You've heard the old bromide: Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

In north suburban Lincolnwood, Mayor Jerry Turry has coined a variation: People don't pay taxes. The sales of guns pay taxes. As a result, the 2nd Amendment looms as a major impediment to Turry's aspirations to be elected to a third term on April 9.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear firearms, but it doesn't guarantee Shore Galleries' right to move its gun store and build a target range, and that looms as a pivotal issue in determining whether Lincolnwood wants to keep and bear Turry for another 4 years.

"It's a zoning issue," insisted Turry, supporting the longtime Devon Avenue gun shop's bid to purchase the existing Resillo Pads building, relocate to a 1-acre manufacturing site, and construct a 15-stall space for target practice. Not anymore. It's now a gun control issue, magnified by last December's Connecticut school slayings.

"Being pro-business suddenly became being pro-gun," Turry said. "It generates considerable sales taxes, and the state-of-the-art gun range would have provided us with amusement tax revenues. It would have been a safer, better facility." However, he said, "It became a 'new use,' and a campaign of misinformation" sank the deal.

As the nearest gun shop to Chicago, Shore's is a popular venue for Chicago cops and gun enthusiasts. Under village ordinance, a gun store cannot be allowed within a half-mile of a school church or park. Given that Lincolnwood is all of 2.5 square miles, that means nowhere, but Shore's is grandfathered in, although it needed a special use to move to the MB district.

 "It's not appropriate for our village," countered Trustee Larry Elster, who led the fight against the gun range and who is running on the Independent Party of Lincolnwood slate with Turry's principal foe, Georgia Talaganis. "It would have had a chilling effect on our retail overlay." Elster concurs with the arguments of Michael Shapiro, the owner of the Ravenswood Studios building which has a common wall with Resillo, next to what would have been the gun range. "Guns are evil," blared Shapiro's 2012 mailing piece to Lincolnwood residents. According to Turry, Shapiro also complained about noise and parking issues, even though his business creates stage design sets for theaters and operas. "He has no retail traffic, and they would have muffled the noise," Turry said.

Turry said that in the spring of 2012, all six trustees -- Elster, Jesal Patel, Renee Sprogis-Marohn, Nick Leftakes, Tom Heidtke and John Swanson -- were in favor of Shore's move, "since it was out of the way of schools and parks" and they "thought it a worthy project." The subject was discussed at three Plan Commission meetings and two board meetings. Then came Shapiro's mailing, and "the board got alarmed," Turry said, which meant being pro-Shore morphed into being pro-gun. In September, Turry, who can break a tie vote, called for a nonbinding "straw vote" of the trustees on the Resillo-to-Shore sale. Elster was absent. The vote was 3-2, with Patel, Sprogis-Marohn and Heidtke siding with Shore.

However, at the board's second September meeting, Turry, who expected to cast the tie-breaker, was rudely surprised. Sprogis-Marohn was absent, Elster was present, and Heidtke flipped. Shore lost on a 4-1 vote, and the company then withdrew his request. Shore's latest idea to build a second-story gun range on its existing building is DOA, "but they won't move out," Turry said.

Another issue is the shuttered Purple Hotel, situated on 8.5 acres at Touhy-Lincoln. It closed in 2007. Is it an eyesore or a landmark, or, as one Lincolnwood insider said, an "endless puzzle"? The village planned to demolish it at an estimated cost of $1.2 million and recover the cost, but a developer is working to transform it into a boutique hotel, associated with Marriott, with abundant banquet facilities. Both Turry and Elster concur that a flagship hotel is needed in Lincolnwood, especially since all of the hotel room tax is paid to the village.

Lincolnwood's population is 12,590, of whom roughly 8,700 are registered voters, packed into 13 precincts. The village budget is $35 million. In 2009 Turry was unopposed and got 730 votes, or about 8 percent of the voter pool. "People are educated and affluent, but they just don't vote (in village elections)," Turry said. In 2005 Turry beat Bertha Gimbel 1,203-576, in a turnout of 20 percent.

 Incorporated in 1911 as Tessville, a saloon suburb of Chicago, it changed its name and went legit under Henry Proesel, who was Lincolnwood's mayor from 1931 to 1977 and who ran the dominant Administration Party. The party's creed was: If it's good for business, it's good for Lincolnwood. In essence, they were closet Republicans. Demographically, the village is about 20 percent Asian and 20 to 25 percent Jewish.

John Porcelli was the village's mayor from 1977 to 1985, and Frank Chulay served from 1985 to 1993. Chulay was instrumental in construction of the 70-store Lincolnwood Town Center, Lincolnwood Place, Barclay Place and a new Village Hall, but the era of the "Lincolnwood Loonies" had dawned, and trustees led by Lydia Cohen opposed Chulay's every move. In 1993 Cohen, an unabashed liberal Democrat, ran against Chulay with the covert support of Niles Township Democratic Committeeman Cal Sutker and his Skokie Caucus Party, which dispatched precinct workers into Lincolnwood.

However, the Administration Party, led by insiders Irv Blackman, Paul Eisterhold (the current Plan Commission chairman) and the late Bob Abelson, proved resilient and astute. They jettisoned Chulay, reinvented themselves as the Alliance Party, recruited Lincolnwood Library Board President Madeline Grant, and, as they say, handed Cohen and Chulay their lunch. In a record turnout of 4,005, Grant got 1,722 votes (43.0 percent of the total), to 881 (22.0 percent) for Cohen, 703 (17.5 percent) for Chulay and 699 (17.5 percent) for 1989 loser Bob Nussbaum.

Thereafter, everything was peachy and pro-business. Cohen and her allies vaporized. Grant was popular, and she was re-elected in 1997 but died in 2000. Trustee Peter Moy took her place, and won election in 2001. In 2005 the Alliance Party anointed Trustee Jerry Turry, and he easily demolished Gimbel. All the trustees, three of whom are elected every 2 years, were Alliance Party, even Elster, who was elected in 1997, and Talaganis, who was the village clerk.

But then, after 82 years, the Administration/Alliance Party vaporized. In November of 2012, as the Shore controversy was still percolating, Turry announced his retirement, stating that he was "at the top of my game" but that he had "had enough." The Blackman/Eisterhold clique (joined by Judy Abelson, Bob Abelson's widow) was in a quandary. Moy and Talaganis, who already were in the race, were intolerable. The Alliance Party's success has been to "localize" village elections, keep them boring and uncontroversial, depress turnout, and get their base of 900 to 1,200 connected insiders, friends and family to the polls. They feared a "nationalized" village election, in which an issue such as gun control spurs turnout of the chronically uninterested. That's what Shore has done.

The uncharismatic Moy was predictably pro-business as mayor. The village's Web site touts the fact that from 2000 to 2005, Loeber Mercedes and Grossinger Toyota expanded and new Dominick's, Lowe's, Kohls, Osco, MB Financial and Studio 41 stores were opened. But Moy opposed the gun range.

Months of fevered behind-the-scenes activity ensued, with pressure on Eisterhold to run. Just days before the December, filing deadline, Turry was recruited back into the contest, but it was too late to run as the Alliance Party candidate. He is on the ballot as an independent, along with trustee candidates Ron Cope and Craig Klatzco (both past Alliance foes) and Jean Ikezoe Halevi. For the first time since 1931, there is no "Proesel party" nominee.

"We had a difference of philosophy," Turry said of Elster and his allies. "They weren't anti-business, but they unnecessarily micromanaged, which wasn't helpful to business." Neither Moy nor Talaganis reflect his vision: "I saw who was running," Turry said. "They are not the right people at the right time. We need balance on the board." Said one Turry backer: "Talaganis will be Elster's puppet. He'll run the village."

Moy said that Turry "has no vision." "There are a lot of issues to be addressed," he said, including sewer capacity, vacant storefronts, and the revitalization of the Devon-Lincoln commercial area. Talaganis, who also opposed the gun range, said that Turry has "not been transparent" and that he "openly advocated" the Shore move before village commissions. "He's not doing a good job," she said.

Elster is less tactful. He ripped Turry as "shortsighted," a "lone wolf," "disrespectful" of trustees, and "hypocritical" because he acts on commission recommendations, not clearing it with trustees. He said that Turry "has lost focus," "won't compromise" and that a "change in leadership is necessary."

Prediction: Talaganis, who also is a former library board president, is no Lydia Cohen. She doesn't polarize. "Everybody likes her," said an observer, while Moy is a "nonentity" who nobody wants back. Gender will be a factor, aiding Talaganis. Outsiders Moy and Talaganis will split the anti-Turry, it's-time-for-a-change vote.

Turry's base is 1,000 votes. The gun issue has hurt. Moy won't get more than 400 votes. If turnout exceeds 2,500, Talaganis wins. If not, Turry survives.