CHICAGO (CN) — The Windy City’s prohibition on owning or selling gun laser sights isn’t going anywhere, per a Monday federal court ruling.
The laser sight ban has been in place in Chicago since 1999, and was among several municipal firearm regulations challenged by firearm retailers in a 2010 federal lawsuit. Fourteen years later, U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras ruled Monday that the sights don’t warrant Second Amendment protections.
“In sum, the undisputed facts show that ‘a firearm remains an effective weapon without a [laser sight] attached’ and thus a laser sight ‘is not a weapon protected by the Second Amendment,'” the Jimmy Carter appointee wrote, citing precedent court cases. “Rather, ‘it is merely an accessory which is unnecessary to the essential operation of a firearm.'”
Kocoras also granted summary judgment to Chicago on the retailers’ claim for nominal damages stemming from a now-repealed 2010 city ordinance. That ordinance banned most firearm sales in the city, but another federal judge in Chicago declared it unconstitutional in January 2014.
The retailers had sought damages for their stillborn businesses in an amended complaint, yet a third federal court ruling in 2020 found they hadn’t shown evidence they lost profits from the 2010 ordinance. Kocoras echoed that decision on Monday, and found the retailers had effectively waived their ability to pursue nominal damages.
“Plaintiffs have sought damages from the beginning, the 2010 ordinance was repealed in 2014, and plaintiffs have had a full opportunity to develop their damages case throughout this litigation, including fact and expert discovery and summary judgment briefing,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs chose to pursue compensatory damages and lost.”
Kocoras’ ruling puts the retailers’ 14-year-old case to bed, after four amended complaints and hundreds of separate filings.
“We’re disappointed in the result, we’re reading through the decision, and we’re deciding what our next steps should be,” the plaintiffs’ independent lead attorney David Sigale told Courthouse News in a phone call. He did not specify if his clients would seek an appeal.
Chicago’s legal department did not respond to a request for a comment on the decision.
Kocoras’ ruling was quickly followed by another development in Chicago gun law — the city issued a notice Monday that it was voluntarily dismissing its federal liability case against gun manufacturer Glock.
Chicago filed a nuisance lawsuit against Glock in state court in March 2023, hoping to force the company to stop selling or marketing semi-automatic handguns that can be modified to fire fully automatic. The case was removed to federal court in April.
One of the city’s attorneys, Eric Tirschwell of the gun safety advocacy legal firm Everytown Law, told Courthouse News in a phone call that, despite the dismissal, the city wasn’t giving up its claims against Glock. Tirschwell declined to explain further, saying more information would be available Tuesday.
Legal fights over gun regulations have been common in Illinois over the last few years, reflecting the state’s cultural division between a conservative southwest and liberal northeast. Those fights only intensified following the deadly assault rifle mass shooting in Highland Park on July 4, 2022. In 2023, the state instituted a broad ban on assault weapons and extended ammo magazines, which thus far has withstood multiple challenges in state and federal court.
State sheriffs, though, have largely refused to enforce the ban.