Nancy Rotering was relieved when Illinois enacted its new assault weapons ban earlier this month: Had such a legislation been on the books earlier, the Highland Park mayor instructed me, her group may need been spared “the agony and the grief” it suffered final yr, when a 21-year-old with a semiautomatic rifle opened fireplace on an Independence Day parade, killing seven folks and injuring dozens of others. “We acquired it finished,” Rotering stated of the legislation. “I’m happy with Illinois for setting a superb customary.”
However the legislation, signed by Governor JB Pritzker on January 10, is dealing with not solely the inevitable barrage of authorized challenges that all the time spring up in response to gun management measures—it’s being undermined by the very officers tasked with imposing it. Greater than 90 sheriffs in a state of 102 counties have vowed to defy the Shield Illinois Communities Act, claiming in almost equivalent statements—based mostly on a template drafted by Jim Kaitschuk, government director of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Affiliation—that the legislation is unconstitutional. “The suitable to maintain and bear arms for protection of life, liberty, and property is thought to be an inalienable proper by the folks,” learn one iteration of the assertion, issued by Sheriff James Mendrick of DuPage County, probably the most populous county to hitch the protest. “Neither myself nor my workplace shall be checking to make sure that lawful gun homeowners register their weapons with the State, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding people which were arrested solely for non-compliance of this Act.”
It’s unclear how a lot of an influence the sheriffs’ outrageous defiance might have on the legislation, as they share enforcement duties with state and municipal police. However gun management proponents are involved that it might undermine the gun-safety measure, erode public belief within the rule of legislation extra broadly, and depart extra Illinoisans susceptible to gun violence. “I feel it’s embarrassing for them,” State Consultant Bob Morgan, the chief cosponsor of the invoice, stated of the sheriffs. The Democrat, who was on the Highland Park parade together with his household final July and witnessed the bloodbath, instructed me over the telephone that “they’re making political selections in regards to the security of their group.”
“There’s an actual influence of this chest-beating, these political statements,” Morgan added.
The Shield Illinois Communities Act—enacted in response to the Highland Park capturing and different acts of gun violence within the state—prohibits the manufacture and sale of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and “switches,” gadgets that may flip handguns and rifles into automated weapons. Illinois is the ninth state within the nation to go such a ban, and it’s certainly one of a number of gun management victories over the previous yr, together with the passage of the most vital federal gun-safety laws in three many years.
“This legislation was extraordinarily vital to me and my household and my group, not simply due to what we’ve been by, however as a result of we’ve been so intently centered on making an attempt to forestall this from occurring to anybody else,” Morgan instructed me.
However the weeks since its enactment—throughout which dozens of high-profile mass shootings swept the nation—have underscored the continuing challenges the gun management motion is dealing with. Think about the array of lawsuits which were filed in opposition to the Shield Illinois Communities Act, together with by the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation and the Illinois State Rifle Affiliation; one swimsuit, led by failed state legal professional common candidate Thomas DeVore, resulted in an Effingham County choose issuing a short-term restraining order in opposition to the legislation, which applies solely to the 865 plaintiffs and one gun store within the authorized motion. Others difficult the legislation embody Darren Bailey, the Donald Trump–backed Republican who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Pritzker in November, and two of the attorneys who helped get New York’s hid carry legislation struck down final yr by the Supreme Courtroom in a determination that might dramatically restrict what sorts of gun management measures states can enact.
Although Pritkzer stated in an announcement that he stays “assured” the legislation will maintain up in opposition to the mounting challenges, the excessive courtroom’s ruling looms massive over the authorized struggle. So does one other issue that has lengthy undercut Illinois’s robust gun restrictions: the comparatively lax legal guidelines in neighboring states like Indiana and Missouri, which account for a good portion of the weapons utilized in Chicago crimes. “None of us are islands,” as Rotering instructed me, and whereas the ban is a “step ahead,” it will probably solely achieve this a lot within the absence of federal motion.
