Lake Forest Mayor: 'Placeholder Option' for Assault Weapons 'Not Viable'

The following are the comments made by Mayor Donald P. Schoenheider at the July 15, 2013 Lake Forest City Council Meeting.

At our July 1st City Council Meeting, we had an extensive discussion about the possibility of enacting a local ordinance regulating assault weapons in Lake Forest. This was not a topic on the community's agenda until the State announced that Home Rule municipalities such as Lake Forest would have a brief 10-day window to craft City-based regulations if they so desired. The State forced this topic to the forefront for debate in Home Rule communities in an effort to institute a patchwork system in Illinois.

The Council and staff over the past few weeks have received literally hundreds of emails and calls on this topic.  And I would like to thank the Council and the residents for their thoughtful and civil discussion about this matter. 

On the evening of July 1st, the Council decided to table the ordinance that was before it. While a clear majority of the Council was opposed to an outright ban or significant restrictions, the primary reason to table the ordinance was to explore the possibility of retaining our Home Rule control on this matter without placing any undue, illegal or unconstitutional restrictions on our residents.  After further discussions with the staff, the City Attorney, and amongthe individual members of the Council, it was decided a "placeholder option" was simply not viable. There were several reasons for that decision and they included:

 --An inability to truly define what an assault weapon was

 --Any ordinance proposed that would have allowed us to retain Home Rule authority on this appeared to still be too restrictive not to risk legal action against the City

 --Any ordinance passed by this body could still also be overridden in Springfield by a "super majority" of the legislature, just like the super majority in the current concealed carry law that pre-empted all Home Rule regulation of hand guns   

 --The decision to not exercise our Home Rule authority on this issue would in no manner impact our broader Home Rule position relative to other financial or operational issues within the City  

After discussing this matter individually with the members of the City Council, it seems clear that this is an issue that cannot be effectively addressed at the local level and should be addressed by the State. I asked Alderman Moore and Palmer to develop a draft ordinance but unfortunately, it wasn’t able to be done.  Because I have concluded that there is not a sufficient consensus for the Council to consider adoption of any ordinance this evening, I directed staff not to place this matter on tonight's agenda for consideration.

However, due to the recent outpouring of e-mails and phone calls on the subject, with the consent of the City Council, I will ask that the matter be taken up at this time by advancing item eight (8), “Additional items for Council Discussion”.

Thank you.