Winnetka Village Council Considers Code Changes Concerning Firearms

WINNETKA, IL — Village trustees are poised pass an amendment to firearm regulations in the Winnetka Village Code.

An ordinance modifying provisions related to the safe storage and transportation of assault weapons, the surrender of handguns or ammunition to the chief of Winnetka police and the range of possible fines for violations of local gun ordinances was given preliminary approved at a first reading at Tuesday's meeting of the Winnetka Village Council.

Just over a month after last year's mass shooting at the Highland Park 4th of July parade, the village council held a public listening session, which was followed in September by the passage of a resolution calling for the U.S. Congress and state government to "take effective and comprehensive action to protect our communities from gun violence."

The resolution called for a ban on assault-style weapons, increased funding for social and mental health services, universal background checks, stronger "red flag" firearm restraining order laws, more liability and penalties for straw purchasers, legislation mandating the safe storage of firearms and legislation mandating adequate training for selling or possessing guns.

In November, village attorneys Peter Friedman and Hart Passman provided a memo to staff analyzing the village's existing firearms regulations and recommending some changes to the code.

In the aftermath of the 1988 shooting at Hubbard Woods Elementary School, Winnetka village trustees banned handguns altogether, according to the memo. Twenty years later, that decision was repealed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Then, when Illinois lawmakers rewrote the state's gun laws in 2013, they provided local governments with a 10-day window to regulate assault weapons.

"When the Village adopted its 2013 ordinance, it elected not to pursue a full ban on assault weapons, as Highland Park did," Friedman and Passman said. "Rather, Winnetka adopted a 'safe storage' law, set forth in Section 9.12.025 of the Village Code. The Village’s ordinance has two components: a requirement that assault weapons are safely stored in the Village, and regulations on transportation of assault weapons."

According to the attorneys, the safe storage provisions are not as clear as they could be. As a result, they recommended eliminating a clause that exempts a weapon from the safe storage requirements "when being carried by or under the control of the owner or other lawfully authorized user."

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The changes also modify transportation requirements for assault weapons, requiring such weapons to be transported in an non-functional state, without being immediately accessible and unloaded and in a box, instead of just one of the three, which the attorneys suggested was "substantively insufficient."

The rules for surrendering weapons to police are set to be changed to add more clarity.

The ordinance recommended by village attorneys also doubles the fines that can be levied for violations of Winnetka's firearm regulations.

Fine for discharging a firearm within village limits giving a gun or ammunition to a minor would rise from $150 to $1,000 to at least $300 and no more than $2,000.

Violations for the safe storage requirements or the ban on gun dealing could be punished by $1,000 to $2,000, according to the new ordinance, which can be granted final approval at the Village Council's next meeting on March 21.

The village code uses the same definition of assault weapon that has been included in the Cook County and Highland Park ordinances, which have survived state and federal legal challenges — though all prior to last year's Supreme Court case in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which included a more broader reading of firearm ownership rights under the Second Amendment.

In January, Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that included definitions of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices and new statewide restrictions on both items. Last week, a Macon County judge ruled the law violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution, and the Illinois Supreme Court is set to hear an appeal from the governor and attorney general during its may term

"I think we had all the best intentions when we set out on this examination last fall, and with the state stepping up and preempting just about anything that we were considering doing, we're in a situation now where it's wait and see," Village President Chris Rintz said ahead of a unanimous voice vote Tuesday. "Because we don't even know where that is going until it gets through the Supreme Court."