Lawsuit Cites Report That 20 Percent of Guns Recovered At Crime Scenes in Chicago Are Purchased Outside of Chicago

With Illinois conceal carry going into effect, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was faced with federal lawsuits from gun activists because Chicago had banned businesses from selling guns and ammunition within its borders. In 2014, a federal court decided that the city failed to prove that banning the sale of guns by licensed dealers was necessary to reduce gun violence. Still, some gun dealers say that Chicago has ordinances that require them jump through hoops.

Illinois doesn’t license and regulate gun dealers. The state leaves it up to municipalities to regulate gun stores doing business in their towns. For example, Chicago can have different regulations for gun shops located in Chicago than Cicero, Peoria, Lyons, etc.  One town requires that gun dealers be licensed by the federal government.

When straw purchasers are identified and denied sales in Chicago, they can drive the Illinois highways to other towns until they find a gun shop that will sell to them.

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, left, and the Rev. Michael Pfleger attend the Stop Bad Apple Gun Dealers protest at Chuck’s Gun Shop on June 6, 2015, in Riverdale. (Jeff Schear, Getty Images)

Reverend Michael Pfleger and Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, announced that many of the guns recovered from Chicago crime scenes came from stores located in Lincolnwood, Lyons, and Riverdale, Illinois. Today, a lawsuit was filed by Lawyers for the Coalition for Safe Chicago Communities against the aforementioned Chicago suburban villages for their failure to regulate gun shops.

The lawsuit alleges that the aforementioned suburbs’ violate the Illinois Civil Rights Act by failing to adequately monitor gun sales. It alleges that the stores are violating the rights of citizens by preventing them from doing regular activities, such as walking to school and playing in parks. The lawsuit also alleges that those villages have “lax or insufficient methods of administration in licensing and regulating gun dealers.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Coalition for Safe Communities in Chicago is focused on Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Midwest Guns in Lyons and Shore Galleries in Lincolnwood. The lawsuit cites a city of Chicago report to support that those stores, along with Westforth Sports in Gary, accounted for nearly 20 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Chicago between 2009 and 2013.

Rev. Michael Pfleger says officials in some communities have closed their eyes to how some gun shops do business because they don’t want to lose the taxes those shops pay. | Saiyna Bashir/Sun-Times

Reverend Pfleger is pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, and the Reverend Robin Hood, a West Side pastor, are among the plaintiffs in the civil-rights lawsuit against the villages of Riverdale, Lyons and Lincolnwood.

Officials with the city of Lyons said they have already met with Chicago police to address their concerns about a gun shop there. An attorney for Lincolnwood said officials there could not see “any conceivable basis for liability” on the part of the village.

There is a section of the Illinois Civil Rights that applies to local government, and it gives a private right of action to bring a civil suit. The lawsuit filed today does not ask that the gun stores be closed but rather, asks the court to issue an injunction requiring them to strengthen their regulation of gun stores. The lawsuit wants Riverdale, Lyons and Lincolnwood to perform background checks of store employees and train them to identify straw purchasers who purchase guns to supply them to people who are barred from owning firearms.