Chicago police chief: Second Amendment supporters guilty of corruption

Chicago’s chief of police can’t seem to avoid controversy over his statements related to gun control.

On a Sunday talk show, as reported by the Illinois State Rifle Association, police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy said that firearm owners who lobby their representatives, or who donate money to political campaigns, for pro-Second Amendment issues are guilty of corruption and of endangering public safety.

The embattled police chief — who previously blamed “government-sponsored racism” and Sarah Palin for Chicago’s gun-related violence, and who once said the Second Amendment itself was a threat to the nation’s security, according to a report by Red State — also said judges and lawmakers should focus more on public opinion polls when considering constitutional matters, the ISRA reported.

On Sunday, Superintendent McCarthy also said the Second Amendment does, in fact, allow for governments and police agencies to impose mandatory liability insurance requirements on gun owners, and that GPS tracking devices can be lawfully affixed to firearms sold to civilians, according to the ISRA.

ISRA spokespeople hit back.

“Garry McCarthy’s understanding of our Constitution barely qualifies him as a meter maid, never mind the chief of the nation’s third-largest police department,” said ISRA executive director Richard Pearson. “What on earth would possess McCarthy to assert that constitutional rights should be meted out based on public opinion polls?”

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Mr. Pearson reminded, in the Red State report, that if public opinion polls were the deciding factors for constitutional law, women may never have received the right to vote.

“It has been said that our Constitution exists to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority,” he said in the Red State report. “McCarthy’s view of our Constitution is dangerous and unbecoming of a civil servant.”