A rally against rifles in the suburbs

While many people likely wouldn't consider the quaint suburb of Lake Barrington a major center for gun problems, the Rev. Jesse Jackson thinks otherwise.

Jackson, along with the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church in Chicago and hundreds of protesters, marched in front of the D.S. Arms gun manufacturer to shed light on what they say is the problem of easy access to firearms.

"We want these weapons off America's streets," Jackson said of the high-powered rifles made in the facility. "Citizens of Barrington, vote these gun manufacturers out of here."

Jackson urged his supporters, most of whom arrived on three buses from St. Sabina, to encourage their communities to enact "gun dry" initiatives and legislation, renew the federal assault weapons ban and deny unlimited access to guns.

"People must fight back," Jackson said.

But Michael Danforth, an attorney for D.S. Arms, said he did not feel its facility was a proper target for protesters.

"We are not open to the public. We do not hold store hours and you cannot buy a gun at this facility," he said. "We are a legal company. We pay our taxes and we have nothing to be ashamed of."

D.S. Arms, a gun manufacturer in Illinois for more than 20 years, has been located in Lake Barrington for the last eight.

Danforth said that to his knowledge, none of the guns manufactured at D.S. Arms has been used in a crime.

Pfleger asserted that guns used in crimes don't just magically appear on the streets.

"If everyone is doing everything legally," he said, "then how are so many people dying on the streets of major cities from guns that are coming from so-called legal places?"

Jackson said each year 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds and another 100,000 are injured.

"Even hunters do not use automatic weapons. They are only made to kill," Jackson said. "This is the source of domestic terrorism."

Though dwarfed by Jackson's hundreds of supporters, about a dozen people did appear outside the Lake Barrington company in support of the right to bear arms.

"Taking away my gun ownership rights doesn't protect the citizens of Chicago in any way," said Gary Rooks, a Lake County resident.

Lake County Undersheriff Chuck Fagan said the sheriff's department had about 30 officers at the event to ensure public safety. He said no problems were reported and no arrests were made.

"It was a peaceful demonstration," Fagan said.

Danforth would not name D.S. Arms' biggest clients, but he did say the company sells to law enforcement and military personnel, as well as about 20 commercial retailers.

Tuesday's protest coincided with the anniversaries of the 1963 March on Washing, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, and the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, a black Chicago teen who was shot and killed after whistling at a white woman.

Besides the protest in Lake Barrington, similar marches were held in Evanston and Springfield, as well as in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Arizona and California.