Concealed Carry Public Hearings Renew Call for Winnebago County Law

ROCKFORD - The public weighed in Wednesday night on concealed carry at a forum in downtown Rockford, despite the fact the Winnebago County Board's public safety committee did not recommend to the full board to pass a law allowing residents to carry a gun in public. 

Back in August, the Rockford Tea Party submitted an 11,000+ signature petition asking for a concealed carry law just within Winnebago County.  Part of that petition also asked for public hearings in regard to concealed carry.  However the Winnebago County Board's public safety committee opted to send a resolution down to Springfield asking state legislators to do the dirty work instead of creating a county ordinance.

The state's attorney's office was the one that advised against the board creating a law.  They said at the September meeting, that the county could be sued if they created the law as a civil liability.  However a constitutional law attorney, Walter Maksym, says that's not true.  He's represented countless gun rights cases in court. 

"The county couldn't be sued because they have legislative immunity," said Maksym. 

"They can pass a law, otherwise no one would become a senator or county board member.  You can't sue the county or you can't sue the individual legislators for enacting a law."

Maksym says ultimately concealed carry should be up to the state legislature to decide.  Winnebago County Board member Jim Webster (R - Dist. 2) organized tonight's forum.  He says Springfield's been dragging their feet when it comes to concealed carry.  Webster understands Winnebago County probably still won't pass their own concealed carry law, but he hopes Wednesday night's meeting sent a message to Prairie State legislators.

"This garnering of more attention or continual attention, we're really hoping that this puts the pressure on the legislature to do something," said Webster.

Even though many at Wednesday night's meeting felt that the county should take that decisive step to create their own law, Maksym told people in attendance at the meeting that they might not have to actually do that.  He cited the Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, which he said overturned Chicago's ban on handguns.  He says it may be time for that to happen to the whole state.

"The seventh circuit court of appeals may very well throw out the state law and then the legislature will have to enact a concealed carry regime of some kind," said Maksym.

If this whole public hearing on concealed carry rings any bells, that because these public hearings also occurred four years ago.  The county wanted to gauge opinion on concealed carry.  It got put on a ballot and both the city and county voted against it.

Winnebago County will hold another public hearing on the issue of concealed carry on October 23, at 5:30 PM.  They will have another guest speaker, an NRA lobbyist.