Preserve the Constitution
An article in the Edwardsville paper reports on a resolution debated at a Madison County committee meeting concerning the 2cd amendment. The resolution was not passed out of committee. Nonbinding resoutions have been debated and passed by the County board in the past. What do you think about this issue?
The question: Should the Madison County Board follow the lead of 70 of the state’s 102 counties and pass a resolution to “support the 2nd Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”
After 30 minutes of debate, the committee decided, by a 4-3 margin, to allow the resolution to die in committee.
“We need to send a message to Springfield and Washington to stop the attack on the 2nd Amendment,” said Mike Walters, R-Godfrey, the most outspoken advocate at the meeting. “Conceal and carry works. Australia, I believe, got rid of guns and the crime rate went through the roof because the crooks knew you didn’t have a gun, and they did. They will be able to walk right into your house, and you may be able to get a bat or a knife, but they have a gun, and they can kill you.”
Charley Hummel, a resident of Highland, brought the proposed resolution to the meeting. Hummel urged members to forward it to the County Board for a vote at Wednesday’s regular meeting.
Distilled to its essence, he said, the resolution states that “Madison County accepts the 2nd Amendment of the United States.”
Madison County should send a message to state legislators that will counteract “a strong Chicago contingent that is pushing favorable gun control measures” that Hummel said would limit the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Hummel was asked to speak at the meeting by Republican Judy Kuhn, who represents Highland’s District 1. Were the resolution put to a popular vote, she said, it would pass overwhelmingly.
But Illinois law does not allow counties to deal with issues such as gun control, said Madison County Administrator Joe Parente. “If the County Board starts dealing with this issue, we have absolutely no authority to deal with it,” he said. “That’s why there’s been resistance to consider it at the county level. This is not our call. It’s a state issue, if they want to deal with it.”
While 70 counties have passed similar resolutions, they represent only 19 percent of the state’s population, Parente said. Large counties have generally shied away from the issue, he said.
Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan strongly opposed the resolution. “I have guns. I’m a hunter. I got two deer this year. I like deer sausage. But this is an issue that I don’t want to see come to the County Board and split us between Democrats and Republicans.” Dunstan suggested tabling the resolution indefinitely.
Several elected officials also opposed it.
Sheriff Robert Hertz said that while he generally supports the 2nd Amendment, he has reservations about allowing unlimited access to firearms. “The weaponry that the Army has at its disposal would be frightening if the common citizen had access to it,” Hertz said. “Law enforcement would be outgunned, so to speak, if people were allowed access to fully automatic machine guns that could fire 300 rounds, surface-to-air missiles. To enact something in broad terms like this, I think, would be foolish.”
Jack Minner, a Democrat who represents District 18 in Edwardsville, and Brenda Roosevelt, a Democrat from Glen Carbon District 26, pointed out that the resolution would be non-binding. “I don’t see a need to get involved with something that has no teeth in it, that can’t be enforced,” Minner said.
“All I hear is divisiveness,” Roosevelt said. “I don’t support that, and I don’t support us taking those kinds of divisive positions.” The resolution, she added, would have “no influence whatsoever.”
Mark Burris, D-Wood River, agreed. Even if the County Board approved it, the resolution won’t mean much, he said. Burris said he agreed with the sheriff and the chairman. “I don’t want to see people going around here with assault rifles or with a concealed weapon. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Basically, this is saying you can’t restrict anything.”
But Kuhn responded: “I think there’s a reason that we respect the Constitution, and the reason that our forefathers wrote it that is so that it wasn’t the government having all the power. That’s just the way I feel.”
When the vote was taken, Kuhn, Walters and Peggy Voumard, a Democrat from Alton, supported sending the resolution to the 29-member County Board. Roosevelt, Minner, Burris, and Nick Petrillo, a Democrat from Granite City, voted against it.
