Pope: Gun regulation committee possible

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1/24/12 Oak Park Officials and residents begin to gather for a public hearing on the future of guns and their regulation in Oak Park during a meeting in the Oak Park Village Hall. | Dan Luedert~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 11, 2012 8:21AM

While there has been little agreement on the issue of handguns in Oak Park, a suggestion to establish a citizens committee to explore the issue further may found common ground with Village President David Pope and one of his harshest critics.

Meanwhile, a federal judge is working to come to a decision on legal fees in the NRA’s lawsuit against Oak Park and Chicago that could bring a hefty price tag.

In the wake of a village board of health committee hearing Jan. 24, longtime handgun ban opponent David Schweig called for a citizens committee composed of people from both sides of the handgun issue.

“My strategy is to get them to agree to a citizens committee,” said Schweig. “The village has a history of doing that dating back to the 1970s.”

“It’s my job to make them sit up and take notice that there are a lot of people in town who want a fair shake.”

Such a committee, Schweig said, could reach a final resolution, “with intelligent recommendations to the village board.”

Pope thought the idea has merit.

“We’ve seen that model prove effective in a number of issues. We did it with a similar issue of smoking in public places. The results were pretty successful in moving forward,” he said.

Health Department Director Margaret Provost-Fyfe said her staff plans to include what it heard at the Jan. 24 meeting with its own research on the in a report to the village board, probably in late March.

Pope said he expected the village board could come to a decision on how to proceed “a couple of months after that,” factoring in that the board doesn’t meet in April.

“I’d be in favor of the idea of having folks from a variety of perspectives involved in a discussion of how we proceed as a community,” Pope said, adding that while he personally has no problem with forming such a committee, that the ultimate decision rested with the village board as a whole.

“I emphasize, it could be an option,” he said.

Schweig insisted a fair hearing of his side of the argument is his primary concern.

“Don’t stack the odds,” he said. Any committee appointed “should be a true reflection of the citizenry. Six or eight people pro-hand gun, six or eight people (pro-regulation). With co-chairmen.”

“I’d love to be co-chairman,” Schweig added.

That’s where the agreement ended. Schweig ridiculed the Jan. 24 health committee hearing format, saying the three-minute time limit “was ridiculous.”

“We’ve been talking 10 minutes, and we’ve just scratched the surface,” he said about his interview.

“We did not have a fair and open forum last week,” he said.

Schweig said assigning the public hearing on guns to the health department in the first place “gave it an aura of respectability it doesn’t deserve.”

Pope said the referral to the board of health “was done in good faith, with the expectation that the board of health could help to allow a dispassionate review of the facts and allow for a set of recommendations to come back to the village board on how to proceed.”

He also refuted Schweig’s contention that pro-regulation types “don’t want such a discussion.”

“If he’s suggesting there’s some sort of preordained outcome, I’m not aware of it,” said Pope.

Schweig acknowledged that “there is some leeway in the Supreme Court ruling, in the way you store firearms and the way you maintain firearms against theft. The village can put down some regulations for that.”

The non-starter for gun owners, he said, is any regulation that blocks the ability to have an accessible gun in one’s home.

“Having to keep (all) firearms under lock and key eliminates firearms as a defense against an intrusion,” he said.

Schweig also warned against modeling Oak Park’s regulations after Chicago’s, which he found unduly onerous, both in the annual fees required and the non-transferability of a gun license from one firearm to another.

“It’s designed to chill your legal rights under federal law,” he said.

Financial liability

At the Jan. 24 hearing Schweig challenged village officials to discuss the details of possible financial liability for the NRA’s legal fees in the U.S. Supreme Court case.

But Pope said there are few details currently to be discussed, with the issue still being adjudicated in federal court.

Lawyers who represented the National Rifle Association in it successful court challenge of Oak Park and Chicago’s local handgun bans are seeking $2.2 million in legal fees from the two municipalities.

One lawyer charged $1,020 an hour. Another, Stephen P. Halbrook, is asking $800 per hour for 1,632 hours, totaling $1.3 million.

The NRA brief called the Supreme Court case “extraordinarily complex,” which justified the use of “more experienced, accomplished, and expensive attorneys to handle more complicated matters.”

In preliminary filings with the court, the two municipalities have said a more appropriate amount is $579,095.

Federal Judge Milton Shadur continued a hearing on the matter Jan. 25. The NRA is scheduled to file additional supporting motions by Feb. 15. Oak Park and Chicago will then have until March 12 to file a formal response with the court.

“Until the court rules, we just don’t know,” said Pope. “No one knows at this point what the actual figures are.”

Schweig somewhat agreed.

“Nobody knows what the NRA is going to do,” he said. He estimated that whatever the final financial liability was found to be, Oak Park was likely to on the hook for about a third of it.

But he ridiculed previous estimates that the village’s liability would only be in the $20,000 range, calling it “patently absurd.”