‘Gun-Free’ Chicago Transit Boosting Security as SCOTUS Weighs Challenge to Carry Ban

The Chicago Transit Authority is rolling out a new security plan as crime on the public transportation system has reached levels not seen in decades, and as the Supreme Court is set to consider granting cert to a case challenging the ban on lawful concealed carry imposed by Illinois law and CTA policy. 

The move also comes as the Trump administration has threated to yank tens of millions of dollars in funding to the CTA unless it upgraded its security. While the move may satisfy the Federal Transit Administration, it also underscores the reality of “gun-free zones”; criminals view these locations as target rich environments, and even the prospect of a police presence can’t serve to keep disarmed citizens safe from harm. 

The agency is committing to 75% more policing hours on its system. To do that, it is, among other things:

• Raising the policing hours of the Chicago Police Department’s public transit section by 34%. (The unit is staffed by 177 officers.)
• Doubling to 240 the number of off-duty officers who can sign up for extra hours patrolling the CTA. (That number already has been raised once. In December, it was boosted to 120 from 77.)
• Having Cook County sheriff’s deputies patrol the system’s rail lines at a combined rate of 4,400 hours per month. Neither the CTA nor the sheriff’s office would say how many officers it would take to meet those targets. The hourly number, however, is about 20% of what the police department’s transit section typically works, according to figures in CTA’s December response to the FTA.

The CTA added that it’s working with the local U.S. Attorney’s office to create a Project Safe Neighborhoods operation on public transit, though the details remain vague. PSN typically involves targeted efforts to arrest and prosecute repeat violent offenders, and its unclear how such an effort would work on CTA property as opposed to going after these individuals when they’re not riding the rails or on city buses. 

It’s great that the CTA is looking to boost the presence of law enforcement, but until or unless they can station multiple officers at every station, bus stop, and on every bus and rail car, citizens still need to be able to protect themselves on CTA property. And the carry ban doesn’t just impact the ability of lawfully armed citizens to carry while they’re on CTA property itself. It also impacts their ability to carry before and after they use public transportation. 

SCOTUS has the opportunity to set things right by granting cert to Schoenthal v. Raoul, which is scheduled to be heard in the Court’s March 20 conference. A U.S. District judge sided with the plaintiffs in their challenge, but the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision and upheld the carry ban by arguing that there’s a national tradition of banning guns in crowded, public spaces. 

The Supreme Court rejected that point of view in Bruen, and allowing the Seventh Circuit to use that exact same argument to justify banning lawful carry on public transportation would be a disaster for our right to bear arms. SCOTUS has been dancing around major issues like bans on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines, gun bans for adults under the age of 21, and various “sensitive places” for far too long. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance they’ll keep playing these games by rejecting Schoenthal, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there are four justices willing to do the right thing and grant cert when they get the opportunity later this month. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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