Constable: Obama can look to Highland Park on guns

As our nation knows all too well, when guns are involved, the stakes can be life or death. But our national debate about gun control has plenty of room for compromise.

Today, President Barack Obama will announce a series of executive actions intended to combat gun violence, the White House said Monday,

Obama won't, as gun-friendly fear-mongers like to suggest, announce that he is suspending the Second Amendment and banning all gun sales. Neither will the president deliver another of those “something needs to be done” speeches that he gives after every mass shooting and frustrate gun-control activists who want action.

His actions, the White House said, will address the so-called gun show loophole, which allows some private firearm sellers to avoid the background checks required of licensed gun dealers. Among other measures, he also will announce more funding for mental health treatment and for FBI staffing to process background checks.

“I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Period,” Obama posted on Facebook last month. “I also believe that most gun owners agree that we can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, lawbreaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.”

In figuring out how to balance those sometimes at-odds philosophies, the president could seek some inspiration from one of our suburbs.

“Not all firearms are covered by the Second Amendment,” says Steven Elrod, an attorney who successfully crafted and defended Highland Park's landmark gun-control ordinance, which bans so-called assault weapons and offers other firearm restrictions, including a prohibition against ammunition clips that allow shooters to fire more than 10 shots without pausing to reload.

Congress let the national assault-weapons ban, signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton with the support of former President Ronald Reagan, expire in 2004. U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2008 and 2010 scrapped handgun bans in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other municipalities. However, the courts left room for some gun control.

“I think the Highland Park victory was the result of crafting legislation that recognized the opening in the two prior Supreme Court cases,” says Elrod. Having been upheld by federal appeals courts, Highland Park's measures remain the law after U.S. Supreme Court refused last month to hear a Second Amendment challenge to the gun-control ordinances.

“The time is right for stronger legislation,” says Elrod, who is buoyed by the success of the Highland Park gun-control measures.

Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans want to close the gun show loophole. Instead of watching municipalities such as Highland Park lead the way on gun control, the president is tackling changes that could become the law of the land.

“President Obama can push for national legislation about gun-shop controls and the assault-weapon ban,” says Elrod, who is the son of former Cook County Sheriff and longtime judge Richard Elrod, who died in 2014.

Gun control faces many of the issues that the gay rights movement faced as it ambled along with local victories and setbacks for decades, until national attention, money and public opinion pushed the politicians into enacting laws that were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The gun-control movement can follow that pattern.

The threat of costly legal challenges from the National Rifle Association shouldn't intimidate governments from passing gun-control measures, Elrod says, noting that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence secured a law firm to provide pro-bono services for the federal court litigation to defend Highland Park's ordinance. The Everytown for Gun Safety organization, funded largely by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also sports the financial resources to take on the NRA.

“The fact that those entities are out there and willing to help makes it easier,” Elrod says.

Gun control won't put an end to the dozens of mass shootings our nation endures every year. But responsible gun owners and those who would never own a gun can come together in an attempt to curb them.