ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago is a home rule unit government pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution, Article VII, Section 6(a); and
WHEREAS, pursuant to its home rule power, the City of Chicago may exercise any power and perform any function relating to its government and affairs, including the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals and welfare; and
WHEREAS, in May 2013, a group known as Defense Distributed made certain blueprints available on the internet that enabled a gun known as the Liberator to be created and printed at home using a three-dimensional printer; and
WHEREAS, the Liberator, and other similarly produced firearms, capable of discharging ammunition, should be subject to the same laws, regulations and restrictions as any other firearm; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. State Department demanded that the blueprints to create the Liberator be taken down from the internet, but not before the blueprints had been downloaded more than 100,000 times; and
WHEREAS, when the United States Department of Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms printed out the Liberator, the gun exploded even before it was fired, highlighting a safety concern; and
WHEREAS, according to an article from Fox News, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security distributed an intelligence bulletin to numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies warning that guns printed off three-dimensional printers could evade detection by magnetometers; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has been plagued by gun violence, with five hundred (500) murders in the City in 2012, the highest in the nation, with a majority of the murders involving guns; and
WHEREAS, the ability to print guns using a three-dimensional printer at home allows for the evasion of state and local laws and regulations in place for owning firearms; and
WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Chicago hereby finds that it is in the best interest of the public health, safety and...
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