Quick links:
Key stuff:
* Wikipedia, Gun Laws in Illinois
* Full text of Public Act 102-1116, the Protect Illinois Communities Act, as enacted on January 10, 2023
* The key section of the Protect Illinois Communities Act — What makes a gun an “assault weapon”
* US Court of Appeals 7th Circuit Apr 27 2015: Decision upholding Highland Park’s ban on assault weapons
* The Daily Beast July 12 2017: The Three Worst Arguments Against Gun Control
* Anastasia Writes blog post Feb 15 2018: “F**k You, I Like Guns”
Polls:
* Time Magazine Mar 13 2018: Most Gun Owners Support Stricter Laws — Even NRA Members
* Fox News June 15 2022: Bipartisan majority of voters in favor of stricter gun laws, Fox News poll finds
* CBS News Aug 23 2022: Poll: Most in US say they want stricter gun laws
Gun Violence:
* CNN July 20 2012: Gunman turns ‘Batman’ screening into real-life ‘horror film’ – Wikipedia on the Aurora ‘Dark Knight’ shooting
* Chicago Tribune July 6 2022: New report details missed chances to stop Uvalde school shooting that killed 21
* Rocky Mountain PBS July 20 2022: Remembering the victims of the Aurora theater shooting, 10 years later
* Chicago Tribune Aug 3 2022: These are the victims of the Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park
* New York Times Jan 24 2023: Three really profound letters about gun violence
* New York Times Jan 25 2023: 24 Days Into Year, 69 Deaths in Mass Shootings — ‘Tragedy Upon Tragedy’
* Chicago Tribune Jan 22 2023: The insanity continues – Ten people killed by crazed shooter in Monterey Park California
* Statement by Ranjeev Puri, Majority Whip, Michigan House of Representatives, Feb 14 2023: Full statement on the Michigan State University Shooting. “We do not need to live like this. THe United States is the only country where this happens…Thoughts and prayers without action and change are meaningless.”
* Chicago Tribune Feb 14 2023: 15 years after students were gunned down at NIU, memories remain and school shootings continue in US
* Chicago Tribune Feb 16 2023: Four years after Aurora, mass shooting deaths in Chicago area continue to climb
* New York Times Feb 16 2023: Three Booms. A Masked, Armed Man. How Horror Unfolded in a Michigan State Classroom
* Chicago Tribune Feb 20 2023: Infant girl among 3 dead in I-57 shooting that left 3 others injured
* Chicago Tribune Feb 21 2023: Englewood school mourns boy, 13, dead after I-57 shooting that also killed baby and man
* ABC News Feb 22 2023: How one city cut gun violence in half and may become a model around the country — WATCH THIS, folks, it includes a tremendous 11-minute video on the history and the facts
Guns laws: News about Public Act 102-1116, the Protect Illinois Communities Act, also known as HB 5471:
* Press release from Illinois.Gov January 10, 2023: Gov. Pritzker Signs Legislation Banning Assault Weapons and Sale of High-Capacity Magazines
* Chicago Tribune Jan 10 2023: Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs comprehensive gun bill banning sale of military-style firearms
* Daily Herald Jan 13 2023: Sheriffs draw lines at what they will – and will not – enforce with new weapons law
* Chicago Tribune Jan 15 2023: Illinois’ sweeping firearms ban certain to end up in court, and some experts doubt it will stand (I’m betting it will)
* Lake & McHenry County Scanner Jan 17 2023: First lawsuits filed against Illinois ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban, Calling It Unconstitutional
* Chicago Tribune Jan 18 2023: Illinois State Rifle Association files federal lawsuit over state’s gun ban
* Daily Herald Jan 19 2023: Protecting rights or ignoring the law? McHenry County residents weigh in on possible gun sanctuary
* Chicago Tribune Jan 20 2023: Downstate judge temporarily blocks Illinois gun ban from being enforced on plaintiffs in lawsuit
* Chicago Tribune Jan 23 2023: Lawmakers call on DuPage sheriff to enforce assault weapons ban
* St. Louis NPR Jan 23 2023: Illinois officials preparing further legal defense of state’s assault weapons ban
* Chicago Tribune Jan 24 2023: Hundreds flood DuPage County Board meeting to speak out on sheriff’s statement against enforcing state’s ban on assault weapons
* Chicago Tribune Jan 24 2023: More than 1,000 plaintiffs, including Darren Bailey and 70 firearms dealers, named in lawsuit challenging state gun ban
* Northwest Herald Jan 25 2023: Republican Party of McHenry County pushes for gun sanctuary
* CBS News Jan 24 2023: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker explains and defends the new gun law
* US Council of Mayors Jan 26 2023 — Amicus Brief regarding the lawsuit re the Highland Park assault weapons ban
* MSN & Fox News Feb 16 2023: Oregon judge rules against local Second Amendment sanctuary laws, calling sheriffs who allow them ‘racist’
* ABC7 Chicago Feb 17 2023: Federal judge denies TRO against Illinois assault weapons ban for Naperville gun store owner.
* Chicago Sun-Times Feb 17 2023: Federal judge denies bid to block Illinois assault weapons ban, Naperville gun restriction
* US Federal Court 7th circuit Feb 17 2023: Order denying restraining order against Naperville ordinance.
* AP News Feb 18 2023: Turmoil in courts on gun laws in wake of justices’ ruling
* Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering Feb 21 2023: Statement to the McHenry County Board
* Lauren Bennett Feb 21 2023: Statement to the McHenry County Board
* Northwest Herald Feb 22 2023: McHenry County approves resolution denouncing new state gun ban
* New York Times Feb 27 2023: Where Can You Carry Guns? It’s a Legal Jumble. Toppled New York Law Upends Rules in U.S. (gift)
My take on guns:
Guns are a complicated issue arousing ferocious passions. Here’s my take. Let’s start with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Not very long, and it was written more than two centuries ago, and as to what it means, let me quote the late, great, Republican Supreme Court justice Warren Berger: “The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat fraud, ever perpetrated on the American People by special interests groups (NRA and Gun Manufacturers) that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that State Armies-The Well Regulated Militia-would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was ever intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any weapon of war he or she desires.”
Or let me quote from the 2008 ‘Heller’ decision of the United States Supreme Court: “The Second Amendment Right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
So sorry folks, the second amendment did not come down from on high, it does not mean what the gun radicals think it means. “A well-regulated militia,” not free-range, unrestrained individuals. It does not guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any weapon of war he or she desires. It does not allow you to carry a machine gun into a courthouse nor onto an airplane. The right is limited, situational, and subject to regulation.
Okay, so what should be the laws relating to guns?
The normal argument for allowing a personal right to firearms is self-defense, the obvious truth that police can’t be everywhere and sometimes people are attacked and sometimes people with firearms are indeed able to defend themselves or others. You see the signs sometimes as you drive on Illinois highways – “guns save lives.”
I cannot, and do not, argue with this, and indeed I possess a (securely locked up) firearm myself, although I’m a somewhat accidental gun owner. I’ve lived most of my life in safe neighborhoods, guns were not a thing in my world. But as Y2K approached, my wife (a wonderful woman, now deceased, prone to leaping to conclusions) decided it was something she wanted us to have, and so we visited our local firearms emporium, did the whole NRA firearms course thing, obtained our official State of Illinois FOI (firearm owners ID) cards, carefully selected a weapon, plunked down the credit card, etc. I took it to the range once, and it’s been locked up ever since. Part of me wants to get rid of it (responsibly, by turning it in to my local police department for safe disposal), as I can’t imagine it ever actually being useful, but what the heck, I already own it, and who knows, so for now I’m keeping it.
Okay, so fine, if you want firearm(s) for personal protection or hunting or target shooting, fine, you can have them. Provided that you’re a responsible, law abiding, adult, citizen, and subject to reasonable restrictions enacted for the safety of us all. (If I’m hiking in the Alaska wilderness with bears and wolves around, I definitely want a member of my party to have an appropriate firearm and know how to use it.)
What are those reasonable restrictions? The details can be found in the Wikipedia article, Gun Laws in Illinois.
First, open carry is not allowed. You can’t go to the grocery store with a sidearm on your hip or a rifle over your shoulder. The rest of us don’t feel safe when we see people walking around with guns. Are they crazy? nuts? criminals? going to shoot us? The only people I want walking around visibly carrying guns are police officers. They’re the ones I trust to keep us safe.
But if you really do feel you need a firearm when you go out in the world to keep you safe, that’s fine — you can get a concealed carry license. Per Wikipedia, “The state police issue licenses for the concealed carry of handguns to qualified applicants age 21 or older who pass a 16-hour training course. However, any law enforcement agency can object to an individual being granted a license ‘based upon a reasonable suspicion that the applicant is a danger to himself or herself or others, or a threat to public safety’. Objections are considered by a Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board, which decides whether or not the license will be issued, based on ‘a preponderance of the evidence’.” Seems reasonable to me. I trust our Illinois State Police to determine if someone is a nutcase, a criminal or not.
There’s a long, long list of places where carrying concealed firearms is not allowed, for obvious reasons. Courts, prisons, jails, government buildings. “Nuclear facilities” for heavens sake. Schools, colleges, universities, daycare facilities, hospitals, stadiums, amusement parks, concerts, places where a lot of booze is being sold. If you can’t see it, I feel sorry for you. Let’s just say that combining drunks and guns is really, really dangerous.
And any private property owner may prohibit carrying concealed weapons on their private property, just by posting a sign. And I’m glad that they can and I’m glad that they do. When I go to the gym I’m relieved to know it’s a weapons-free space.
And now, with the passage of House Bill 5471, the Protect Illinois Communities Act, on January 10, 2023, Illinois has banned new sales of “assault rifles.” Here’s the full text as enacted: https://ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/102/PDF/102-1116.pdf
The weapons for which new sales are being banned — “assault weapons” — are really mass killing machines.
As Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg said (Daily Herald Jan 13 2023): “Assault-style rifles are nothing more than killing machines, and they have no place in a civilized society … Our founding fathers were not loading .223 rounds into their muskets. They were not using firearms designed to disintegrate human bodies. As I said following the Highland Park mass shotting, these weapons of wear do not belong on our streets. They’re used to kill our police, used to kill innocent people and used to inflict maximum carnage on their victims.”
What makes a gun an assault weapon? Especially, it’s the ability to kill large numbers of people in a very short time. A detachable magazine. Or a fixed magazine holding more than ten shots (for a rifle), fifteen shots (for a pistol), or five shots for a shotgun. A shroud allowing you to keep on holding and firing the thing without getting burned, even after its barrel is red hot after firing dozens of shots. Et cetera. Read the law for the details.
Also banned are devices that can convert a semi-automatic gun into fully automatic fire, or ammunition feeding devices like belt feeders. Note: machine guns — ones with fully automatic fire — have long been banned.
Remember: In Highland Park the shooter shot 83 bullets in less than 60 seconds ! That’s what we’re talking about when we say, “assault weapons.”
And also banned are any .50 caliber rifle. Fifty caliber. You’ve seen them — the really long bullets. What’s used in a sniper rifle that can kill at vast distances. Super high powered — much much more than standard ammo. Bullets that don’t just shred tissue, they liquefy it. Bullets for which it is the ultimate horror to be shot by.
For Illinois residents who already lawfully possess any of the weapons for which new sales are banned. You can keep them, if you want, provided you submit an online affidavit through the same State of Illinois website where you manage your FOI card, indicating each such gun’s make, model and serial number. You’ve got a year to do so. Intentionally lying on one of these is perjury, and noncompliance with the registration requirement is a violation of the Firearms Owner ID Act. And you can only transfer the weapon to an heir (you died owning it), a person from another state, or a federally licensed firearms dealer, and the state police have to be notified of the transfer.
Law-abiding firearm radicals: Note that the law actually protects you, as it creates a “rebuttable presumption” that you’re entitled to possess and own the thing.
To me, it’s an entirely reasonable law. Firearms for self-defense but not firearms for mass killing. I hope you agree. We’ll see what the courts opine. Note: Illinois now makes it nine states with such laws, we’re not alone.
I’m writing this in late January 2023, remembering the 21 killed at school in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022, the 7 killed and dozens injured in Highland Park on July 4, 2022, and after the California shootings killing 10 in Monterey Park on January 21 and 7 in Half Moon Bay on January 23. Who can keeep track of it all? This is a good law, it will help reduce the flood of these weapons of war on our streets. I hope you agree.
To get involved, please visit both the Facebook page of Moms Demand Action Illinois (sign up there), and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (momsdemandaction.org), to sign up and contribute. And another great organization to support and be involved with is Sandy Hook Promise, founded by parents of the 20 kids killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on Friday, December 14, 2012.
Jan 22 2023 – Monterey Park CA: “The tragedy marked not just the fifth mass killing in the U.S. since the start of the year but also the deadliest since May 24, when 21 people were killed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. The database also shows that 2022 was also one of the nation’s worst years in terms of mass killings, with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed not including the perpetrator.”