Since the passage of House Bill 2 earlier this year many cities, counties, municipalities, etc. have adopted ordinances and policies that restrict or prohibit firearms in buildings and on property they control. The state is declaring these areas “sensitive places,” and justifying these policies on the basis that the state must act to protect its employees and citizens from criminals carrying firearms. Under this rationale, the state is foreseeing a danger to its employees and citizens and is assuming a protective role by taking positive action in the form of policies restricting firearms. Unfortunately, these policies remove a person’s ability to defend themselves against criminal violence. If the state were to provide a reasonable substitute for an individual’s right to self-defense in the form of armed guards and metal detectors the state’s policies would be constitutionally supported. However, the lack of such measures coupled with the foreknowledge that sensitive places must be protected from criminal use of firearms, demonstrates the state has acted with a high degree of indifference to the safety of individuals under its protection.
This argument follows from the belief that self-defense in public places is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the belief a state cannot deprive an individual of that right without due process. To affirm this belief, we look to the recent Supreme Court of the United States cases, Heller and McDonald, and an Illinois Supreme Court case, People v. Aguilar.
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