Page 20 - February 2020 FOP Magazine

How is a gun registry legal?
One of the most annoying parts about being a Chicago Police Officer is the department re- quirement to register our weapons.
The general orders require that all weapons — be it your duty weapon, a concealed carry weapon or hunting rifle you keep at your friend’s house in Wiscon- sin — have to be registered with the City.
While the requirement is an infringement on our Second Amendment right, it is even more maddening when you realize that private citizens are not re-
quired to register their weapons.
So, what gives? To understand the vexing contradiction,
you first need to appreciate the recent history surrounding gun rights and registration. Illinois has always been a state that suppresses the right of its citizens to bear arms. For many years, Illinois was the only state that outlawed the right of its citizens to legally carry a concealed weapon and is the only state to require that, in order to own a weapon, you must first possess a firearm owner identification card (FOID).
Never wanting to be overlooked as the bastion of liber- al ideology, Chicago, of course, took it one step further and outlawed the possession of all handguns within its corporate limits.
The U.S. Supreme Court finally settled the debate in 2008 with the Heller decision: the Second Amendment, while in- cluding the right to maintain a well-regulated militia, also in- cluded the right to possess firearms for both personal use and protection.
Yes, Americans have the right to arm and protect them- selves with guns. Having failed to heed Shakespeare’s warning that we should first kill all the lawyers, we were left with the liberal attorneys who, of course, argued that Heller did not ex- tend beyond the home.
Once again, the Supreme Court had to explain the obvious in 2012, and ruled in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the amendment that appears second in the Bill of Rights does ex- tend beyond the curtilage of our home, meaning we had the right to carry a weapon outside of our homes. The founding fathers thought the right to bear arms so important that they ranked it No. 2, right after freedom of speech and freedom of worship. Maybe we should give that some thought.
Case settled, right? Not really, if you live in the liberal land of Illinois, and especially Chicago. The Supreme Court ruled that concealed carry was a protected constitutional right, but Illinois ignored it. It was not until the Aguilar decision in 2013 that the Illinois Supreme Court forced the mindless in Spring- field to enact a concealed carry license.
The Firearm Concealed Carry Act (430 ILCS 66) was passed
in 2013. Finally, the citizens of Illinois were granted the right to conceal and carry that every other state had recognized for centuries. The most important part of the law was the fact that the legislature gave the State of Illinois, specifically the Illinois State Police, the power to regu- late firearms and held that “[t]he regulation, licensing, possession, registration, and transportation of hand- guns and ammunition for handguns by licensees are ex-
clusive powers and functions of the State.”
The legislation went on to prohibit any “ordinance or reg-
ulation” that attempts to regulate firearms by local munici- palities. The City of Chicago’s local ordinance requiring regis- tration was null and void and repealed the right to require its citizens to register their firearms ⁠— unless, of course, you are a police officer.
Under Chicago Police Department General Order U04-02 II-L, Uniform and Property, all members of the Chicago Police Department were required to “register all duty and non-du- ty firearms with the department.” The department has dug in and refused to extend recognized constitutional rights to police officers, solidifying the fact that we are looked at as sec- ond-class citizens.
Clearly, based upon the history of the Second Amendment and recent rulings, the department cannot require us to reg- ister our weapons. Could an argument be made that there is a rational basis to require registration of our duty weapons? Perhaps, but it would have to come from the Illinois State Po- lice, not the Chicago Police Department. The department is treating similarly situated citizens differently, in that private citizens and police officers are not the same. That, Madam Mayor, is a violation of equal protection.
How can you let a private citizen not be required to register a firearm but mandate that Chicago Police Officers are? How is it necessary that a weapon that you do not carry while work- ing, nor are allowed to carry while working, and one that is clearly used for sporting, hunting or off-duty self-defense, be registered with the department?
Even more disturbing is that if you read the general orders, our good social justice warriors at COPA could argue that you should have to qualify with that deer hunting rifle. The City is violating our rights, and those rights are constitutionally pro- tected and codified under Illinois law. It is time for the depart- ment to end the practice or be forced to do so.
As Chicago Police Officers, you give up many rights. You give up the right to decide where you want to live, how you should conduct yourself off duty and what you can say. You should not have to give up rights that are protected in the Constitu- tion just because you decided to serve and protect.
TIM GRACE
20 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ FEBRUARY 2020