There is some exciting news for those of us that love our guns. The Supreme Court is going to take up a challenge to Chicago's hand gun ban, and depending on the decision this could open up challenges from other major cities with similar bans. The case (McDonald v. Chicago, 08-1521) will be decided upon early 2010, and there are couple of things that are interesting to me about this.

First, perhaps the recent beating that resulted in a young honor students death in Chicago may be the reason this has come up. I believe in the adage "An armed society is a polite society", and perhaps it is becoming apparent to some (especially on the left) that banning handguns does nothing to stop violence. If that kid would have had a handgun, he could have picked off his attackers one by one and would still be alive today.

Second, because of the success that gun rights advocates have had recently, its looking like this might go in the same direction. "Last year, the justices struck down a prohibition on handguns in the District of Columbia, a city with unique federal status, as a violation of the Second Amendment.The court has previously said that most, but not all, rights laid out in the Constitution's Bill of Rights serve as checks on state as well as federal restrictions. Separately, 44 state constitutions already enshrine gun rights."(AP) It will be interesting to see if Chicago's murder rate goes down if the Supreme Court rules the ban on handguns unconstitutional.

Lastly, I'm curious as to how much affect this will have on the Olympic committees decision whether or not to choose Chicago as the location for the Olympics. More "progressive" European countries might not like the idea, but who knows whether it will have an impact or not. Perhaps the committee will see this as a positive reaction to the beating death earlier this week. Everyone keep you eyes and ears open, this might become very interesting.