The Illinois State Rifle Association appeared to be stirring up a firestorm ahead of an Oak Park gun forum Tuesday (after press time).
The gun group emailed, tweeted and posted on its Facebook page an “urgent alert,” asking supporters to show up for the Jan. 24 focus group at village hall. In it, the rifle association says the “gun-grabbers” in Oak Park are trying to “launch a whole new attack on your right to keep and bear arms,” starting this week.
Oak Park’s Board of Health, a citizen advisory panel, is gathering input from residents on guns, after the village’s decades-long handgun ban was struck down by the Supreme Court in mid-2010. More recently a gun store opened on Roosevelt Road.
Following the June 2010 court ruling, Oak Park tweaked its handgun ban, allowing people to carry firearms in their place of business or home, while still prohibiting assault weapons.
The health board has other suggestions on how to regulate guns, such as starting a handgun registry, holding safety courses and requiring owners to securely store their handguns. Oak Park may also explore zoning regulations related to gun stores.
The rifle association, according to the Jan. 18 announcement, is worried that whatever Oak Park comes up with might end up becoming a “blueprint” for “state-wide laws that the gun control movement hopes to pass in 2013.”
Reached last Friday, Village Manager Tom Barwin, a former police officer, called claims made in the announcement “inaccurate.” He hoped Tuesday’s forum would elevate the discussion, and not just turn it into a shouting match between both sides.
“We’re trying to get it off of this pitched, emotional, Second Amendment, right-to-bear-arms fight. We’re beyond that,” he said. “We’re talking about public safety, reasonable educational information, reasonable restrictions that I think every responsible gun owner is for.
“Nobody wants to see somebody’s spinal cord severed through accidental gun injury, or see another child taken down because of a stray bullet. We’ve got to sort of reboot this whole issue here, which is what we’re trying to do here in our little laboratory of democracy.”
Editor’s note: The gun forum was held Tuesday night, after Wednesday Journal’s print deadline. For coverage of the event, go to www.OakPark.com on Wednesday.
