SAF is challenging the Deerfield, IL ban on so-called “assault weapons.” (Dave Workman)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Only days after the Chicago suburb of Deerfield adopted what it claims is an amendment to an existing ordinance in an effort to outright ban so-called “assault weapons,” the Second Amendment Foundation sued to stop it.
SAF is joined in the lawsuit on behalf of Deerfield resident Daniel Easterday by the Illinois State Rifle Association. Both organizations have teamed up in the past, most notably in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which went to the U.S. Supreme Court and nullified the Windy City’s handgun ban.
While the village maintains this ban is simply an amendment to an ordinance adopted in 2013, SAF alleges in its lawsuit that it is a new ordinance. It contains no exceptions for guns or magazines previously owned, or any provision for using such guns in self-defense. It also assesses fines of up to $1,000 a day against those who do not remove their guns and large capacity magazines by the June 13 effective date.
According to SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, the lawsuit challenges the village ordinance under state preemption. The Chicago Tribune quoted Village Manager Kent Street, who maintains that the ban is a legal amendment to the existing 2013 ordinance that defined “assault weapons.” That ordinance was adopted during a 10-day “window” that allowed Illinois home-rule jurisdictions to act before the state’s then-new Firearm Concealed Carry Act, with its preemption provision, took effect that year.
This new amendment, Street told the Tribune, is “modeled” after a ban adopted by Highland Park, Ill., five years ago. That ban did survive a legal challenge by ISRA and a Highland Park resident, and it was upheld by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed that ruling to stand, the newspaper recalled.
“What is particularly outrageous about this new law,” Gottlieb said, “is that it levies fines of up to $1,000 a day against anyone who refuses to turn in their gun and magazines or move them out of the village by the time the ordinance takes effect in June. This certainly puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that ‘nobody is coming to take your guns.’”
This counts as at least the seventh time SAF has filed a legal action in Illinois, said attorney David Sigale of Glen Allyn, Ill. He is representing SAF and its partners, and has done so on previous cases.
CBS News quoted the ordinance language, which says, “The possession, manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the Village of Deerfield is not reasonably necessary to protect an individual’s right of self-defense or the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.”
“We moved swiftly to challenge this gun ban because it flies in the face of state law,” Gottlieb said. “While the village is trying to disguise this as an amendment to an existing ordinance, it is, in fact, a new law that entirely bans possession of legally-owned semi-auto firearms, with no exception for guns previously owned, or any provision for self-defense.”
