Chicago: Challenge to Ban on Guns Outside the Home Goes Forward

On January 19, a federal judge in Chicago allowed NRA-supported plaintiffs to move ahead with a challenge to that city’s laws that ban anyone from possessing or carrying a handgun except in his or her home, and that ban possession or carriage of a long gun anywhere outside his or her home or place of business.The case, Benson v. City of Chicago, challenges several of the anti-Second Amendment restrictions that were enacted days after the city’s handgun ban was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Other issues contested in the case include the city’s ban on nearly all firearm transfers and on the operation of gun stores, as well as its law that allows each Chicago license holder to keep only one “assembled and operable” firearm within the home.