Check, Please! Chicago Once Again Learns an Expensive Lesson About the Second Amendment

While litigants generally bear their own costs in the American legal system, certain provisions of federal law allow parties who prevail in “proceedings in vindication of civil rights” to be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees.  NRA has once again used these provisions to recoup attorney’s fees from the City of Chicago.  You would think that Chicago's disarmament-focused politicians would have learned their lesson after being court ordered to pay NRA over $600,000 in legal fees for work done by NRA attorneys on McDonald v. City of Chicago.  Nevertheless, Chicago has once again been court ordered to pay NRA’s legal fees, this time $940,000 for work on Illinois Association of Firearm Retailers v. City of Chicago (formerly Benson v. City of Chicago).  That case challenged the prohibition on lawful gun sales within the city.  As noted earlier this week, this brings Chicago’s recent total for NRA legal fees to over $1.5 million.

That's a lot of cash, even to politicians who are spending their constituents' money.  Still, the city’s new push to keep gun dealers away through over-regulation may well indicate that its aldermen and its mayor, Rahm Emanuel, remain willing to spend even more taxpayer funds to support even more symbolic and ineffective gun control.