Southern Illinois News

Pope County Sheriff Jerry Suits has joined the Illinois sheriffs who’ve said they will not enforce the state’s new assault weapons ban. 

Nearly 90 percent of the state’s sheriffs have said they will not enforce the ban due to what they see as constitutional violations. Suits' signed statement opposing the law was shared in the Pope County Sheriff's Dept. Facebook page.

“As your Sheriff of Pope County I wanted to give the Citizens of this Great County an update on the above referenced Law. I do not have a personal Facebook Page or participate in any Social Media which may have put me behind on speaking about this issue,” Suits said in a statement. “The Pope County Sheriff's Department WILL NOT be enforcing this new Law. It is my belief that the new Law is a Clear Violation of the 2nd Amendment to the U. S. Constitution --- The right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms. It is my belief that there will be numerous Law Suits challenging this new Law in the very near future. The Pope County Sheriff's Department, which includes myself and all Deputy Sheriff's, will not be checking Lawful Gun Owners in this County to see if their Weapons are registered within the State of Illinois or arresting any Law Abiding Pope County Citizens for the Non-compliance of this act.”

HB 5471 – The Protect Illinois Communities Act – classifies all semi-automatic weapons as assault weapons. The ban affects 170 types of guns commonly available in the state. The law requires that certain firearms be registered for $50 apiece. As many as five million firearms and ten million magazines in the state may be affected. Gun rights advocates have begun litigation against the state claiming it is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, Chicago City Wire reported.

In Effingham County, the ban was stopped after Judge Joshua Morrison issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) last week. That TRO means the law will not be applied to the 866 plaintiffs represented by attorney Thomas DeVore until it can be heard in court. “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 told The Center Square. The plaintiffs included 862 Illinois citizens from more than 80 counties and four licensed firearms dealers.

The Center Square has reported another 1,690 plaintiffs joined a second lawsuit headed by DeVore after the Effingham County ruling. “How many plaintiffs in the second case? … I don’t want to give that away,” DeVore said. “I’m going to let the governor hang in suspense and he’ll find out … when we file this thing. I’m really pleased with the support because we’re going to go off into federal court and we’re going to get the governor's attention in a bigger way than we’ve already got.” Of the nearly 1,700 plaintiffs across 92 counties in the second case, 62 are gun stores.

The Illinois State Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with several gun owners from across Illinois have filed joint action in federal court against the State of Illinois over the ban. "The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a motion for preliminary injunction in its federal court challenge of the recently-signed ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and their ammunition magazines. The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul," SAF said in a news release. "Joining SAF are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill. The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois."