Contacts I have in the Land of Lincoln indicate the attack from the anti-gun folks is far broader than initially indicated.
- There is a shooting range bill that would essentially shut down most recreational shooting in the state, and bring the remainder under strict regulation.
- There is a magazine ban. The grandfathering is practically non-existent for existing magazines. Transfer is not possible except to an heir or out of state. Magazines must be registered to be legal.
- There is a lost & stolen requirement for magazines. Do you know where all your magazines are? I don’t. I haven’t even counted. Why? Because it’s a box with a spring.
- The assault weapons ban is charitably worse than Feinstein’s. Basically if it’s not grandpa’s deer rifle, it’s pretty much illegal. It will outlaw just about all popular semi-automatic firearms. What about .50BMG? Can’t have those either. Grandfathering is as non-existent as it is for magazines. Registration is required for them to be legal, only transferrable to heirs or out of state.
- The anti-gun folks in Illinois also seem to believe the only legitimate sport shooting is Olympic shooting. The rest of us who do other shooting sports, sanction by NRA, USPSA, or IDPA can get bent, apparently.
So if you’re in Illinois, get calling. Get your friend to call too. Know an old guy that has an M1 Carbine or two he thinks are safe? Get him involved too, because the M1 could be affected. We have to stop them here. It was inevitable that the Chicago machine would lash out after losing so badly in Court, but we have to stop them here. Illinois gun owners are now at the front line of the first battle in what’s going to be an awful, multi-year war.
The goal here is to throw everything at us, wear us down, and keep wearing us down until we capitulate; until people are so tired of calling and writing, that we stop doing it. Are we going to let them do that to us? We have to stop each and every one of these.
I would say let it pass. Everyone seems to think that the place to file challenges to gun laws is in the 4th and 5th circuits but the 7th seems to be the best place right now. If I had to fight the awb bills anywhere, I would want to fight it there.
This could end up being a major strategic blunder on the gun-banner’s part.
Let this stuff pass? Really?
I can see a reasonable expectation that some of it the basically bans everything would be turned over by the courts, but that’s far less likely with the magazine bans and shutting down gun clubs. With that last move, they kill the shooting sports culture in the state. With no where to shoot, shooting doesn’t get passed down and soon no heirs even want the magazines or guns you might leave them.
In order to get a single win in court, you want to destroy the entire gun culture. What’s the point if there is no gun culture left to practice those rights?
I meant that rhetorically. I didn’t mean sit on our asses. I meant more like “Let it pass and see it backfire on them.”
Let it pass and let Chicago burn. Only a handful of people worth their salt in that city, anyway.
You do realize that there is more to the state of Illinois than the single city of Chicago, right? Because the state has one city that poses serious problems for gun owners, you want to see the entire state full of gun owners suffer? That’s just wrong. And it just goes to prove that when the other side tries to divide and conquer on our issue, they win. Look at how quickly you encourage letting such horrible laws pass just to punish one city you don’t like.
Well, at least we know where you stand. Thanks for nothing. If they win here and then follow their strategy of using Chicago as a base to retake Illinois, then using Illinois as a safe haven from which to roll back all the progress we’ve made in the last 20 years, don’t bother calling me. I’ll be too busy in Illinois to help anywhere else by then.
I have expressed this sentiment here before, but jeez it must be awful to live in a blue state. No one in our legislature, democrat or republican would dare propose such a thing. It really would be unthinkable
The big thing we have to worry about is a magazine ban. Not that the other stuff isn’t for real, it is… but the magazine ban I think is going to be the tough nut to crack.
I agree. Trying to defend why we need 30 rounds is a lot tougher than arguing on “assault weapons”
Still don’t see how this squares will Heller and the recent decision requiring carry laws in Illinois.
But it does take some balls to introduce this.
I’d also note that I would not expect the courts to save us on the magazine issue.
How the hell are they going to register something that doesn’t have any identifying info on it?
I’d answer that question, but it might give them ideas. So I won’t. Let’s just say that just because it doesn’t have identifying info on it now…well…who knows what could be done to it in the future?
This is why Rahm has kept the murder rate up.
If any of this passes it will be real. How many IL owners will turn in their high capacity magazines or banned weapons? How many will fight this no matter what it takes? Times about up to decide where you stand.
“How the hell are they going to register something that doesn’t have any identifying info on it?”
They can register it by the type of gun it pertains to as well as caliber and capacity. You’ll go to jail for not having the registration paper that matches the description, unless you’re the host of “Meet the Press”.
Commenter Link
Edited by Bitter – Please leave links in a way that doesn’t screw up the formatting of everyone else’s comments.
Two key parts:
1) It appears that this bill means you must obtain a FOID to even rent a firearm at a range. I do not know if this is already the case, but I doubt it.
2) Most of the “assault rifle” definitions are pretty standard, but this is a problem:
“(C-2) a semi-automatic rifle or a pistol with the capacity to accept a detachable magazine, a muzzle brake, or muzzle compensator;”
The exclusive use of “or” without any “and” could be interpreted to mean any one of those, therefore, any semi-auto with a detachable magazine is an assault weapon. Maybe that’s paranoid, but I wouldn’t put it past them to sneak something in like that.
Technically already the case. You can probably get by with it if you are a minor and you are under the direct supervision of someone 21+ (preferably related to you).
If you are 18-21 you can’t get a FOID without your parent/legal guardian’s signature on the application. If they won’t give you one, you’re SOL (ask me how I know).
I did shoot once or twice at Scout camp. No FOID but the rangemaster had one. Probably legally fine b/c they were pretty anal about that sort of thing (mid to late 1990’s).
Sebation, could you please post some specifics from the bill if you have them. It is very hard to get people motivated without specifics (I am speaking of family members and those marginally in the gun world).
When I have brought up this bill to 3 different people (all slightly pro 2A) and all three would not believe that such a bill would be possible.
Specifics would REALLY help.
NukemJim
PS I live in Illinois.
Hey everyone, google: Donald Kaul (liberal columnist) wants NRA members dead and other terroristic threats and you’ll see this has gotten “personal.”
What do you want to bet this jerk doesn’t get prosecuted for calling for the terroristic dragging deaths of Republican leaders, alá David Gregory and his magazine crime ?
Found it.
We’ll ‘pry guns from cold, dead fingers’ – Columnist proposes killing NRA members, dragging Republicans behind pickups
Thanks Ronnie! I can’t cut and paste using my iPhone, so I really appreciate you posting the link!
– Arnie
Do you think that the state police are in with this? They would have to protect the treasonous pols, and then enforce confiscation? If I was a LEO in this state I would not want to get anywhere near this.
I think you mostly answered your question. Subtract the higher up political types, the occasional anti-RKBA lower level types, and the criminals in Chicago Police Department uniforms (sometimes in the entirely literal sense) and I wouldn’t expect much support.
I deliberately did not include a detailed analysis, because at this time I don’t want to help them learn how to write better legislation. The answer has to be a resounding no, on all of it.
But suffice it to say the people who suggest this is a generic semi-auto ban are not off-base in their analysis. It’s that effin bad.
Look at the County’s response in Wilson v. Cook county. Given the Amicus brief my org submitted, they knew they had no chance to argue otherwise. Their entire response could be boiled down to “SA = FA, guns bad. ‘m kay?”
This is why they are going for broke because they know the original AWB was useless and easily worked around and anything that didn’t go after SA as a class was destined to be laughed at. They will either get this through the courts or they won’t.
Oh, and pump action too, just in case you were thinking it was just semi-auto.
I wonder if the fudds wake up on this one. Nah, won’t happen.
If it passes it will, or at least for the repeating shotgun set, but assuming it doesn’t (which I gather is the way to bet), it’ll be over before they know it.
As a non-Illini, I can’t have much direct effect. But I can promise that if it passes, I will boycott all Illinois businesses. Since I don’t live near Illinois, my boycott will be mostly Internet based. Any company based in Illinois I will do my best to avoid doing business with (Boeing will be tough to avoid), as well as not spending a dime in Illinois if I have cause to go through there.
The problem is not the Illinois businesses, it’s the politicians and particularly the Chicago Politicians. If you’re going to boycott anyone boycott the City of Chicago. Apparently they aren’t happy with screwing up their own city, now they want to control the entire State so they can ruin it for the rest of us too. Remember until recently Chicago banned handguns, and they still have some of the toughest Gun Laws and even so had 500 gun related murders last year, which was more than the year before. Aurora, IL the second largest city in IL had 0… yes ZERO murders in 2012. They didn’t make tougher gun laws, they enforced the laws already on the books, did sweeps against street gangs with the help of federal agencies. The third largest City Rockford, had 14 homicides. Looking at Per Capita Chicago is about 1 murder per 5,700, Aurora less than 1 per 200,000 and Rockford at 1 per 11,350 residents. Chicago gun control techniques are a failure, and this ban if passed, will endanger citizens across the entire state.