South Central Reporter

Greenville attorney Thomas DeVore notched a recent win in court in his work on behalf of a class of claimants seeking to defend their rights to own and possess guns. 

Effingham County judge Joshua Morrison granted a temporary restraining order noting a "lack of procedural compliance" by lawmakers, including violations of the "single subject" and "three readings" rules of the Illinois Constitution. 

"The Democrats that control our legislature, they know that they've completely abandoned the procedural requirements of how legislation is supposed to be passed," DeVore said according to ABC 7.

The Protect Illinois Communities Act HB 5471 redefined all semi-automatic weapons as so-called “assault weapons.” The law requires local firearms to be registered. As many as five million firearms and ten million magazines in the state may be affected. Gun rights advocates have begun litigation against the state noting it is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, Chicago City Wire reported.

Morrison's temporary restraining order last week means the law will not be applied to the 866 plaintiffs represented by DeVore until it can be heard in court. “We will see if the state wants to appeal. If not, we’ll work on getting this pursued to a final ruling so we can get to the merits of these issues, sooner rather than later,” DeVore, last year’s GOP candidate for attorney general, told The Center Square. The plaintiffs included 862 Illinois citizens from more than 80 counties and four licensed firearms dealers.

Another 1,690 plaintiffs joined a second lawsuit headed by DeVore’s after the Effingham County ruling. “How many plaintiffs in the second case? … I don’t want to give that away,” DeVore said. “I’m going to let the governor hang in suspense and he’ll find out … when we file this thing. I’m really pleased with the support because we’re going and we’re going to go off into federal court and we’re going to get the governor's attention in a bigger way than we’ve already got.” Of the nearly 1,700 plaintiffs across 92 counties in the second case, 62 are gun stores.

The Illinois State Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with several gun owners from across Illinois have filed joint action in federal court against the State of Illinois over the sweeping gun ban enacted in early January. "The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a motion for preliminary injunction in its federal court challenge of the recently-signed ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and their ammunition magazines. The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul," SAF said in a news release. "Joining SAF are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill. The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois." 

Altogether 85 of Illinois’ 102 counties have said they will not enforce the ban due to constitutional violations, according to Colion Noir.