CHICAGO, Dec. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The
following was released today by the Illinois State
Rifle Association (ISRA):
The Cook County State's Attorney's Appellate Court
defense of the county gun ban (Wilson, et. al. v. Cook
County, et. al.) got off to a bad start when briefs
filed by the county before the First District
Appellate Court were found to contain factual errors.
More specifically, these factual errors included the
misquoting of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the DC
v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago cases. (The ISRA was
a Plaintiff in McDonald). When these errors were
brought to light by the plaintiffs, the county hastily
filed a motion to withdraw the erroneous briefs in
favor of amended versions. Presently, the plaintiffs
in the case have moved to strike the amended briefs as
the amendments do not remedy the ramifications of the
misquotes contained in the original set of briefs. In
fact the County may have used their own "errors" to
further violate the Court's rules and to additional
arguments and bolster existing arguments in their
amended brief.
"We find it interesting that the Cook County State's
Attorney's office would blame 'electronic errors' for
the tainting of its briefs with misquotes," commented
ISRA spokesman, Richard Pearson. "This situation is
made all the more curious given that the misquotes
would fundamentally alter the intent of two landmark
Supreme Court decisions – D.C. v. Heller and McDonald
v. Chicago. In the county's briefs, the two high court
decisions are erroneously quoted as addressing 'common
handguns' whereas the decisions, as written, do not
contain the phrase 'common handguns.' There is a clear
difference when one addresses handguns versus 'common'
handguns in that the latter would drastically reduce
the types of firearms whose ownership is protected
under the Second Amendment."
"If I were a cynic," continued Pearson, "I'd suggest
that these 'electronic errors' were just poorly
executed attempts by the Cook County State's
Attorney's office to re-write the Heller and McDonald
decisions more to Mayor Daley's liking."
The ISRA is the state's leading advocate of safe,
lawful and responsible firearms ownership. For more
than a century, the ISRA has represented the interests
of millions of law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.
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