A federal judge granted Chicago a six-month delay in allowing gun stores to open in the city so that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration can set up rules and regulations to restrict where the new firearms sellers can hang their shingles, the Chicato Tribune reports. The extension was expected after Emanuel said he wouldn’t fight U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang’s order in court because he wasn’t interested in in “litigation for the purpose of litigation.”
The city has suffered a series of legal setbacks in recent years while fighting in court to reverse rulings favoring firearms advocates. The mayor has not offered specifics about what he hopes to achieve with the gun sales rules other than saying the stores should “obviously be away from schools and areas like that.” Emanuel has instructed the city Law Department “to work with public safety experts and community leaders to create a comprehensive set of restrictions on the sale of firearms to ensure that illegal guns don’t find their way into the hands of criminals or straw purchasers.”