IL: Editorial: The ‘L’ is no place for gunpacking riders

We’ll pardon you if, in the deluge of events over this calendar year, you’d forgotten there was a federal judicial ruling hanging out there that raised the question of whether Illinois could prohibit concealed firearms on public transit.

Perhaps you’d forgotten because the ruling last year by U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston that Illinois’ law against bringing guns on trains and buses violated the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was limited. It applied only to the three plaintiffs who’d challenged the law.

We don’t know if any of the three gentlemen, all of whom live in Chicago’s suburbs or exurbs, availed themselves of their concealed-carry rights after the decision. But, if they did, they’re once again going to have to stop packing heat in such environs.

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned Johnston and ruled that the state’s law is constitutional. “We conclude that the challenged law is comfortably situated in a centuries-old practice of limiting firearms in sensitive and crowded, confined places,” the opinion written by Judge Joshua Kolar stated.

“We are asked whether the state may temporarily disarm its citizens as they travel in crowded and confined metal tubes unlike anything the Founders envisioned,” the opinion went on. “We draw from the lessons of our nation’s historical regulatory traditions and find no Second Amendment violation in such a regulation.”

Amen to that.

While Johnston’s initial ruling was limited in its scope, it opened the door to a wider application once it was considered by higher courts. Of course, this matter may not be over. The plaintiffs are considering their legal options, and the U.S. Supreme Court has taken an increasingly strict view of what the Second Amendment precludes in terms of gun regulation.

For now, though, Chicagoans can breathe a sigh of relief. Allowing passengers on CTA trains and buses to carry concealed weapons is a recipe for making an unacceptably unsafe transit system that much more dangerous. Imagine riding in a crowded “L” car and seeing a rider, feeling threatened, brandishing a firearm in their own defense. Would that make you — the unarmed passenger — feel safer? With the prospect of gunshots in a confined space striking people other than the intended target?

Keeping guns off trains and buses as much as possible clearly is in the public interest, and we’re confident the majority of Illinoisans agree.

But that doesn’t mean public safety is where it needs to be, particularly on the “L.” Ultimately, the best argument against those agitating to bring more weapons into public spaces is to make those spaces safer.

The state legislature is expected in its October veto session to consider sweeping legislation to provide more funding to a Chicago-area public transit system otherwise facing a substantial revenue drop-off and corresponding layoffs and service cuts. Lawmakers have struggled to settle on a funding source. But if and when they do, those investments must include measures to better enforce the rules and laws to which ordinary — unarmed — passengers adhere and expect others to follow as they simply try to get from Point A to Point B.

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