Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is repackaging his “same old extremism” as a new plan to strip law-abiding citizens of their gun rights, and penalize retailers for crimes committed by somebody else, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today.

Mayor Daley has proposed gun control legislation that would make it a crime to sell firearms without taking “reasonable precautions” against their illegal use, which are impossible for a dealer to do, and allow lawsuits against gun dealers who “should have known” that a gun buyer intended to commit a crime.

“This goes beyond the ridiculous,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Mayor Daley not only wants to hold firearms dealers responsible for the criminal acts of people beyond their control, he now expects them to become mind readers. We’ve known for years that Daley is an anti-gun rights extremist, but these proposals reach a new low mark, even for him.”

Added CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, “Just what defines ‘reasonable precautions’ in Daley’s proposal? Who determines what that is? Ultimately, in the kind of anti-gun environment the mayor is trying to perpetuate, the only ‘precaution’ that would be considered ‘reasonable’ would be for dealers to refuse to sell firearms to anybody. Of course, that’s what Daley wants, because through some tortured logic, he believes that preventing law-abiding Illinois residents from purchasing firearms is somehow going to stop Chicago street thugs from murdering people. By law, dealers cannot arbitrarily refuse to sell a firearm to someone who completes the paperwork and passes a background check, and Daley knows it. It would be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit.

“He also knows,” Waldron continued, “thanks to a recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling, that this kind of anti-gun strategy does not pass the legal smell test.”

“Mayor Daley,” said Gottlieb, “either doesn’t get it, or he has completely lost it. Courts all over the country have consistently ruled against the kinds of lawsuits he is promoting with this legislation. Passing a new law is not going to make such lawsuits any more successful. Daley is simply attempting to further harass law-abiding gun dealers. He’s like the guy who watches the same movie over and over and over again, expecting it to have a different ending.”