The anti-gun violence activism by the Parkland teens has led directly to an assault weapons ban in one Chicago suburb—but it’s going to have to fight the National Rifle Association over the law.
Deerfield’s ban includes semiautomatic rifles, semiautomatic shotguns and semiautomatic pistols with detachable magazines that can hold 10 or more rounds of ammunition. It specifically names several models, including the TEC-9 pistol and the AR-15, which was used in mass shootings in Newtown, Conn.; Las Vegas; and San Bernardino, Calif. Such weapons are “dangerous and unusual,” states the ordinance, which also alleges that state and federal authorities had failed to regulate them.
Police in Deerfield will have the power to confiscate banned weapons and destroy them after determining they were not needed as evidence. People who hang on to their weapons could face daily fines between $250 and $1,000.
The NRA and a group called “Guns Save Life” are threatening a lawsuit to overturn the ban. This is a stupid threat, since the issue of assault weapons bans has been thoroughly litigated:
Several powerful federal appeals courts have ruled that prohibitions on assault weapons were permissible under the Second Amendment, and no federal appeals court has ever held that assault weapons were protected, as The Post’s Meagan Flynn and Fred Barbash have reported. Those courts have also found that states and municipalities have sound reasons to ban military-style weapons without curtailing people’s right to self-defense.
Of course Deerfield can’t stop someone from bringing a banned gun in secretly—just as so many of the guns in Chicago are brought in from states like Indiana that have weaker gun laws—but every strengthened gun law is a step in the right direction.