments would apply with equal force in that case.

Well that's a different matter entirely... The core of that case would be lack of enforcement of an existing Federal law, not an attempt to compel Colorado to create additional regulations that do not currently exist.

The Plantiffs in this case are apparently seeking to get laws/regulations added that they think should exist. However, that's the job of the legislature not the courts. The Plantiffs' attempt to use the civil rights act as justification would seem to be extremely flimsy.

[Broomstick]

The better target here would be the gun stores themselves if they were in fact participating in illegal gun sales. So is the issue then legal gun sales that they are seeking to have the municipalities impose tougher Chicago-like restrictions on?

They actually tried going after the gun stores several years ago, including those in my area (which, by the way, are across state lines). It didn't work, because they couldn't prove the stores themselves were engaged in anything illegal.

There's a problem with "straw buyers", people with clean records who can legally buy guns, then either turn them over or re-sell them to the bad guys. Needless to say, doing this gets you put on the "not allowed to buy guns" list, but you have to be caught and convicted first. Until that occurs, it's unlikely a gun store will know what such a person is up to.

It seems as though the plaintiffs wish to compel these subdivisions to enact laws or regulations that do not exist under State and Federal statute. As Courts do not write laws, I do not believe they can compel a local government to do so. Any judgement to the contrary would almost certainly be appealed as a separation of powers issue.

Yes, attempting to compel new laws is something Farther Pfleger has openly said he wants to do. He's a bit fanatical about the topic, but then, his parish has buried an inordinate number of people due to gun violence. He got tired of saying mass for kids killed in the crossfire years ago.

[TheHammer]

It seems as though the plaintiffs wish to compel these subdivisions to enact laws or regulations that do not exist under State and Federal statute. As Courts do not write laws, I do not believe they can compel a local government to do so. Any judgement to the contrary would almost certainly be appealed as a separation of powers issue.

Yes, attempting to compel new laws is something Farther Pfleger has openly said he wants to do. He's a bit fanatical about the topic, but then, his parish has buried an inordinate number of people due to gun violence. He got tired of saying mass for kids killed in the crossfire years ago.

I understand his motivations, but he's going about it the wrong way. Restrictive gun laws won't solve the underlying problems that cause people to use guns. As long as those underlying problems exist, the people committing these shootings will get their hands on the weapons to do it.

[Simon_Jester]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit.

Yes, I know. Since you never actually responded to my previous post, I'm just going to repeat it.

And the law in question says that:

"No unit of State, county, or local government in Illinois shall... utilize criteria or methods of administration that have the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination because of their race, color, national origin, or gender."

Now here, white people in one area are profiting while black people in another area are getting shot dead because these particular municipalities aren't taking steps to prevent already-illegal gun purchases by a bunch of criminals.

Since you either did not read or did not comprehend what I was saying, let me spell it out:

There is a good case for that being discrimination. If a town enacts laws that are discriminatory, that is illegal in Illinois. Therefore it is grounds for a lawsuit. Such a lawsuit as has just been brought forth here. And while the lawsuit may fail, it is not frivolous- because the argument "this law in your town kills people in my town, and profits your town, so it's discriminatory" is not without merit. It is a valid category of legal argument to make, even if you happen to disagree with it.

Now, if the lawsuit wins, the court might do one of several things. It might order the towns that have failed to stop the gun-running operations to pay some form of damages to the towns victimized by the gun-runners. It might order the towns that have failed to stop the gun-runners to, y'know, stop the gun-runners. How they do so is the town's problem- although enacting sensible laws to limit gun-running is perhaps the most obvious solution.

Since there are presumably existing Illinois laws that make gun-running illegal, what this comes down to is that these towns that sell the guns are failing to locate and properly prosecute criminals. That's something a court can reasonably order a given jurisdiction to do. It is not a matter of separation of powers- it is a matter of the court saying "do your job or pay damages."

Well that's a different matter entirely... The core of that [Colorado marijuana] case would be lack of enforcement of an existing Federal law, not an attempt to compel Colorado to create additional regulations that do not currently exist.

The Plantiffs in this case are apparently seeking to get laws/regulations added that they think should exist. However, that's the job of the legislature not the courts. The Plantiffs' attempt to use the civil rights act as justification would seem to be extremely flimsy.

Their argument is that the existing law regime has extreme discriminatory effects (hundreds of people shot with guns that were bought in these towns).

Is this flimsy? Only if you think that a law which causes deaths in Town A and not in Town B is not 'discrimination.' So no, I would argue that the suit is not frivolous. It is not obviously without merit. It may fail, the judge may find it to have insufficient merit, but it is not a case of blatant stupidity on the part of the plaintiff.

...

On an unrelated note... Let me just point out that this is exactly the sort of lawsuit that would be vitally necessary were a libertarian society to continue functioning. Because otherwise we'd be up to our eyeballs in predatory communities cheerfully profiting from the death and destruction of other communities. Without the ability of courts to compel individual communities to alter their practices and laws, the only recourse any single community would have against this sort of predation is open warfare, which would lead quickly to anarchy.

I understand his motivations, but he's going about it the wrong way. Restrictive gun laws won't solve the underlying problems that cause people to use guns. As long as those underlying problems exist, the people committing these shootings will get their hands on the weapons to do it.

Nobody argued that the gun laws would stop the killings. But they might make the killings less likely. Criminals would find it harder to procure and throw away 'disposable' guns to be used in random crimes. They might be forced to rely on cheaper, less powerful and reliable guns, which would result in fewer high-velocity, high volume-of-fire bullets flying around and striking bystanders.

And even if this is not the case... there is NO reason why ANY civilized town, suburb, or municipality should be permitted to profit from the sale of guns to criminals. ANY civilized community should be willing to agree to basic, commonsense measures intended to slow or block the sale of guns to known criminals. And to identify the proxies who run guns to criminals, and prosecute them. Because these acts are openly, nakedly illegal, and there is no "rights" argument for tolerating such acts.

[Kon_El]

There is a good case for that being discrimination. If a town enacts laws that are discriminatory, that is illegal in Illinois. Therefore it is grounds for a lawsuit. Such a lawsuit as has just been brought forth here. And while the lawsuit may fail, it is not frivolous- because the argument "this law in your town kills people in my town, and profits your town, so it's discriminatory" is not without merit. It is a valid category of legal argument to make, even if you happen to disagree with it.

The distinction is that it is not "this law in your town" but the lack of a law. Imagine a dry county suing a neighboring community for allowing the sale of booze because it is hindering the effectiveness of their law.

[Grumman]

There is a good case for that being discrimination. If a town enacts laws that are discriminatory, that is illegal in Illinois. Therefore it is grounds for a lawsuit. Such a lawsuit as has just been brought forth here. And while the lawsuit may fail, it is not frivolous- because the argument "this law in your town kills people in my town, and profits your town, so it's discriminatory" is not without merit. It is a valid category of legal argument to make, even if you happen to disagree with it.

It is without merit. They're being accused of discrimination for not discriminating against their customers on the basis of their race. That's just stupid.

[amigocabal]

Well that's a different matter entirely... The core of that [Colorado marijuana] case would be lack of enforcement of an existing Federal law, not an attempt to compel Colorado to create additional regulations that do not currently exist.

The Plantiffs in this case are apparently seeking to get laws/regulations added that they think should exist. However, that's the job of the legislature not the courts. The Plantiffs' attempt to use the civil rights act as justification would seem to be extremely flimsy.

Their argument is that the existing law regime has extreme discriminatory effects (hundreds of people shot with guns that were bought in these towns).

Is this flimsy? Only if you think that a law which causes deaths in Town A and not in Town B is not 'discrimination.' So no, I would argue that the suit is not frivolous. It is not obviously without merit. It may fail, the judge may find it to have insufficient merit, but it is not a case of blatant stupidity on the part of the plaintiff.

...

On an unrelated note... Let me just point out that this is exactly the sort of lawsuit that would be vitally necessary were a libertarian society to continue functioning. Because otherwise we'd be up to our eyeballs in predatory communities cheerfully profiting from the death and destruction of other communities. Without the ability of courts to compel individual communities to alter their practices and laws, the only recourse any single community would have against this sort of predation is open warfare, which would lead quickly to anarchy.

One issue every court must consider is whether it can even grant the relief sought by the plaintiffs. The merits of a case can not be decided if the court is without power to grant the relief sought. (For an extreme example, imagine a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court where a private plaintiff seeks execution of the defendant as a remedy for some legal wrong. Such suit would be thrown out for the court's inability to grant the relief sought.)

Obviously, a court can award money damages for torts. They can issue injunctions against private parties. They can also issue injunctions against officials forbidding them to enforce certain laws.

What is being sought is the remedy of requiring the defendants to enact regulations against third parties. Such a remedy is unprecedented. First of all, such a remedy presumes that the third parties are responsible for the injuries. if so, the suit should be against those third parties? Second of all, such arguments apply with equal force with a suit against the State itself. After all, the State itself refuses to directly regulate the gun dealers.

I understand his motivations, but he's going about it the wrong way. Restrictive gun laws won't solve the underlying problems that cause people to use guns. As long as those underlying problems exist, the people committing these shootings will get their hands on the weapons to do it.

Nobody argued that the gun laws would stop the killings. But they might make the killings less likely. Criminals would find it harder to procure and throw away 'disposable' guns to be used in random crimes. They might be forced to rely on cheaper, less powerful and reliable guns, which would result in fewer high-velocity, high volume-of-fire bullets flying around and striking bystanders.

Like Sten guns?

And even if this is not the case... there is NO reason why ANY civilized town, suburb, or municipality should be permitted to profit from the sale of guns to criminals. ANY civilized community should be willing to agree to basic, commonsense measures intended to slow or block the sale of guns to known criminals. And to identify the proxies who run guns to criminals, and prosecute them. Because these acts are openly, nakedly illegal, and there is no "rights" argument for tolerating such acts.[/quote]
Then the solution is to petition the state legislature to do such a thing. The legislature can generally pass laws that block the sale of guns to known criminals.

What is being asked for here is a suit requiring municipalities to enact laws that the legislature itself refused to enact. There is no precedent for a court to require the enactment of specific legislation.

This suit implies that the state's own refusal to enact these regulations violates the Civil Rights Act. It would seriously implicate the separation of powers if the court attempted to enjoin the legislature to pass the regulations plaintiffs seek. In fact, the legislature's own refusal to enact these policies at the state level, while at the same time, enacting the Civil Rights Act, all but means that the legislature sees no conflict between the two.

Finally, they seek to impute liability on the municipalities because of the acts of third parties. But there is no precedent for a municipality's refusal to enact its own legislation making it complicit in the injuries caused by third parties. This is not a case where the municipality is accused of requiring the third parties, rewarding the third parties, or activity working with the third parties to, circumvent state or federal law. Indeed, the sole count is a violation of a civil rights act, not any specific statewide gun law.

[Broomstick]

And even if this is not the case... there is NO reason why ANY civilized town, suburb, or municipality should be permitted to profit from the sale of guns to criminals. ANY civilized community should be willing to agree to basic, commonsense measures intended to slow or block the sale of guns to known criminals. And to identify the proxies who run guns to criminals, and prosecute them. Because these acts are openly, nakedly illegal, and there is no "rights" argument for tolerating such acts.

While I can not speak of the particular businesses listed in this suit, I do know, from Pfleger & Allies attempting to shut down the gun retailers in my area (Blythe's and Westforth's being the two biggest specializing in guns, along with Deb's Gun Range and the big box stores like Cabela's and Bass Pro) no one is selling to KNOWN criminals or KNOWN proxies. No one. It's not like these places haven't been investigated, scrutinized and constantly watched. They are following the dictated procedures, the legalities, waiting periods, and so forth. They ARE following the law. The problems three big problems are:

- in an urban area of 10 million people (give or take a few) there is, essentially, a sufficient supply of fucking idiots willing to be proxy (straw) buyers for gangbangers that we'll never run out of that variety of fuckwad
- this being the Chicago area, there is a certain level of corruption at play. For instance: it wasn't that long ago that half dozen deputies from my county were sent to pound-you-in-the-ass Federal prison for selling automatic weapons to a Mexican drug cartel, utilizing county law enforcement resources to obtain said weapons. Profitable, but very, very stupid. That's just one example, there are others.
- the infamous gunshow loophole, where private transactions involving firearms can take place with considerably fewer legal controls than at any gun shop.

However, the people bringing this lawsuit are not, in fact, interested in enforcing current gun laws. They want to shut down all gun retailers regardless of how law-abiding. This is a crowd who feels no one (at least not outside law enforcement and the military) should posses a gun. Their end agenda is basically to abolish the 2nd Amendment. Which viewpoint, of course, they are entitled to have.

[TheHammer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit.

Yes, I know. Since you never actually responded to my previous post, I'm just going to repeat it.

Not responded to what?

And the law in question says that:

"No unit of State, county, or local government in Illinois shall... utilize criteria or methods of administration that have the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination because of their race, color, national origin, or gender."

Now here, white people in one area are profiting while black people in another area are getting shot dead because these particular municipalities aren't taking steps to prevent already-illegal gun purchases by a bunch of criminals.

Since you either did not read or did not comprehend what I was saying, let me spell it out:

Nice attempt to re-frame what you said, but you left out the final sentence in your opening statement. I'll be happy to copy it here for you:

Sounds to me like that's a reasonable basis for an anti-discrimination lawsuit. It may not be a winning basis, the lawsuit may fail, but it isn't frivolous. Frivolous means "you have got to be playing some silly game here." This is not a silly game. A sane person could conclude that the lawsuit is justified.

Its pretty fucking clear you were using the general definition of Frivolous (not having any serious purpose or value, silly)rather than the legal definition. And that's where I was correcting you. You're welcome.

There is a good case for that being discrimination. If a town enacts laws that are discriminatory, that is illegal in Illinois. Therefore it is grounds for a lawsuit. Such a lawsuit as has just been brought forth here. And while the lawsuit may fail, it is not frivolous- because the argument "this law in your town kills people in my town, and profits your town, so it's discriminatory" is not without merit. It is a valid category of legal argument to make, even if you happen to disagree with it.

There is no discriminatory law. They are arguing that more restrictive laws should exist because such laws exist in Chicago. To allow such a challenge to succeed would mean that all towns would have to follow the law of the most restrictive town, thus making it defacto state law. You are then essentially making the Chicago City counsel equivalent to the State Legislature. Just... NO SIMON

Now, if the lawsuit wins, the court might do one of several things. It might order the towns that have failed to stop the gun-running operations to pay some form of damages to the towns victimized by the gun-runners. It might order the towns that have failed to stop the gun-runners to, y'know, stop the gun-runners. How they do so is the town's problem- although enacting sensible laws to limit gun-running is perhaps the most obvious solution.

In the extremely unlikely event of a plaintiff victory in the lawsuit would be appealed and over-turned. There is no way it would ultimately succeed, which is why it is frivolous. I repeat, there is NO WAY it would succeed.

Since there are presumably existing Illinois laws that make gun-running illegal, what this comes down to is that these towns that sell the guns are failing to locate and properly prosecute criminals. That's something a court can reasonably order a given jurisdiction to do. It is not a matter of separation of powers- it is a matter of the court saying "do your job or pay damages."

Except that the argument isn't being made that the towns are allowing illegal gun sales. The argument is that the towns haven't made gun sales "illegal enough". Again, if you can't see the problem with notion that courts can compel that laws be created via judicial decree then there is something seriously wrong with your perception of what a democratic society is.

Well that's a different matter entirely... The core of that [Colorado marijuana] case would be lack of enforcement of an existing Federal law, not an attempt to compel Colorado to create additional regulations that do not currently exist.

The Plantiffs in this case are apparently seeking to get laws/regulations added that they think should exist. However, that's the job of the legislature not the courts. The Plantiffs' attempt to use the civil rights act as justification would seem to be extremely flimsy.

Their argument is that the existing law regime has extreme discriminatory effects (hundreds of people shot with guns that were bought in these towns).

Is this flimsy? Only if you think that a law which causes deaths in Town A and not in Town B is not 'discrimination.' So no, I would argue that the suit is not frivolous. It is not obviously without merit. It may fail, the judge may find it to have insufficient merit, but it is not a case of blatant stupidity on the part of the plaintiff.

Anyone with any common sense, let alone legal training can see it's without legal merit. And quite frankly it is blatantly stupid. You go after the towns with gun shops, but if you win the people you're wishing to deny guns will either sue for their "SECOND AUHMENDMUHNT" (Also Section 22 of the Illinois state constitution) rights to bear arms, or simply get their guns across state borders. Unless your plan is to "Sue everyone forever!!!" then your goal is not going to be achieved. Any intelligent person can see that, thus this attempt is stupid.

On an unrelated note... Let me just point out that this is exactly the sort of lawsuit that would be vitally necessary were a libertarian society to continue functioning. Because otherwise we'd be up to our eyeballs in predatory communities cheerfully profiting from the death and destruction of other communities. Without the ability of courts to compel individual communities to alter their practices and laws, the only recourse any single community would have against this sort of predation is open warfare, which would lead quickly to anarchy.

I don't know where you're going with the "Libertarian Society", but we have state and federal laws to prevent that sort of thing. They set the baseline and if a town won't enact a law that you feel it needs to, then you go to the state legislature and failing that to the federal. If you fail to convince any of them that a law needs to be changed, well I guess that's tough shit isn't it?

Allowing courts to compel individual communities to enact laws that do not exist, or face legal consequences, would be akin to making them dictators. The legislature creates the law, the court interprets the law. The Court does not have the authority to create laws simply because it feels said laws should exist.

I understand his motivations, but he's going about it the wrong way. Restrictive gun laws won't solve the underlying problems that cause people to use guns. As long as those underlying problems exist, the people committing these shootings will get their hands on the weapons to do it.

Nobody argued that the gun laws would stop the killings. But they might make the killings less likely. Criminals would find it harder to procure and throw away 'disposable' guns to be used in random crimes. They might be forced to rely on cheaper, less powerful and reliable guns, which would result in fewer high-velocity, high volume-of-fire bullets flying around and striking bystanders.

And even if this is not the case... there is NO reason why ANY civilized town, suburb, or municipality should be permitted to profit from the sale of guns to criminals. ANY civilized community should be willing to agree to basic, commonsense measures intended to slow or block the sale of guns to known criminals. And to identify the proxies who run guns to criminals, and prosecute them. Because these acts are openly, nakedly illegal, and there is no "rights" argument for tolerating such acts.

Again, if you feel the law should be different, then you need to do so via the legislature not the courts. If you have EVIDENCE that these towns were participating and profiting from illegal sales then its an entirely different point. To me knowledge there has been no argument that the towns are allowing ILLEGAL gun sales. Your inference is entirely your own and is incorrect.

[Broomstick]

There is no discriminatory law. They are arguing that more restrictive laws should exist because such laws exist in Chicago. To allow such a challenge to succeed would mean that all towns would have to follow the law of the most restrictive town, thus making it defacto state law. You are then essentially making the Chicago City counsel equivalent to the State Legislature. Just... NO SIMON

This is a very important point.

There is already a history of the city of Chicago acting in a lawless and dictatorial manner not only towards nearby communities, not only towards the state of Illinois, but towards the Federal government of the United States. (See destruction of Meigs Field). This is not about justice, it's about imposing the will of Chicago on other communities.

Ask yourself if you want a city in the next county, or the next state, dictating the rules YOU will under.

Anyone with any common sense, let alone legal training can see it's without legal merit. And quite frankly it is blatantly stupid. You go after the towns with gun shops, but if you win the people you're wishing to deny guns will either sue for their "SECOND AUHMENDMUHNT" (Also Section 22 of the Illinois state constitution) rights to bear arms, or simply get their guns across state borders. Unless your plan is to "Sue everyone forever!!!" then your goal is not going to be achieved. Any intelligent person can see that, thus this attempt is stupid.

See bolded text. The east border of Chicago where it lies south of Lake Michigan is the state line between Illinois and Indiana. They are that close. Chicago has already tried to impose its will on Indiana and has been told to fuck off.

Beyond that - Wisconsin is a short drive away. There are NO barriers to people crossing state lines. There is no way that this can stop the carnage even if the plantiffs get there way and manage to dictate to other communities. Then they'll try the same bullshit on the neighboring states, then attempt it with the Feds.

Chicago has already been told it's prior gun laws were unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The arguments and causes here have already been argued before the highest court in the land. They will not succeed. That's why the whole thing is stupid. They should be seeking other ways to accomplish the goal of reducing gun deaths.

And even if this is not the case... there is NO reason why ANY civilized town, suburb, or municipality should be permitted to profit from the sale of guns to criminals. ANY civilized community should be willing to agree to basic, commonsense measures intended to slow or block the sale of guns to known criminals. And to identify the proxies who run guns to criminals, and prosecute them. Because these acts are openly, nakedly illegal, and there is no "rights" argument for tolerating such acts.

1) No municipality is profiting from ANY gun sales because no municipalities sell guns. They are sold by private business. Businesses, I might add, which are legal under current law.
2) There are already rules and laws against selling guns to criminals. Guess what, one of the defining features of criminals is that they break the laws and rules. Passing more laws isn't going to make criminals more law-abiding.
3) There are on-going investigations to identify proxies, prosecute them, and jail them. What, you thought they could all be rounded up on a weekend?