Rock Island Today

Mercer County Sheriff Dusty Terrill and Mercer County State's Attorney Grace Simpson will not be enforcing the state’s assault weapon ban.

Terrill and Simpson believe HB 5471 is a violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.

“As Sheriff and State's Attorney of Mercer County, we find it is impossible to understand the logic of the State Legislators who take steps to restrict law enforcement's ability to hold true criminals accountable and then move to criminalize law abiding citizens,” Terrill and Simpson said in a joint statement. “Illinois needs to give law enforcement the tools necessary to enforce the existing common-sense laws and stop trying to create criminals out of everyday citizens. Further, Illinois needs to stop putting prosecutors in a position where we are forced to prosecute political agendas instead of actual crimes. We are doing our best as elected officials to protect your rights as law abiding citizens while still holding criminals accountable.”

They also said that "The right to keep and bear arms for the defense of life, liberty, and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people."

"As Sheriff of Mercer County, neither myself, nor my office will be proactively checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the State," Terrill said. 

According to Colion Noir, nearly 90 percent of the state's county sheriffs are not enforcing the ban due to what they see as constitutional violations. Terrill and Simpson are among the several officials who have spoken about HB 5471.

Otherwise known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act, the ban classifies all semi-automatic weapons as assault weapons. It affects 170 types of guns commonly available in the state. The law requires that certain firearms be registered for $50 apiece. As many as five million firearms and ten million magazines in the state may be affected. Gun rights advocates have begun litigation against the state, claiming it is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, Chicago City Wire reported.

Effingham County Judge Joshua Morrison issued a temporary restraining order last week blocking the law. That means the ban will not be applied to the 866 plaintiffs represented by Greenville attorney Thomas DeVore until it can be heard in court. “We will see if the state wants to appeal. If not, we’ll work on getting this pursued to a final ruling so we can get to the merits of these issues, sooner rather than later,” DeVore, a former attorney general candidate, told The Center Square. The plaintiffs included 862 Illinois citizens from more than 80 counties and four licensed firearms dealers.

In another report, The Center Square noted another 1,690 plaintiffs came forward to fight the ban, joining a second lawsuit headed by DeVore after the Effingham County ruling. “How many plaintiffs in the second case? … I don’t want to give that away,” DeVore said. “I’m going to let the governor hang in suspense and he’ll find out … when we file this thing. I’m really pleased with the support because we’re going and we’re going to go off into federal court and we’re going to get the governor's attention in a bigger way than we’ve already got.” Of the nearly 1,700 plaintiffs across 92 counties in the second case, 62 are gun stores.

The Illinois State Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and several gun owners from across Illinois have filed joint action in federal court against the State of Illinois over the ban enacted early this month. "The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a motion for preliminary injunction in its federal court challenge of the recently signed ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and their ammunition magazines. The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul," SAF said in a news release. "Joining SAF are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill. The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois."