Winnetka IL repeals its handgun ban

This is good news!

I am curious, though, about what will happen if the Chicago suit doesn't go as hoped for us. An Obama appointment could change the voting block, it could be denied cert or standing (the coward's way out!), we could be nickel-and-dimed with expansion of 'reasonable' restrictions.

Then wither Wilmette? What Illinois really needs is conversion to a Shall Issue state. Where are we with that one?

What I find odd is the wording of the amendment...

"WHEREAS, the Council of the Village of Winnetka (“Village Council”) find that the
general presence of handguns in the community creates an opportunity for deadly force to be
used against innocent persons; and
WHEREAS, Village Council desire to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the
Village and its citizens by encouraging citizens to eliminate opportunities for the use of deadly
force against innocent persons by reducing the number of handguns in the Village."
and then the striking of large parts of its code.

http://americancommondefencereview.wordpress.com/

New pages at my blog:

(1) NRA OUTRAGE.
(2) Open Letter to Obama.
(3) Public Support Needed for my two Second Amendment cases.

I am waging a "regulatory" war on the U.S. Government using tactics never used before by the NRA.

If you want Obama to do the right thing for the Second Amendment you will call on the NRA to join me.

David, note that the PDF was the meeting agenda, and includes a revised ordinance as prepared by the village attorney. I do not know if that is the version that passed (but assume it is). I learned of the repeal via word-of-mouth of a meeting-goer, but Fox News Chicago reported on this last night (9pm news).

The vote was unanimous. Fox news was mistaken when they stated Morton Grove had not repealed their ban ... that village repealed back in July.

Jim D ... we remain quite a distance from shall issue in Illinois.

Chicago and Oak Park have apparently sworn to fight to the last taxpayer dollar.

In reading the amendment it looks like the NRA got what it wanted out of Heller, credit for being first in having brought the case forward. They are the jerks that tried to derail it when it was first brought up by Heller's attorneys.

Here is the link to the story from the local newsradio outlet, WBBM-AM (CBS):
http://www.wbbm780.com/Winnetka-Repeals-Gun-Ban/3348067
Winnetka, Illinois gun ban repealed by Village council 6-0.
Neither the Chicago Tribune nor the Daily Herald have covered it yet.
There was considerable opposition to the repeal from the citizenry.
Oddly, WBBM-AM has recently run more than one gun law item that is factual, rational, and not snowed under by Brady Campaign spokesnonsense.
Very unusual for the normally anti-gun operation.
The Tribune, far more anti-gun than any other news outlet here in the Windy City, continues to struggle, generally choosing to ignore gun law news now, since the Heller decision reaction to the Tribune's "reporting" on it drew an enormous negative response to the paper's online version.
About 84 of Illinois' 102 counties have approved resolutions supporting the 2nd Amendment; the Trib has been silent on the topic.
Many counties have now also passed resolutions or actual refereda calling for concealed-carry, in a limited, Illinois sort of way. Not a word, but these were the biggest surprise on November 4th besides Republican (in name only) Mark Kirk's victory in the 10th Congressional District.
To the commenter above about Illinois becoming a right-to-carry state: Sorry, but never, never, never, ever. Not as long as Chicago physically exists.
Yes, a dirty-bomb jihadi attack might change the odds, but it's still on the edge of impossible.

"To the commenter above about Illinois becoming a right-to-carry state: Sorry, but never, never, never, ever. Not as long as Chicago physically exists."
Posted by: WP Zeller at November 19, 2008 08:40 AM

Note that I said we are a long distance from right-to-carry in Illinois. Thankfully, not all of us take Zeller's defeatist position on this issue.

www.illinoiscarry.com

Linked on the front page of the online Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/11/winnetka-repeals-handgun-ban.html

Winnetka repeals handgun ban
November 19, 2008 at 7:25 AM

Winnetka Village Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to repeal the suburb's 20-year-old ban on possessing handguns but kept intact other portions of its ordinance regulating firearm use, council President Edmund Woodbury said this morning.

The action followed a recent Supreme Court decision and the filing of a lawsuit by the National Rifle Association and three village residents who asserted the ban violated their 2nd Amendment rights.

"The council voted unanimously to repeal the sections in our ordinance that had been the subject of the lawsuit by the NRA," Woodbury said.

"The village has a significant financial risk in keeping the ban in place, and given that, we felt it best to allow the national debate on this subject is settled."

Council members said they feared if they didn't repeal portions of the ordinance, it would cost the suburb thousands of dollars to fight the suit with the real risk of still losing in court.

About 20 people residents spoke for and against repealing the ban on handgun possession Tuesday, Woodbury said.

Village officials established the ban shortly after a mentally ill woman, Laurie Dann, shot to death one child and injured five others at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in 1988.

In the Chicago area, five suburbs-including Wilmette, Evanston, Morton Grove and Oak Park-had gun bans at the time of the Supreme Court ruling and have now taken similar measures to repeal them.

Village officials established the ban shortly after a mentally ill woman, Laurie Dann, shot to death one child and injured five others at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in 1988.

Lets see, if we add up all the people killed by mentally ill people, criminals, etc we see about 27,000 annually. Of these approx 66% are firearms victims. The US has existed about 230 yrs. Extrapolating the current rate over the entire existence of the Union, we have about 4,000,000 firearms deaths.

Then we look at _Death_by_Government_ by Rummel and find the over the same time period, we have close to 200,000,000 deaths at the hands of governments around the world. If we look just at the War of Northern Agression, there were 600,000 killed in about 5 yrs, a rate of 120,000 per yr.

I'll take a gun in the hand of an individual before I'd let a government agent have one.

Dominus providebit!

Obama isn't going to be able to change much of the Supreme Court.

Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and maybe Souter?

It would still be 5 - 4 in our favor.

How many people living in these "communities" really cared about these stupid ordinances?

Yeah, we all have to give lip service to "respecting" the "law".

But let's get real. These stupid ordinances do nothing but breed contempt for the law.

JMHO

A friend in Florida commented, knowing the current mayor of Winnetka for the last 35 years that they are just scared to death up there of another "Laurie Dann".

Laurie Dann was certifiable Batshit Crazy, and appears to have purchased her .22 Cal pistol in Wisconsin. No amount of Winnetka laws will prevent the Laurie Dans from shooting once they get their hands on a weapon.

With current electronic background checks, if there were a future Laurie Dann incident, then the Psychiatrist and parents should be prosecuted for not putting her in the database.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Dann

Thane Eichenauer,

What I find odd is the wording of the amendment...

To me this is a "parting shot" (pun intended) by the village council saying, in effect, "We still want the handgun ban, so we're only repealing because those SCOTUS thugs gave us an offer we couldn't refuse."

Have I got it about right? ;)