Lake County Gazette

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) has added the state of Illinois to its complaint against Highland Park’s ordinance outlawing several types of firearms. 

The NAGR amended its lawsuit against the municipality to include the state which passed its own ban in early January. The law bans over 170 types of firearms. As many as five million firearms and ten million magazines in the state have been prohibited under the law.

“We were already suing Naperville and Highland Park over their gun bans, so amending our complaint to put the state law at issue in our case against Naperville was a no-brainer,” Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said in a press release.

Highland Park passed an assault weapons ban ordinance in 2013 which says no person "shall manufacture, sell, offer or display for sale, give, lend, transfer ownership of, acquire or possess any assault weapon or large capacity magazine," defining an assault weapon as a semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a magazine with more than 10 rounds. That ordinance has survived appeals and the process was in place long before the Independence Day shooting in which seven were killed, according to NBC 5 Chicago.

The 5th District Court of Appeals upheld Effingham County Judge Joshua Morrison’s ruling on a suit against the law, noting the law's unconstitutionality, and issued a temporary restraining order. That means the restrictions dictated by the Protect Illinois Communities Act will not be applied to the 866 plaintiffs represented by Greenville attorney Thomas DeVore until it can be heard in court. In the wake of the Effingham County challenge, nearly 1,700 additional plaintiffs have signed onto the legal action. “We will see if the state wants to appeal. If not, we’ll work on getting this pursued to a final ruling so we can get to the merits of these issues, sooner rather than later,” DeVore, last year’s GOP candidate for attorney general, told The Center Square.

Abraham Avalos, a survivor of the Independence Day parade shooting who rushed to the aid of others on scene, said he left his pistol in his glove compartment that day in accordance with the law. He said alleged gunman Robert Crimo III obviously did not follow the current laws put in place. “I've always known that there's always going to be people who obey laws,” he said. “There's people who are not going to obey laws. There's people who are going to have respect for life. And there's people who are not going to have respect for life. I know that as a gun owner, because that's why I carry. That's why I'm a gun owner, to protect my life, the lives of my family members, the lives of all of my friends and other people. That's why I'm a gun owner.”  

He also called out the bill's sponsor, State Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield), who was also at the parade, by name. “I understand why you guys support this bill. I understand (this legislation) coming from Bob Morgan. You are a nice person. The times that I met you, you really are. I understand why you think that this bill is going to help. It's not. I hate to say it to you, in my personal belief," Lake County Gazette previously reported.