A circuit court judge in Lake County, Illinois granted an injunction Tuesday that blocked the Chicago suburb of Deerfield from enforcing a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
The injunction was granted 24 hours before that ban was to go into effect.
According to a press statement, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Illinois State Rifle Association and Deerfield resident Daniel Easterday filed a lawsuit against the local prohibition on the basis that it violates the state’s preemption law that was adopted in 2013.
The law amended the state statute to say, “the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State. Any ordinance or regulation, or portion of that ordinance or regulation, that purports to regulate the possession or ownership of assault weapons in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, shall be invalid…”
Following the passage of the law, Illinois municipalities had a period of time in which to alter or adopt their gun laws, and Deerfield argued its ban was simply an amendment to prior ordinance that regulated firearms and became the first municipality to ban assault weapons following the Parkland high school shooting.
If the ban went into effect, any person found to have what the town considered to be an “assault weapon” after Wednesday, July 13, would have faced a penalty of up to $1,000 per day.
“We moved swiftly to challenge this gun ban because it flew in the face of state law,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The village tried to disguise its extremism as an amendment to an existing ordinance. The ordinance bans possession of legally-owned semi-auto firearms, with no exception for guns previously owned, or any provision for self-defense.”
“Worse, still,” he added, “the ordinance also provided for confiscation and destruction of such firearms and their original capacity magazines. It was outrageous that the ban would levy fines of up to $1,000 a day against anyone who refused to turn in their gun and magazines or move them out of the village. This certainly puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that ‘nobody is coming to take your guns.'”
Kerry Picket is a correspondent for NRATV and host on SiriusXM Patriot 125
