Confiscation of semiautomatic rifles in Chicago area town

Daily CallerA city in Illinois is making a gun control activists’ dreams come true.

The Village Board of Trustees in Deerfield, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, approved an ordinance to ban “assault weapons” and large capacity magazines, Cleveland 19 News reports.

Violators will face a hefty fine. If the owner of an assault weapon lives in the town does not voluntarily turn over their banned weapon, he will be fined $1,000 a day until the weapon is confiscated.

So, once they figure out you own an assault weapon in this town, they want you to give it up to their police force. Not remove it from their jurisdiction, sell it to someone else, or destroy it -- the daily fines continue until they have it in their hands and you do not. That's a definite escalation from other attempts at gun bans that have focused on banning new manufacture or sale while grandfathering existing firearms.

Daily CallerAccording to Cleveland 19 News, the term “assault rifle” applies to “Semiautomatic rifles with a fixed magazine and a capacity to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition are banned. Shotguns that have revolving chambers are also outlawed.”

The actual ordinance is more precise. It's a one-feature test. Semiautomatic, capacity to accept a detachable magazine, plus one feature (including a pistol grip, forward grip, thumbhole stock or other scary stock types, shroud, or anything scary on the muzzle).

In practice, that means almost any semiautomatic firearm with the capacity to accept a magazine regardless of size (since you can always find a standard-capacity magazine).

Original report Press Release Ordinance

[UPDATE: Second Amendment Foundation has already filed a lawsuit challenging the law.]

From reading through the ordinance itself, it is clear the drafters of the law have read the Heller decision and are planning to take this all the way to the Supreme Court.

Ordinance"assault weapons are dangerous and unusual weapons"

That's aimed right at Heller.

Ordinance"may increase the public's sense of safety" by "effecting a cultural change"

Note that they aren't claiming it actually will increase public safety. Just the "sense of safety". And they want to "effect a cultural change", which means they don't want gun owners to live there.

This entry was published Thu Apr 05 16:33:39 CDT 2018 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2018-04-05 17:52:07.0. [Tweet]

Follow @TriggerBlog