An Illinois State Court has temporarily blocked a local ordinance that bans ownership of certain firearms and required owners to turn them in or face fines of 1000.00 dollars a day. The Lake County Circuit Court held that the Deerfield, Illinois ordinance violates State preemption laws.
The law would have taken effect yesterday, on June 13th.
We reported on the passage of the ordinance and one pending Lawsuit on April 7th. It turns out there are several lawsuits in play based on Illinois law giving exclusive authority for such control to the State.
In 2013, Deerfield enacted an ordinance regulating the storage and transportation of so-called “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines. The municipal ordinance was in contemplation of imminent passage of an Illinois state statute preempting such laws. The Illinois statute is 430 ILCS 65/13.1. It declares: “the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State.”
Deerfield’s confiscation and ban were passed as an amendment to their grandfathered ‘transportation limitations’ because the state statute allowed for that. David Kopel, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy explains that,
The old ordinance regulated storage and transportation. The new ordinance prohibits ownership, possession, and sales. Obviously, the new ordinance is not an amendment of the storage and transportation ordinance, since storage and transportation are now prohibited (because possession is prohibited). “The banning of assault weapons is substantively different than regulations regarding the transportation and storage of such weapons by one who owns or possesses assault weapons.”
My guess is the Deerfield confiscation will not survive the courts which is great, but the people doing the gun-grabbing are not going to give up.
Kopel has a wealth of information here if you’d like to take a deeper dive.
