Northbrook Bans Bump Stocks, Could Enforce Assault Weapons Ban

NORTHBROOK, IL — The Northbrook Village Board unanimously adopted a pair of modest gun control ordinances and directed staff to continue exploring how to become the first municipality in Cook County to enforce a 24-year-old ban on assault-style weapons. The two measures approved by trustees Tuesday ban accessories that make it easier to rapidly fire bullets and restrict most people from carrying concealed weapons where alcohol is served. Both new ordinances take effect early next month, and the board plans to further discuss how the village might enforce the county's gun ban at its June 12 meeting.

The problem for the village is Cook County is not enforcing and has never enforced its assault weapons ban, Village Attorney Steve Elrod told trustees. He said he was hoping to get some guidance from the county prosecutors and the sheriff's office about the ban while conducting research on behalf of the board, but they had no advice to provide. Patch has confirmed Elrod's assertion with the Cook County state's attorney's office, the Cook County clerk of the circuit court, the Cook County sheriff's office and the office of the Cook County board president.

"They simply were not and have not been enforcing the ordinance," Elrod said. "Therefore there's no historical practice, no procedural guidance. So basically we the village of Northbrook, if we choose to enforce the Cook County ordinance within our corporate limits, would be starting from scratch."

Nonetheless, Elrod said that he believes the county ordinance banning assault applies to and is enforceable in Northbrook. In fact, he said, the village no longer even has the option of opting out of the ordinance due to a state law restricting any new regulations on rifles that were not enacted before the end of a 10-day window in 2013.

Before instructing police to start writing tickets for violations of the ordinance, Elrod said there were several policy issues that still have to be sorted out. They include what kind of penalty to assess, whether there would be any grace period for gun owners and where to prosecute the citations. (Also at the May 22 meeting, trustees approved a new administrative hearing system, projected to begin hearing cases in September, which functions an alternative to circuit court and could adjudicate violations of the county’s firearm ban.)

The Cook County assault weapons ban predates the federal ban that existed from 1994 to 2004. Originally introduced as the Cook County Firearms Dealer's License and Assault Weapon and Ammunition Ban Ordinance, it was passed in 1993 and took effect Jan. 1, 1994.

In 2007, the ordinance was amended to reduce the capacity of permitted magazines and renamed the Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, after the 16-year-old son of a Chicago police officer who was murdered when another teenager opened fired on a crowded bus with a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun.

Last year, a Rolling Meadows man and a Brookfield man refiled a previously-withdrawn challenge to the ban that had been dismissed by a judge and appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. Having moved to federal court, their suit faces another motion for dismissal.

Despite apparently never being enforced, the Cook County ordinance was expanded multiple times, increasing penalties for potential violators. First-time offenders would be fined from $5,000 to $10,000 and repeat offenders would be subject to fines of between $10,000 and $15,000. According to a release from the office of Board President Toni Preckwinkle following a 2013 amendment to the ban, the ordinance technically applies to every municipality in the county except those that have their own laws on the books.

“We must do what we can to stem the tide of gun violence and keep weapons with high levels of destructive capability out of circulation,” Preckwinkle said. “This amended ordinance recognizes the challenges we face in Cook County and puts in place responsible and meaningful laws aimed at protecting our residents and law enforcement officers.”

The neighboring municipalities of Deerfield and Highland Park, both in Lake County, have passed their own bans on assault-style weapons. Highland Park's regulation was appealed up to the Supreme Court in 2015 and allowed to stand. Deerfield's ordinance uses the same language and Highland Park's. It was enacted as an amendment to the village's existing regulations on firearm storage and takes effect June 13.

Deerfield's ban faces two lawsuits in county court alleging violations of state law, although neither claims it violates the Second Amendment. Both towns are also represented by Elrod, a partner at the firm Holland & Knight overseeing more than two dozen local governments clients.

Northbrook's New Ordinances

One of the two new ordinances took the form of an amendment to the village's liquor code mandating that businesses licensed to sell alcohol for consumption must post a sign showing that concealed guns are not allowed inside. State law requires any establishment that makes more than half of its revenue from alcohol sale post such a sign, but the changes extends those restrictions to any business where liquor is sold for consumption on premises.

The amendment was modeled closely on Chicago's municipal code, which has not been challenged in court. Both include exemptions for business owners and law enforcement. Northbrook's attorney said the change was not a restriction on licensed gun owners, but rather an extension of the village's existing regulations on business that sell alcohol.

"We acknowledge that the state law pre-empts our ability to regulate concealed carry card holders. We are not regulating those individuals," Elrod said. "We are regulating, as we have been regulating, our liquor licensees."

The other ordinance defines bump-stock and trigger crank devices and prohibits their possession or sale in the village. The devices allow for the rapid fire of a semiautomatic rifle and gained national prominence after several of the bump-fire stocks were found on guns used by a man in a Las Vegas hotel room to shoot hundreds of concertgoers in October 2017. Northbrook's ordinance uses language proposed by a Republican state representative soon after that massacre.

Trustees developed a particular interest in the sale of bump-fire stocks following a Chicago Tribune report in March that noted a retailer headquartered in a Northbrook industrial park was selling several types of the devices online. Village officials at the time said they were not aware of the privately held business and did not regulate the company's 11,000-square-foot facility, which reportedly did not stock any of the devices on premises.

Opticsplanet did not respond to a query as to whether it continues to offer bump stocks for sale. However, one manufacturer of the devices, Slidefire Solutions, stopped taking orders earlier this week and shut down its website. Another, Bumpfire Systems, is shutting down on Friday.

The shuttering of bump-stock suppliers follows an announcement of a potential adjustment to federal firearm regulations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The bureau has suggested banning the devices by declaring them to be functionally "machineguns." President Donald Trump supports the ban, and the Department of Justice is accepting public comments on the proposed rule until June 26.

In Illinois, a bill banning bump stocks has passed the Senate and awaits a House vote after being stripped of amendment allowing new municipal regulation on assault-style weapons. Critics called that change a politically motivated "poison pill."

Why Hasn't The Cook County Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban Been Enforced?

There are various potential reasons why no one has gotten written up under the ban, including some or all of the following:

• Police have never encountered anyone in possession of a weapon prohibited under the ban.
• When police have encountered someone in possession of a prohibited firearm, officers have able to charge them with some other form of unlawful use of a weapon.
• When police have encountered a licensed firearm owner in possession of a prohibited weapon but otherwise lawfully carrying under state law, officers have chosen not to write them up in violation of the ordinance.
• Cook County elected officials made a conscious decision to instruct law enforcement not to enforce the ban due to pending or contemplated litigation (despite a lack of a restraining order and the many years in which there was no active lawsuit.)
• Cook County elected officials never made a conscious decision not to enforce the ban, it just never wound up happening.
• County officials decided not to enforce the ban for some other reason.

Representatives from the Cook County's sheriff's office have not responded to requests for an interview on the subject or a query as to why it has not enforced the ordinance.

According to a spokesperson for the Cook County state's attorney's office, if anyone were ever to be cited under the law they would wind up before an administrative law judge at the Department of Administrative Hearings, which is under the jurisdiction of Preckwinkle's office.

In a response to a public records request from Patch, the board president's office last month said it had no records of the ordinance having ever been enforced.

Related:

• Assault Weapon Ban Challenged in Lake County Court
• Village's Assault Weapons Ban Doesn't Really Ban Magazines: 2nd Suit
• Deerfield Bans Assault Weapons, High-Capacity Magazines
• Village Gets Pro Bono Legal Defense in Assault Weapon Ban Lawsuits