Morton Grove: My hometown's first-in-America gun ban in jeopardy

I live in Morton Grove, Illinois, which prides itself, seriously, as the first municipality in the United States to institute a handgun ban. That was back in 1981, shortly after three prominent assassination attempts took place: John Lennon in late 1980, which sadly was successful, followed by the spring 1981 shootings of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.

That ban may be un-banned after today's landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar handgun prohibition in the District of Columbia. Already the National Rifle Association is taking aim (Sorry, I couldn't resist) at anti-gun laws across America, including the one in Chicago.

Now if the Morton Grove Board of Trustees and our mayor, Rick Krier, are smart, they'd vote to toss out the gun ban, and save the 22,000 residents of Morton Grove thousands of dollars in legal fees. Fighting the ban is a losing cause. Besides, crime in Morton Grove, like most middle to upper middle class suburbs (I'm middle, by the way) involves the usual array of indiscretions shared with like-minded communities: shoplifting, driving under the influence, home burglaries, fistfights, petty vandalism, and domestic abuse. There may be a person or two who have reasons to fear for their lives, but as far as crime goes, making handguns legal won't change things much here. And almost all of those burglaries, like most others, take place when no one is home.

But late last year Morton Grove police were called to the home of a man who lives four blocks from me because his adult son told the cops his father had a handgun. The police didn't find any firearms, but discovered the man was allegedly producing fake credit cards.

Most, if not all of the arrests of people possessing handguns in Morton Grove are of motorists pulled over for serious driving indiscretions--this allows the police to search the offender's vehicle, where a gun is sometimes found.

Here is some background on the gun ban--from Morton Grove, 100 Years, A Tradition of Service, published in 1995.

On June 8, 1981, the Morton Grove Board of Trustees passed two ordinances relating to firearms. One prohibits the sale of handguns within the village, the other restricts the possession of handguns within the village. The genesis of these ordinances was in direct response to residents' requests that a gun store be prohibited from opening and doing business in their neighborhood.

During their thorough study of the issue, several trustees felt it appropriate to consider the broader question of handgun control. The result of their deliberations, which were closely watched and presented to the world by the international news media, was a vote of five to one to prohibit the sale of handguns and a vote of four to two to restrict the possession of handguns.

As a result, Morton Grove residents who own handguns have the option of storing them out of town or at a licenced gun club. The regulation is on handguns only and no other legally owned firearms.

As expected, the handgun ban was challenged in court, but Morton Grove won each round--and the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case after the village prevailed in a federal appeals court.

That was then, but today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an individual right to bear arms.

And no, I don't own a handgun. I'm a law-abiding person.

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