Oak Park's gun ban also is in the balance

Oak Park Village President David Pope is concerned Oak Park's gun ban will be affected by the Supreme Court ruling. (Antonio Perez, Chicago Tribune / June 22, 2010)

People in Oak Park don't often mention the names James Piszczor or Donald Bennett anymore. But more than 20 years ago, those men came to symbolize opposing sides of the village's handgun ban and thrust the western suburb to the center of a national battle over Second Amendment rights.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether municipalities such as Oak Park and Chicago can legally forbid residents to possess handguns. And in Oak Park, the first municipality in the nation to approve a handgun ban referendum measure, the ruling could signify how much of a say citizens have on the issue.

Morton Grove, Wilmette, Winnetka and Evanston repealed their handgun bans two years ago after the Supreme Court struck down the ban in Washington, D.C. Though Oak Park is not named in the suit before the court, the village that borders Chicago's Austin neighborhood, which has a high rate of handgun violence, has fought alongside Chicago to legally preserve the gun bans.

"The lawsuit says Chicago et al., and we are the et al.," said Village President David Pope. "But substantively, it doesn't matter if there is one ordinance or if there are 300. The court will make its decision, and it will apply equally to any city or municipality that has a similar ordinance in place."

The gun ban question has lingered over the village and Chicago for more than a quarter of a century. But in the case of Oak Park, the debate is rooted in the death of Piszczor and the life of Bennett, the rallying forces in the mid-1980s for either those who supported gun control or those who did not.

The murder of Piszczor, a prominent Oak Park attorney who was gunned down in a Chicago courtroom in 1983 along with Judge Henry Gentile during a divorce case, was the impetus for the handgun-control movement that led the village in 1984 to pass its ordinance banning handguns. A year later, residents voted to support the ban with a 54 percent majority, despite an aggressive effort by the National Rifle Association to get voters to repeal it.

On the other side, Bennett, then the owner of a gas station at Austin Boulevard and Harrison Street who insisted on carrying a handgun to protect himself, was the public face of the pro-gun movement, powered and financed by the NRA, that kept the village in court for years.

The NRA filed another suit against the village in 2008 after the D.C. ban was overturned, but the Supreme Court chose to hear the Chicago case instead.

City officials acknowledge that many residents might be unaware of Piszczor's murder and the history of the gun ban movement in Oak Park. But in the socially conscious village known for its efforts to encourage diversity and racial equality, officials said, many residents still support the ban.

"The thinking of Oak Parkers and the social issues Oak Park takes on and the fact that we have a population that is attracted to the village because of that philosophy means it would be a more conscious decision today than it was 25 years ago," said Village Attorney Ray Heise, who wrote the handgun measure in 1984.

For many residents, Piszczor's murder was viewed in the 1980s as a senseless act of violence that could have been avoided if handguns were not readily available. But opponents, such as David Schweig, then a member of the executive board of the Oak Park Freedom Committee that called for the referendum to overturn the ban, said the law only stripped law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights.

"It has made me very unhappy for more than 25 years," said Schweig, a licensed gun collector. "There have been a couple of occasions … where I would have been much happier if I had a handgun in my possession."

Though the ordinance allows licensed gun collectors to have guns, Schweig said he keeps his outside the village because he fears that some officers might not be aware of the provision.

Though there was one motivation for enacting the law 25 years ago, the reasons for keeping the ban today are more varied and have as much to do with deterring gun-carrying criminals from outside the village boundaries as keeping guns out of the hands of Oak Park residents.

Its nearness to Chicago makes Oak Park vulnerable to crime, particularly armed robberies, which have risen in recent years. While overall crime was down in Oak Park last year, police said the village experienced a 46 percent increase in robberies, many of them involving weapons.

While Chicago has more resources to strengthen its registration procedures and implement other measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals if the gun ban is overturned, Oak Park likely would not have those options, village officials said. The village bans assault weapons, and there are no gun shops in Oak Park because the village bans the sale of handguns. The village would explore other requirements, such as training, depending on what the ruling allows, officials said.

"Many of the smaller municipalities have legislation similar to ours, but the registration components are really the domain of larger cities," said Heise. "They are more able to marshal the resources to have that kind of administrative infrastructure. If we could find an economical, efficient way to accomplish that, it would be worth looking at."

If the ban is overturned, opponents such as Schweig said they will watch closely to see that Oak Park does not try to abate the court ruling by making it harder for citizens to get handguns.

"Would we step forward and attempt to create an atmosphere where the Village Board has to do the right thing? Oh yeah," Schweig said.

Oak Park's gun ban also is in the balance

Chicago's neighbor says it needs 25-year-old law, but ban's critics hope for Supreme Court victory