Illinois sheriff won’t enforce banned weapon registration law, others remain silent
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WTVO) — January 1 marked the deadline for Illinois residents who own any of 170 “assault-style weapons” banned under law to register the guns with state police as part of the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
However, just over 1% of Illinois’ Firearm Owner’s Identification card holders had registered banned weapons as of the deadline. One reason for the noncompliance could be coming from Illinois county sheriffs, many of whom say they won’t enforce the law.
Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell is one of 94 sheriffs in Illinois, including Ogle County Sheriff Brian VanVickle and Winnebago County Sheriff Garay Caruana, saying they will not.
“”We disagree constitutionally with this law,” Campbell said on Wednesday, according to The State Journal-Register. “Our plan moving forward is to use discretion and to educate the people as to what the law says.”
Campbell said he would wait for the legality of the law to be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court before enforcing it. The court declined two requests to stop the law’s enforcement in December.
“I don’t like the position I’ve been put in because normally we say we don’t write the laws, we just enforce them,” said Campbell, who believes the Protect Illinois Communities Act violates constitutional rights.
Dozens of sheriffs issued a similar statement at the beginning of 2023, stating the act is a violation of the 2nd Amendment and a refusal to enforce, according to Courthouse News Service.
Those sheriff’s also declined to respond to requests for comment as the deadline approached in late December.
In the Stateline, sheriffs from Winnebago, Ogle, Stephenson, Lee, DeKalb and Boone were among those refusing to enforce the law.
“There is so many unknowns, it’s another one of those laws that passed that they put unrealistic expectations out there, and there is no way to follow those things up,” said Stephenson County Sheriff Steve Stovall in January 2023.
“We made the decision we are not going to go out actively look for law-abiding citizens who don’t follow what we believe to be an unconstitutional mandate and put them in jail,” Ogle County Sheriff Brian VanVickle said.
A status hearing for a case challenging the constitutionality of the ban has been set for January 4th.
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