America's Mayors Are Now Taking on the NRA
Even when Americans die from gun violence-even when those Americans are children and those children beg the adults for help-the federal government fails to take action on weapons of war. Last week, however, Deerfield, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that's home to 19,000 people, did take action banning assault weapons inside its city limits. The NRA, as you likely expected, came out forcefully against it.
The ban includes dozens of specific models of firearm, including the AR-15. Residents have until June 13 to remove certain assault weapons and high-capacity magazines from the town or face a fine of up to $1,000 a day, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Deerfield's mayor, Harriet Rosenthal, said the assault weapons ban is a direct response to the Parkland, Florida shooting. "We hope that our local decision helps spur state and national leaders to take steps to make our communities safer," she said in a statement.
The ban came roughly a week after the mayors of Pittsburgh, Tallahassee, Florida, and Portland, Oregon, published an op-ed in USA Today explaining that local lawmakers want to pass sensible gun laws, but state legislatures have prevented them from enacting local ordinances to this effect. The op-ed was co-signed by eight other mayors from major American cities.
"Forty-three states have some form of gun preemption, a tactic increasingly used by state legislators to prevent cities and counties from making local laws and decisions," they wrote. "It’s happening in your state. And it’s happening because lobbyists and special interests know it’s easier to influence a few state lawmakers in 50 state capitols than thousands of local mayors and city councils."
"Let us be clear," they added, "our states are choosing the National Rifle Association over your lives and safety. And right now, we’re powerless to stop them."
In the immediate wake of Deerfield's ban, the NRA threw its support behind a lawsuit that Illinois-based gun-rights group Guns Save Life brought against the town.
"We are going to fight this ordinance, which clearly violates our members' constitutional rights, and with the help of the NRA I believe we can secure a victory for law-abiding gun owners in and around Deerfield," John Boch, executive director of Guns Save Life, said in a statement.
“Every law-abiding villager of Deerfield has the right to protect themselves, their homes, and their loved ones with the firearm that best suits their needs,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. “The National Rifle Association is pleased to assist Guns Save Life in defense of this freedom.”
The thing about Boch's claim that Deerfield's ordinance "clearly violates" its citizens' constitutional right is that it doesn't. The Second Amendment is notoriously vague about what, exactly, the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" means, and no legal consensus has been reached regarding the extent to which it protects the right to own assault weapons. The Supreme Court hasn't addressed the issue directly, and multiple federal appeals courts have determined that a ban on assault weapons would not be unconstitutional. Nary a federal appeals court has ruled that it would.
In February, the Washington Post highlighted the two primary reasons for these federal rulings, of which there have been five in the past decade:
Banning them, the courts have said, does not curtail the right of self-defense protected by the Constitution. There are plenty of other weapons - handguns and regular long guns - available to people to protect themselves.
At the same time, the courts have said, states and municipalities have legitimate reasons to ban AR-15-style weapons because of the dangers they pose, to schools, innocent bystanders and police.
The Supreme Court didn't even determine that the Second Amendment granted Americans the right to possess a firearm at all until District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, which was a 5-4 ruling. The late ultra-conservative justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, even specified that the right “is not unlimited.”
In Massachusetts last week, a federal judge-who was appointed by President Reagan-upheld the state's assault weapons ban by citing Scalia's opinion in DC v Heller.
"The AR-15 and its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional rights to ‘bear arms,’" U.S. District Judge William Young wrote in a decision Thursday.
Although the NRA and gun advocacy groups like Guns Saves Lives would like to you believe otherwise, the Second Amendment is very much open to interpretation. The American people seem to have decided which interpretation they prefer. A Quinnipiac poll conducted in February found that 67 percent of Americans-and 43 percent of Republicans-would support a ban on assault weapons.
While the NRA's influence on public opinion may be waning, its sway over Congress and many state legislatures has held strong. As has been the case following previous mass shootings, Republicans have roundly rejected any attempts at meaningful gun reform. Unlike the politicians in Washington, Deerfield's officials don't seem to be very intimidated.
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