Thanks!

I agree with you that the right to self defence, and the right to own the tools with which to defend yourself, is a fundamental, natural human right.

I disagree with your reading that the second amendment the the US Constitution applies, or should apply, to local governments.

The Constitution of the United States is meant to restrict what the *federal* government can do to the states and to the people.

The Constitution of the state of Illinois, in Article I, Section 22, has it's own right to keep and bear arms provision. That restricts what the *state* government can do to the counties, cities, and people.

The way I see it, interpreting the second amendment of the US constitution in such a way as to use the authority of the federal government to force states, counties and cities to abide by a restriction placed on the federal government is in essence doing the same thing that President Lincoln did to the states in the Civil War: it's asserting that the federal government has the right to tell the sovereign states what to do, which would be in violation of the 10th amendment.

I think that Chicago should be allowed to ban guns in their city, if they want to. It's the city of Chicago that will pay the price for that bad decision. When the crime rate skyrockets because only the bad guys have guns, the people will flee to places where there is less crime because the people are allowed to protect themselves – giving the city of Chicago a huge incentive to change it's bad laws!

The residents of Chicago should be free to leave, and "vote with their feet", as President Reagan put it, to another jurisdiction where the laws are more to their liking.

Let every town, city, county and state decide for itself what it's laws are going to be. Let there be as much diversity and difference between them as possible. Let people choose the place where the laws best suit how they want to be governed.

That way, you maximize the choices people have, thereby maximizing their liberty.