Image via City of Champaign (IL).

With less than 18 hours’ notice, the Champaign, Illinois city council passed an emergency powers ordinance Friday morning, which Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen signed. The ordinance grants sweeping powers to the mayor, including the ability to order a ban on selling, transferring, or even giving away firearms or ammunition.

Some would-be authoritarians at the home of the University of Illinois think they can suspend citizens’, students’, and visitors’ Second Amendment rights on the whim of a small town mayor during a national emergency.

But wait, there’s much, much more.

Image by Boch. Base image via City of Champaign website. For a complete directory of council members and contact information. 

The measure gives the mayor the power to:

  • Order the closure of all liquor stores, taverns and private clubs. Or portions thereof where alcohol is consumed.
  • Ban all alcohol sales by any wholesaler or retailer.
  • Ban the sale of fuels except to fill motor vehicles. Need gas for your generator? Sorry.
  • “Order the control, restriction and regulation within the City by rationing, issuing quotas, fixing or freezing prices, allocating the use, sale or distribution of food, fuel, clothing and other commodities, materials, goods or services or the necessities of life”

Because price controls and rationing have worked so well in places like Venezuela. (See also:  Venezuela: This Is What Happens to A Disarmed Populace.) The

  • Order City employees or agents, on behalf of the City, to take possession of any real or personal property of any person, or to acquire full title or such lesser interest as may be necessary to deal with a disaster or emergency, and to take possession of and for a limited time, occupy and use any real estate to accomplish alleviation of the disaster, or the effects thereof;

The mayor and city council seem to be unfamiliar with inconvenient aspects of the Constitution such as the Third and Fourth Amendments.

The list of new powers goes on. You can read the entire document here (see Exhibit A).

One glaring business class that the mayor can’t arbitrarily shut down: marijuana dispensaries.

Meanwhile, to enforce the new ordinance, Champaign’s mayor has her own little army in the form of about 135 police officers.  How many of those officers would enforce mayoral “emergency decrees” running directly afoul of the US Constitution remains unknown.

In a former job years ago, I used to work with a number of Champaign city police officers. There were some outstanding people on that department, but many of the ones I knew have likely retired by now.

Unless there has been a wholesale change in attitudes on the department, I suspect the majority of Champaign cops will uphold their oaths and refuse to enforce any edicts suspending the Second Amendment for law-abiding residents trying to defend themselves during a national emergency.

When push comes to shove, I suspect Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen will have to (illegally) pick up one of the Champaign PD’s rifles herself and enforce her decrees if she wants to see them stand.

Plenty of us would pay good money to see that happen.

Will the Champaign City Council reverse themselves on this measure if they feel enough heat about the move? Time will tell.

The Second Amendment exists to stop petty tyrants from abusing and oppressing our fellow Americans.  If the government won’t live by the rule of law, America’s gun owners will help government get with the program.  Or else remove them from power.

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135 COMMENTS

    • You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. Rahm Emanuel …

    • Yup, this resolution basically violates half the Bill of Rights.

      Unconstitutional enough that gun owners should ignore it.

    • The problem with the second amendment is who will be sacrificed to prove its validity?
      Always a lot of constitution thumping, but, never any action. That’s why our rights keep getting chiseled away. By the time this goes through the courts, I’ll be dead of old age and you kids will be as old as me repeating my words.

  2. Exactly! Their last names are Tater and their first names are Dick. She probably wouldn’t know which end of the gun to point at the people and end up shooting herself. That would be a good thing except that she would sue the gun manufacturer for making a defective weapon.

    • Right on brother!! If you ever come out to California we have to get together and compare notes about the final solution to the gun violence epidemic.

      • Yep, you two get together and decide how to disarm 150,000,000 people who refuse to be disarmed. LMAO Good luck with that, skippy. P.S. The “gun violence” problem is among poor people. Solve poverty! I’d personally by you a craft beer and falafel if you could do that.

  6. You can tell this has been on their minds for awhile now, just waiting for an opportunity to roll it out. Tyrants never change.

    • My thoughts exactly. It is too well crafted to be spontaneous. Which raises the question, what other little gems are waiting to be released at the “right time “, as if this wasn’t enoigh.

  8. this won’t stand long that mayor is trying to be a little dictator and the courts will not let that happen

    • Get fucked commie. Thanks to the Obama Virus we’ve got more important things to deal with than your stupidity. And yes, this is entirely Obama’s fault because he took no action against China for the LAST time they fucked up

      • Imagine blaming Obama when he’s been out of office for nearly a full term and thinking that Trump stands for your rights

        • The orange haired doofus spends WEEKS doing absolutely nothing in the face of an impending pandemic except lying to the American people and it’s Obama’s fault.

          You people are a cult.

        • Well Obama blamed Bush for everything for two full terms so I think we have a while yet before we have to give up blaming Obama.

        • Hannibal, the kung flu is nothing to worry about. All of this hysteria is BS to affect the election. The lamestream media is terrifying people over Just Another effing virus. Doing nothing was the best thing and i wish Trump and the rest of government would have continued doing nothing instead of effing things up.

        • We get it Hannibal your a proud liberal shill. But you’ve been made. You are also miner 69er and chief censor. Sad.

        • If we claim the current economy is somehow, magically, due to the incompetent fumbling of Osama, then he must also take the blame for Obamavirus as well.

      • If you weren’t so brain damaged you’d recall when the original china travel ban was set up the left was screaming that Trump was being a racist and crazy germophobe.

  10. I just don’t understand why intelligent, and people of means continue to live in IL, or NY, CT, NJ, CA, etc.

      • Or were born and raised here, grew up and raised our own children here, worked our way into upper management in good-paying jobs here, have been established in solid churches filled with good people for decades here, and are fighting the good fight against Sacramento and the Left because we want to take back our state to restore it to how it used to be…here.

        It’s so easy to stand from far away and throw insults when you don’t understand.

        • …your still an idiot. You willingly are subjecting your family members to the whims of tyrants and dictators…. And since you do desire to move heaven and Earth to escape, you deserve what happens.

        • @Greentip,

          Tried to focus on your reply, but was distracted by the spelling and grammar errors similar to a grade schooler’s. Makes one wonder if you’re underage, in which case you probably shouldn’t be here.

    • And Oregon, Washington, Colorado, soon to be Montana and Idaho, and I’m sure others. How long do you think moving away from the problems will work? We only have so many states.

      Some of us have lived in the state our whole lives and watched the progressive flip. The worst is the people who just wont vote, but nonetheless, that which was unthinkable 20 years ago, is today reality in these states.

    • What you don’t understand is that liberal states are just the front lines. We could all retreat, but that doesn’t end the war; just moves the line closer to your territory.

      Notice that the liberals are most certainly not retreating from anywhere. They are in it to win it. I don’t know what state you are in, but if you start hearing about how nice and hip one of your cities is, you are about 5 years from California-style laws in your state.

      • Even “behind the lines” in places like CA, NY, Hawaii, Illinois, etc., there are still battles being fought. Non-compliance in these states is still over 90% and these states are where most of the pro-2nd ammendment cases in the Federal Circuit Courts and SCOTUS are originating

        • Non compliance at 90 percent, yet you live under the absolute WORST oppression in the country….
          Yeah, i’m not buying into your percentage guesses…..

        • You tell him George! Everybody knows that once a law is passed that the compliance rate is 100%. Just like my good friend Beto said: “People will obey the law.”

    • During Katrina the California Highway Patrol got a lot of bad press for taking that scared old lady’s gun. It wasn’t too far of a stretch for Californians to imagine the CHP taking their guns during any one of the number of emergencies we have every year. Within 96-hours of that CHP story breaking, the California legislature passed a bill that forbade the seizure of firearms during declared emergencies.

      • just curious… How did Katrina affect Ca..? (refugees?) I recall landfall at the Ms. La. line and working it’s way north Easterly to Canada…. Why did Ca (1900 miles away) need to declare an emergency?

        • It didn’t… But it did send squads of enforcers to Louisiana. It gave Californians a sober view of what California law enforcement was willing to do to citizens in the midst of a disaster. California has at least one statewide disaster a year (if it’s lucky, only one) and many dozens of minor declared “states of emergency” at any given moment. Even for anti-gun California, what the CHP did was over the line.

    • Leaving a state that’s gone nuts is exactly what the nut-so’s want. Do that and the sane will be driven to an ever-tightening corner. Y’all in Illinois should be out en masse, rifles in hands – unloaded as to not alarm the mayor – just to show her what MIGHT happen if she gets any funny ideas of taking her rhetoric beyond words. I live in Oregon, and my government is nuts enough, but that’s to be a little expected out here in the liberal west. What’s happened to you people in Illinois? I mean, weren’t y’all one of the original Northwest Territory states? You should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this to happen!!

  12. What your seeing is only the beginning of what will be happening if the left gets in the White House!

    • So when a republican mayor does something ‘tyrannical’ under a republican president, it’s “only the beginning” of what we would see under the democrats?

      Competing for the mental gymnastics award, are we?

      • Or was it a Democratic-controlled Council action, not inspired by the wishes of a GOP mayor?

      • If you actually think she’s a real republican then you probably need to bend over & pull real hard to get your head out of your A$$. Just another Mitt Romney wanna be democ-rat Not American

  13. All they’re doing right now is continuing the test they started in Virginia (the test to see how much they can get away with).

    Like it or not, regardless of what your political preference may be or may have been, it is absolutely necessary to stop the Democratic Party. They’ve gone full on socialist and they are in favor of a dictatorship right here in America.

  14. I would imagine this is liberal Dems trying to look proactive and on top of things for a possible response to covid-19. Can she just enact this at will or are there stipulations either way I dont like it.

  16. I’ve seen it happen before. Hurricane came thru our beach town. Instead of doing something constructive, the AHJ’s spent their time calling all the grocery stores, stop and robs and the liquor stores and banned all alcohol sales until further notice even though they did not have the authority to do so. Nobody stood up to them or sued them. You can’t fight city hall and all that. Also, the National Guard was called out to keep people off the beach and enforce a curfew. Only the Governor can do that and he did not. And yet it happened.

  17. this is a fake news story. Probably every city in the US drafted something like this after the riots of the last century. Just because they have the power to do this, along with just about everything they need to curb a riot, doesn’t mean they are going to do that for every “emergency”.
    TTAG, I am sorta ashamed of you.

  18. This Socialist clown was 500 votes from the Governors mansion in Fl 16 months ago, he would have led the way to this kind of “screw the Constitution” bullshit, and he walked away from this no questions asked… Must be lonely at the top….
    Andrew Gillum, a Florida Democrat who narrowly lost a bid for governor in 2018, was found “inebriated” and vomiting in a hotel room with another man apparently experiencing a drug overdose, according to a police report.
    The Miami Beach Police Department responded to an emergency call from the hotel room early Friday morning. Police impounded several clear plastic bags of what appeared to be crystal meth.

    • The former mayor has already released a statement that he is not a meth head. He just parties with them.

      • That’s all he had to say, I’ll make it a point a point to apologize next time I see him…… Seems THEY are always starting shit about him, poor guy….

  19. It is absolutely mind boggling how stupid some of these people can be. I never cease to be amazed when sitting down and talking with local politicians.

  20. As mentioned by me awhile ago..isn’t Champaign mostly U of I college students?!? I’ve been there years ago for basketball & partying. The “pandemic” is pretty minor so far(in America). This gal is cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Got gas for under $2 a gallon today so all isn’t lost. Water and cheap babywipes from WallyWorld. Aldi and 2 other stores had no water. Had a Pur filter but the filters turned to garbage last year. Anyone use another cheap water filtration system??????

    • Sawyer mini or sawyer squeeze can be found at Wally world. REI and outdoor stores probably have other brands like Katadyn.

    • “Go to the town website and they are already backpedaling.”

      Not so fast –

      “This statement is in response to several false claims circulating online. To be clear, there is currently no firearm ban and no intent to seize property or close businesses. Additionally, there are no restrictions on the sale of alcohol or gas or the ability to enter or leave Champaign.”

      The key phrase is “…currently no firearm ban and no intent to seize property or close businesses.”

      https://champaignil.gov/2020/03/13/special-statement-clarifying-city-code-provisions/

      To be rescinded, anytime they like…

      • From said page:
        “Mayor may issue other temporary orders allowed by City Code and found necessary to handle the emergency.”

        nice

  23. Do what I would do. Ignore it. Go outside of town to buy gas, or anything else. Vote her put first chance you get. Then move and take your money with you.

  24. “The measure gives the mayor the power to: Order the closure of all liquor stores…”

    I bet Ralph is sure glad he doesn’t live there. Them be riot words… 😉

    We have an interesting ‘situation’ developing here here in Florida –

    Remember former Talahasse mayor Andrew Gillum, who very narrowly lost the election of Florida Governor to Ron DeSantis?

    It seems Gillum was in a Miami hotel room having a ‘party’ with 2 others, one of whom was a beefcake male escort, when the ‘escort’ overdosed on methamphetamine. Paramedics were called to re-start the escort’s stopped heart. When the cops arrived, Gillum was too ‘inebriated’ to speak to police, but packets of meth were found on the bed and carpet.

    Yeah, kinda ‘interesting’ :

    https://heavy.com/news/2020/03/travis-dyson/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df-qwJI2dqI

    • Wish my crappy phone could play that video😃 Was a large pickle involved? Asking for a friend…

      • “Was a large pickle involved? Asking for a friend…”

        I’m betting someone’s pickle was *slippery*… 😉

        It’s pretty obvious he was “On the down-low”.

    • I can tell you that the “black” internet is talking about this story. The sites I go to are. Im sure they are many of them now who are glad this guy lost the election. Because His focus would not be black but “Pink”.

      • btw
        As I have said on TTAG many times before. They, who ever they are, want drugs legal so they can shoot up crystal meth to improve their sexual experience. And shoot up in private or in public.

        • “…so you can smoke or snort it, and it won’t cause addiction?”

          Ask a junkie, ‘ron’…

        • Ron

          I have seen idiots mainline meth as well as smoke it, personlly I allways preferred snorting… Junkies are HEROIN addicts, addictions to stuff like meth, coke are psychological… heroin and Oxycodone creats a physical need… These other dopers are just weak minded

        • Vietnam ’71-’72, you smoked heroin, not shot it. That was because what you bought on the street for nothing was 95% pure. Guys brought some home and sold it, buyer died after injecting, expected 10% and got massive overdose. Trying to smoke the 10% was hugely expensive and not satisfying, most quit but some took up injecting.

      • And good riddance. I was unaware he was (previously) thought to be a future force in Democrat politics.

        This should squelch that… 🙂

    • It also said he was not charged and was allowed to go home, asshole has been “under investigation” by our illustrious FBI for years and now he’s found in a room with a guy who would most likely be dead if the third guy had not shown up…. This clown was 500 votes away from being Gov. of Fl. I can’t believe he’s still walking the street tonight…

    • Why would a grown man be partying in a hotel room with other men? Hmm.

      So glad he didn’t get elected.

      • A “DEMOCRAT RISING STAR”???

        Democrat Andrew Gillum, the charismatic former Florida gubernatorial candidate, has admitted to being in a South Beach hotel room on Thursday night with Travis Dyson, a self-described ‘porn star performer,’ who was believed to be over-dosing on crystal meth when the two were found by a third man who called 911.
        Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It’s free!
        In a statement explaining his involvement in the incident, Gillum said he was in Miami “for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends.” The CNN commentator also acknowledged he “had too much to drink” (seeming to confirm a police report that described him as “inebriated” and unable to speak) and apologized for the “distraction” his actions caused.
        Um, what wedding?
        However, when contacted by a local reporter, Gillum’s friend seemed unaware of any Thursday night wedding. “I personally was not celebrating a wedding. I don’t know if [Gillum] was in town for a wedding. He did not mention that,” Dyson reportedly told the Miami New Times.

        A source with direct knowledge of the Miami Beach Police Department’s response to the scene told TheBlaze that first responders said they allegedly found Gillum in a state of complete undress and Dyson wearing “chaps,” which Dictionary.com defines as “a kinky or provocative article of clothing, which leave the butt and sometimes crotch exposed,” when they arrived at the Mondrian South Beach Hotel room.
        TheBlaze contacted Mr. Gillum, who was once rumored as a potential 2020 vice presidential running-mate for then-frontrunner Elizabeth Warren, on Friday afternoon for comment, but has not received a response as of Saturday morning.

  25. Is anyone in that town going to request a court to enjoin the enforcement of that unconstitutional “Emergency Declaration”? I’m sorry but nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say “Inapplicable in cases of Emergency” !!

    • Dean Wormer: There is a little-known codicil in the Faber College constitution which gives the dean unlimited power to preserve order in time of campus emergency…The time has come for someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me. – Animal House, 1978

  27. If this woman is still in elected office after the next election. You deserve what you get. If you live there. The 2A sanctuary movement did start in Illinois first, correct???

  28. These are the very same types of regulation. That the Founding Patriots fought,bled and died to overcome. Regardless of any Emergency. Tyranny cannot be Tolerated. Especially the confiscation of Personal Property and/or it’s Occupation. One of the most reviled conditions forced upon the Colonies. Specifically covered in the Constitution. Of course this means little to those who reject the Words There In and the Power of Their Meaning. Or Fail to Defend Them. Keep Your Powder Dry.

  29. Fuck the mayor and the city council. Hell, I’m not even going to give them capital letters.

    Oh, and fuck that “clarifying statement”. This isn’t butter on the stove. You morons passed this very specifically because you intend to take advantage of it if you get the opportunity. That fact is revealed by it’s passage and signing.

    If you really didn’t intend to do these things you’d, at most, have created a draft that could be passed in an emergency session and signed because there was a real emergency situation right in front of you where you could honestly argue you really need to do these things. That’s what you do when you want an “option”, create a draft that can be pulled out if the situation really gets out of hand. At that point it’s not something you want to do but it’s something you might be forced to do.

  30. This is the beginning….
    It’s the beginning of communism in this country…
    And meanwhile, people look the other way….
    I’m telling you all now, if these people aren’t stopped (and it’s looking like nobody has the balls to stop it) then in no time this country will not even be recognizable in ten years…
    The government has been infiltrated on the highest levels.
    No normal citizen can reach these people… they are the “untouchables”…
    If something isn’t done soon, this country is lost….

  32. One lesson? Don’t wait to buy a gun until you need it. They may shut down the FFLs but they’re not going to be going door to door confiscating.

  33. Just sitting here in Free America grilling hamburgers, playing with the grandkids, watching the world go by.

  34. I think IT took it’s drivel to the Ammoland site. Under the screen name Mike, It sure acts and sounds like IT. I think it’s Harold anyway since We don’t see his articles much any more.

  36. To: John Boch.

    The Mayor is a Republican? Where the Hell have you been. I recently read one of those GSL newsletters? Where you constantly “Bad Mouth” Left, but never the Right???? Now this wakes you up?

    The GSL should write something about this in the newsletter as to why you didn’t object to this matter while it was brewing.
    Oh wait, your the Exec. Dir., of the GSL. Oh yeah, that’s right you couldn’t say anything about the Ratpublican Mayor. Oh,oh, someone didn’t let you know about this matter until it came out.

    Come on John where’s your inside connections?

  37. I was in my local Walmart yesterday, what a zoo. Almost empty shelves. I couldn’t help but laugh. What would these people do when there is a REAL crisis. Kind of amazing that most people are so unprepared, I lived through Mt. St. Helens eruption, two to three feet of ash covering everything in my area. That was a wake up call.

    Being a mild prepper was not a bad thing, it’s kind of like having insurance and not having to use it for a long time. NBC suits, M95 protective masks ammo, survival food that lasts 25 years, a well, generator to back feed the power to the house. All for about the total of one paycheck.

    So when politicians make stupid emergency laws, means nothing. Someone has to enforce it. Who’s going to do that? In a real crisis, police will be taking care of their families, not risking their life on the street.

    • Wally1: I lived through Mt. St. Helens eruption

      That must have been an interesting couple of days…..

      • Interesting, no, scary yes. The ash was finer than cigarette ash, years later there was still ash in the ditches on I-90 between Moses lake and Spokane. For days after the eruption, people were attempting to drive their cars out of the area. The engines were destroyed by the fine ash that was ingested by the engine air intake. Stalled and disabled vehicles littered the highways.

        Yet amazing enough, most people did not go into panic mode. They just helped their neighbors and the State and County road crews got to work and rapidly cleared the roadways.

  38. I don’t know much about the population of Champaign, IL but the police here wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t try. At some point, someone will get killed and then it would be a very, very bad situation. Then it would be automatic trigger squeeze at a knock on the door. They don’t pay police enough (nobody gets paid enough) to disarm citizens. The risk of death is too high and the reasoning behind the action too muddy.

  39. “They” can do whatever “they” want to do, and We The People will hit them hard with words.

  41. It was also done in Elgin, Il. Elgin is on the Fox river at I90

    Elgin Mayor Declares State of Emergency Over Coronavirus

    March 13, 2020

    Elgin, IL – In the City of Elgin’s ongoing efforts to effectively prepare for the health, safety and economic impacts of coronavirus/COVID-19, Mayor David Kaptain signed a proclamation of emergency today.

    The proclamation of emergency allows City officials to assemble resources and personnel to expedite emergency planning measures and boost the ability to deploy rapid response to threats posed by the coronavirus.

    “Protecting the health and safety of the people in Elgin remains my first priority,” said Mayor David Kaptain. “The proclamation is a proactive measure to ensure public safety and to expedite the procurement of goods and services and emergency planning decisions.”

    The emergency powers conferred on the mayor by the Elgin Municipal Code include, but are not limited to:

    The power to purchase or goods and services the Mayor deems necessary to the City’s emergency response or for facilities
    The power to lease real property, structures, or both the Mayor deems necessary for the continued operation of City government
    The power to adopt rules to expedite issuance of permits necessary to address issues that arise from the emergency
    The power to redirect City funds to pay expense incurred as a result of responding to the emergency, to the extent sufficient funds are available and budgeted
    The power to delegate any or all of these duties to the City Manager, who may in turn delegate any or all of the duties
    A complete list of emergency powers can be found in Elgin Municipal Code Chapter 2.76.040 at cityofelgin.org/code.

  42. The problem with the second amendment is who will be sacrificed to prove its validity?
    Always a lot of constitution thumping, but, never any action. That’s why our rights keep getting chiseled away. By the time this goes through the courts, I’ll be dead of old age and you kids will be as old as me repeating my words.

  43. Wonder when the law suit will filed on this one. Force the city council and mayor out permanently. Maybe SAF or some other pro-2nd Amendment will help with the lawsuit.

  46. Will the last person leaving Illinois, please turn out the lights? That’s assuming the power company hasn’t already cut the power due to non-payment. Illinois’ financial woes will soon engulf everything else.

  47. “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

  48. Sometimes writers and commenters get wrapped around the axle before the car even moves, this Article is a fine example. Every level of Gov from Small town/villages to the Feds have Pre written Emergency Power as part of their Emergency Preparedness Plans which also include the steps to enact those Emergency Powers AND expand them when needed. There’s three basic steps Declare the type of Emergency, Approve Emergency Powers and impose those powers that are justified and necessary to meet Emergency Requirements. Article and comments are screaming bloody murder but not a thing about a single Power that has actually been imposed on a business or person. WTF? Where are you being mistreated? Granted Powers are a tool box, use some or none as needed. If gun/ammo sales are shut down, or they make a CDC COMPOUND in you corn field you can bitch. Routine Preparation at this point nothing more. FL Gov Declared an Emergency weeks ago which automatically gave him similar but much broader Powers, comes with every hurricane and most tornados down here. Don’t panic folks when unfounded.

    • Gov ordered ALL Bars and Nightclubs closed in Fl, restaurants can still serve beer, wine & liquor, liquor stores still open, no other restrictions like gun and ammo sales, gun ranges still open (including state owned) just common sense stuff….

  50. Disarming the honest and innocent, e.g. subjecting them to deadly risk, must be made a hanging offense and a federal felony. Is there a lawyer in the house willing to write up a model Bill we can have some one take to Congress? Please spread this idea. No more begging the commies to stop oppressing us! Lets make ’em sweat.

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