Judge Upholds Ban On Laser Sights

(IntegrityPress.org) – The Second Amendment Arms (SAA) group has lost its fourteen-year-long legal challenge against Chicago’s ban on firearm laser sights. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras ruled on July 22 that the U.S. Constitution did not protect laser sights as they are accessories for firearms rather than weapons themselves.

In 1999, the city of Chicago passed a ban on laser sights. The SAA launched a legal challenge in 2010, saying that the ban infringed on the constitutionally protected rights of its organization members as well as other law-abiding Americans. The SAA has worked with Chicagoan firearms retailers to pursue this suit as well as other complaints against the city’s stringent firearm restrictions, with limited success.

In 2014, a different federal judge overturned a 2010 ordinance that banned the sale of many types of firearms in the city, something which the SAA and firearms retailers opposed. According to the judge, the ban was unconstitutional. Although the ban was overruled, the SAA and the associated retailers were unsuccessful in pursuing damages, both in a ruling issued in 2020, and as part of Judge Kocoras’ ruling on July 22.

Kocoras’ ruling against the SAA’s legal challenge rebuffed the plaintiffs’ argument that laser sights should be protected by the Second Amendment. The plaintiffs’ suit stated that laser sights were simply a modern iteration of firearm sights, a more rudimentary form of which was in use at the time of the Constitution. As such, they claimed that they should be accepted as a part of firearm use. Kocoras, however, held that as a firearm could function perfectly well without a laser sight, laser sights are not a necessary part of a firearm.

Kocoras explained that he made his decision with a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in mind. This Supreme Court ruling found that firearm restrictions could only be made if they were in keeping with the context of the history of gun restrictions within the U.S. According to Kocoras, the ban on laser sights was in keeping with an American tradition.

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