Thirdpower points to some campaign flyers for candidates in Illinois that are basically trying to scare voters into thinking machine guns are legal in Illinois (they aren’t) and that clearly we need to ban them.
At best, Representative Kathy Ryg is completely ignorant about what she proposes to regulate, and at worst is lying and deliberately misleading her constituents.
We here in Illinois have a really tough uphill battle. At least in Southern Illinois, where Don Gwinn and Thirdpower reside, the cultural view is more accepting. Up here, close to Chicago, things are much much tougher: The Chicago machine blocks you, the rich guilty-feeling folks block you, and it is tougher to “punish” your representatives for going off the rails.
Hell, witness Mark Kirk: He’s supposed to be a Republican, but is rabidly anti-gun and most of the grassroots Sportsmen’s and Shooting organizations in Lake Co. have been trying to get enough support to get this guy ousted for years to no effect.
sigh…
We’re trying, and with the recent media attention and legal victories, things are getting better: people come to events, they shoot with us, etc… But, some of the good ‘ol boys clubs just don’t have a good way to communicate/manage their membership – ISRA springs to mind: they’re pretty disorganized when it comes to the northern half of the state.
For the past few months, I’ve been trying to architect an IT solution that runs our public-facing blog, manages our membership rosters, automates flyers and event notices, etc. Hopefully, at some point I can actually get more folks involved – or at least in front of their eyes when campaign flyers like that hit.