The Coles County Board has recently voted to oppose legislation that would take away the right for people to bear arms.

The 12-0 vote took place Oct. 9, and, as of that night, Coles County was the 48th county in Illinois to approve the Pro-Second Amendment Resolution.

This movement began with two county board members on their way to the Illinois Gun Owners Lobby in March.

Mark Mountain, Pike County Board Member, and Jim Logsdon, Brown County Board Member, decided to start a movement to support the constitutional right to bear arms and to send a message to the legislators in Springfield.

Their message: Illinois gun owners have had enough of the anti-gun legislation that is coming mostly from Chicago and Cook County.

John Hamilton, of Charleston, brought the Pro 2A Resolution to Coles County.

“I went to a meeting where they were discussing it and they had a map, and I noticed that Coles, Clark, Edgar and Cumberland counties had not done anything with it, and I just asked how I could get involved,” Hamilton said. “They said, ‘Well, do you want to talk with your board members?'”

As it turns out, Hamilton already knew three of the Coles County Board members.

“I just started asking them about it and it drew attention within the board,” he said. “They decided to run it through the Safety and Health Committee before they brought it out to the main board to vote on.”

Marc Weber, Chairman of the Coles County Health and Safety Committee, introduced the resolution and motioned adopting it.

“The thing that most people don’t realize is that this is a nonbinding resolution. All it is is giving an opinion – and that is all. Legally, it doesn’t mean anything,” Weber said. “What we are talking about is sport use. In downstate Illinois, and in this area especially, there is a lot of hunting and shooting that goes on, and this ban, as we understood it, would include shotguns in it, and the people who brought this to us were hunters, shooters and sportsmen.”

Hamilton said all people see are anti-gun articles in the newspapers, and this resolution is letting the legislative know there is an active group of hunters and shooters who support the Second Amendment.

“Chicago wants to vote to take away the guns,” Hamilton said. “Chicago says you can’t even have firearms in your home, and that’s against the Constitution . In Douglas County, two felons from Chicago were involved in a shootout with the deputy, and the deputy lost his life. It just shows that the gun laws in Chicago aren’t working.”