Sheriffs in more than 90 of 102 Illinois counties won't enforce 'unconstitutional' gun ban

More than 90 Illinois sheriff’s departments publicly announced their refusal to enforce the Protect Illinois Communities Act banning all pistols and rifles with detachable magazines as prohibited “assault weapons."

Protecting who?

The state's Democrat Governor J. B. Pritzker signed the extensive gun ban into law in January. While claiming to “Protect Illinois Communities,” Pritzker signed a separate bill forbidding police from cooperating with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants, even though they are 163% more likely to be convicted of first degree murder than are U.S. citizens.

Expanding what doesn't work

Casting additional doubt on Pritzker's claim to protect communities, the Chicago Tribune reported that at least 4,300 people were shot in 2021 in Cook County, which includes the Chicago metropolitan area, with more than 1,000 of those gunshot victims dying. This, despite Chicago’s gun laws being "among the most restrictive in the United States.” All told, Cook County (in red in the map below) recorded 1,087 homicides in 2021, while the other 101 counties combined recorded a total of 385 homicides that same year. Cook County thus has the distinction of being the venue for 74% of the state's homicides while housing just 41% of the state's residents.

One might fairly expect the governor to bring the state's rural counties gun policies to Chicago to solve the homicide problem in the Windy City, a name the metropolis earned not due to its wind speed but to its “full-of-hot air” politicians. The new law instead brings Chicago style gun control to the rest of the state.

Rebellion

Illinois Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk drafted a template for sheriffs to sign vowing not to enforce the new gun ban since it violates the Second Amendment. Vanity Fair reports that more than 90 sheriffs have done just that, including DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who labeled the weapon ban “a clear violation” of the Constitution.

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. . . . 

[T]he Protect Illinois Communities Act . . . is a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Therefore, as the custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement official [we will not] be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with non-compliance with this Act. 

Pushback

Vanity Fair notes that Pritzker attacked the sheriffs who pledged to protect Second Amendment rights, accusing them of “political grandstanding,” and threatened to remove them from their positions if they continued their defiance.  Pritzker warned those sheriffs that, in the end, “They will in fact do their job or they won’t be in their job.” 

Local, state, and federal officials, including Illinois representatives, joined Pritzker, admonishing Sheriff Mendrick in particular. The state's Democrat attorney general also assailed the sheriffs stating, “There are other people there to do the job.”

Failure

Vanity Fair also emphasized that state and municipal police could theoretically step in to enforce the gun ban, but concluded, nonetheless, that the threats by the governor and others, may, at the end of the day, be empty.

DuPage County board . . . Democratic chair Deb Conroy said during the meeting that she’d move to censure [Mendrick] over his vow to defy the law. But that is only a slap on the wrist, as board member Liz Chaplin acknowledged in an interview, and seems unlikely to rein him in—at least until he has to answer to DuPage County voters. 

“It’s just unbelievable,” Chaplin said. “We’d love to see him retract it and do his job. But I don’t know that that’s going to happen.”

"Constitutional violations should be met with constitutional enforcement"

The John Birch Society, a long-time supporter of nullification as the most efficient means of protecting citizens from infringement of their constitutional rights, covered the sheriffs' actions in, “Nullification Gets It Done, Again!” 

As we wrote in our booklet The Founders’ Brilliant Solution to Big Government: Article VI, “America’s Founders said constitutional violations should be met with constitutional enforcement. Local, state, and federal officials have a duty to protect our rights by opposing constitutional violations.”

The bearing of arms is a popular right that government loves to violate. After all, take away the arms of the people and they are left defenseless against government-sanctioned tyranny. Gun registration is always a precursor to confiscation. 

The Society emphasized that it's not just a possibility but a duty of government officials to nullify unconstitutional laws.

When a law challenges a basic right of individuals, elected officials have a duty to protect their constituents by declaring the usurpation of or attack on the right as null and void. For those who understand this constitutional principle, it is a powerful tool.

Nullification has been used on many occasions throughout American history, most recently and notably against the unconstitutional Covid lockdowns. [Emphases added].

Even the governor acknowledged the constitutional issues raised by the law he signed, which is already facing legal challenges in addition to the sheriffs' nullification, as reported by the Highland County Press:

Separate challenges consolidated in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals are pending. A three-judge panel heard that case in Chicago in late June. It’s unclear when that ruling will be released. Either way that case goes, it’s expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“You just don’t know what’s going to happen in the federal courts and … U.S. Supreme Court …," Pritzker said. 

Last month, Pritzker gave a less than 50/50 chance the ban survives federal court challenges. [Emphases added].

Beware!

The refusal of the sheriffs of almost every county in Illinois to enforce what they perceive to be an unconstitutional gun ban will not be of help to those passing through places like Chicago, where officials are promising to enforce it, despite Chicago arguably being the place where one is most in need of a means of defense. What's more, a different act that Pritzker signed into law could allow non-citizens who entered the nation illegally to brandish the very weapons that they may arrest a citizen for possessing. 

Visit us again as we continue our series on nullification with a look at its history and success in protecting the freedoms of Americans.