“Chicago aldermen on Wednesday put aside their fears of appearing to be soft on crime and relaxed the city’s rigid rules on where shooting ranges can be located and who can use them.
The City Council put off the politically volatile vote last month for fear of a backlash in a city struggling to control unrelenting gang violence that has caused homicides and shootings to soar.
“There was a question about some of the members fearful of their vote being described by political opponents as being in favor of guns, which is certainly not the case,” Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) said at the time of the parliamentary maneuver he used to delay the vote for one meeting.
“It has to be a little bit better explained to the members.”
On Wednesday, Burke delivered that explanation one more time and convinced his colleagues to do what a federal appeals court has ordered them to do.
There was no debate. Only Burke’s warning that aldermen had no choice.
“A ‘no’ vote is, in effect, a vote to leave the city with absolutely no meaningful zoning restrictions at all to gun ranges — truly a return to the Wild West,” Burke said.”
