Lake Forest City Council Discusses Assault Weapons Ordinance

The Lake Forest City Council tabled an ordinance that would require assault weapons to be registered by their owners at its meeting on Monday night.

The City is one of a growing number of North Shore communities to consider legislation. Deerfield passed an ordinance requiring safe storage and security of assault weapons at its Monday meeting and Highland Park passed an assault weapon ban last Monday.

"This is an important topic," said Lake Forest Mayor Don Schoenheider. "It's important to get feedback from the community."

This flurry of activity became important when the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill which allows the concealed carrying of handguns late last month. A provision of the legislation prevents home rule communities like Lake Forest from legislating about assault weapons in any way if they do not act within 10 days of Gov. Patrick Quinn signing the bill into law. 

Almost immediately after the state legislature passed its conceal carry legislation, state Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood) began meeting with municipal officials to let them know what they had to do to preserve their rights. Drury attended Monday night's City Council meeting to present details about the bill.

"This is a divisive issue and a passionate issue," Drury told Patch earlier on Monday. 

Drury explained that the repercussions of the concealed carry law were that home rule communities like Lake Forest would lose a right they originally were able to regulate themselves. In this case, that right has to do with firearms.

"I have made clear to everybody that this issue isn't a second amendment issue," Drury said, "it's a home rule local community issue."

Many Lake Forest residents seem to disagree.

"Rep. Scott Drury, in my opinion, is the 'Bureaucrat' that Thomas Jefferson warned us about," said Dan Cox. "Why are we allowing a Rookie politician to lead us down this road of Constitutional Violation?"

Another Patch reader agreed with Cox's sentiment.

"Are there currently crimes being committed in Lake Forest (or Lake Bluff) with so-called 'assault weapons'?" asked Carl Castrogiovanni. "No."

Drury, however, pointed out that the general assembly's law diminishes home rule community power by preventing them from ever making any changes to the way in which they monitor assault weapons.

"If you do not have an assault weapons regulation on the book you lose the right to regulate assault weapons period," Drury said. "If you give it up you give that right up forever and you don't know what the future is going to be."

The Lake Forest City Council tabled further discussion on the topic until its next meeting in mid-July.

Editor's note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the assault weapons ordinance was to register the weapons, not ban them, and that it was tabled, rather than given a first reading.