Deerfield Assault Weapons Ban Amended To Apply To Magazines

DEERFIELD, IL — Deerfield trustees amended the village's municipal regulation on assault-style weapons for a second time this week. The first amendment to the 2013 ordinance passed in April and changed the law from a mandate that specified semi-automatic weapons be safely stored and transported to an outright ban on possessing them. An amendment passed Monday adds a prohibition on the possession of magazines that can carry more than 10 bullets.

According to village officials, the latest adjustment corrects an oversight in the drafting of the "Deerfield Assault Weapons Ban," which was blocked from being enforced by Lake County court on June 12, a day before it was due to take effect.

"This is a cleanup," said Mayor Harriett Rosenthal, before trustees voted unanimously to suspend the rules and adopt the amendment without discussion.

In his order blocking Deerfield from enforcing the ban pending the resolution of a pair of legal challenges, Lake County Circuit Court Associate Judge Luis Berrones found the ordinance plainly did not apply to high-capacity magazines. The judge agreed with lawyers for a Deerfield resident who pointed out in a lawsuit challenging the ban that it was missing any language explicitly banning the firearm accessories, which it defined as any magazines that can accept more than 10 bullets.

Rosenthal and Village Manager Kent Street both told Patch in April that they believed the ordinance banned high-capacity magazines, despite both being unable to point to any operative portion of the ordinance.

Village Attorney Steve Elrod described the inaccurate representations as an oversight.

"When I read the ordinance myself, I discovered the error," said Elrod, who officially took over after the ordinance was adopted. "I recommended to amend the ordinance to reflect the original intent."

In a statement released after the passage of the latest amendment, village officials said the amendment was "intended simply, and only, to clarify the Village Board’s intent when it adopted its initial amendments to its regulation of assault weapons." It said the village would not be enforcing the magazine ban as long as last week's temporary restraining order remains in place.

There are a pair of pending lawsuits challenging the ordinance, and the village is receiving pro bono legal assistance from attorneys with the Brady Center and a Seattle-based law firm who previously defended Highland Park successfully in a challenge to its ban on assault-style weapons.

A federal appeals court upheld Highland Park's ordinance and the Supreme Court declined to overrule it in 2015, allowing the ban to stand. Since then, nine people have been cited for violations by Highland Park police, according to a response to a public records request. Deerfield officials said their ordinance was closely modeled on Highland Park's, making it all the more mysterious as to how its authors managed to miss the explicit ban on large capacity magazines in their neighbor's version.

Deerfield attorneys made several arguments in their unsuccessful request asking Judge Berrones not to block the village from enforcing its new gun ban, according to a June 5 brief and June 11 supplemental brief.

"While the Amendment does not contain the language identical to the provision banning 'assault weapons,' of which large capacity magazines are defined elements, the Amendment, taken in full context, clearly imposes a ban on large capacity magazines," they argued. The judge disagreed.

The village's lawyers also argued that the Illinois General Assembly, "despite its clear intent," failed to properly define an area of "statewide concern" so the state law preempting municipal governments from enacting local gun control regulations in unenforceable and violates the state constitution.

"Despite the text of the statute, the State has not created a system of exclusive power and function, but instead has established the opposite," they wrote. "For this reason, the General Assembly's purported preemption of local regulation is invalid."

Even if the preemption clause in Section 13.1 of the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act is valid, the attorneys argued, the village is allowed to amend its own regulations as long as they were adopted within the 10-day deadline established by a 2013 law.

Many gun laws in Illinois were rewritten following the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in McDonald vs Chicago challenging the city's strict handgun ban. That decision extended to state's the Second Amendment right to have a gun in the home for self defense. The new laws included a limited period during which towns could pass local regulations on guns, while providing "may be amended" in the future.

Lawyers for those challenging the village's ban argue changing a law from a safe storage requirement that makes no mention of high-capacity magazines to an outright ban on firearms and magazines is not an amendment at all, and the judge indicated he agreed.

After the judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking Deerfield from enforcing the ordinance, the village issued a statement saying it would consider appealing. Elrod, the village's chief counsel, said the village has not yet decided whether to continue fighting the challenges in Lake County circuit court or appeal the order blocking enforcement to the Illinois Appellate Court.

Brief and supplemental brief filed this month by attorneys for the Village of Deerfield in support of its assault weapons ban:

Related:

• Judge Blocks Deerfield Assault Weapons Ban Before It Takes Effect
  
• Village Gets Pro Bono Legal Defense In Assault Weapon Ban Suits
• Assault Weapons Ban Doesn't Really Ban Magazines: 2nd Lawsuit Challenges Deerfield Ordinance
• Assault Weapon Ban Challenged In Lake County Court
• Deerfield Bans Assault Weapons, High-Capacity Magazines