On January 10, 2023, the Illinois legislature, in the near-final moments of the legislative session, completed work on HB 5855, the Protect Illinois Communities Act, and Governor Pritzker immediately signed the bill before a huge crowd of supporters in the Capitol rotunda. The law bans new sales of assault weapons and requiring existing owners of such firearms to register them with the state police within a year. Illinois became the ninth state with such a ban. Here’s the Tribune article.
The guns being banned are not your plain old ordinary handgun, rifle, shotgun, et cetera. They are the modern day weapon of war, mass killing machines with which one individual can mow down dozens in a trice, inflicting wounds which liquefy internal organs, ripping bodies to shreds. Surgeons who treat trauma victims have commented on this. To be shot by one of these is the ultimate horror. And the list of such horrors goes on and on. It happened right here, just six months ago, to people I know, in Highland Park, July 4, 2022. It has been happening anywhere in America, over and over, for years now. Gun radicals, I feel for you, but the second amendment did not come down from on high, and whatever it has been interpreted to mean, it is not absolute, and it was never intended to let psychos commit mass murder.
Contrary to the fears of the gun advocates, no existing weapon will be confiscated, but people who do own such instruments of mass destruction will have a year to register them with the state police. This is a reasonable compromise. Nobody is disputing the rights of law-abiding citizens to own firearms for personal protection and sport. But firearms are just like cars and driving, they’re both a right and a privilege, subject to reasonable restrictions to protect the public safety. And in the wake of the many mass shootings and ongoing gun violence plaguing us, it’s time to say: enough is enough.
Thank you Illinois Democrats (there were only two Republicans who voted for the bill), this is one important step towards ending the plague of gun violence. The gun radicals are of course going to sue — or have they not already? Fine, let them sue, the courts will sort it out, hopefully on the side of sanity, but who knows?
In the meantime, our local gun radicals are pushing a resolution in the McHenry County Board to make our beautiful county a “gun sanctuary”, in effect, declaring that the county will defy lawful requirements of our state and federal governments. Unconstitutional, of course, but that doesn’t seem to bother the radicals. In any event, it’s important that we attend upcoming county board meetings, so that common sense will prevail. They’re coming up this Tuesday January 17th at 7:00 pm (a general meeting of the board), Tuesday January 31st at 8:30 am (a meeting of the Law & Government Committee at which the resolution will be considered), and Tuesday February 21st at 7 pm (a full meeting, where the resolution will be voted on, I am told.) Your presence and your voice (any member of the public may address the board during the public comment period for what is usually up to three minutes) are vital, please plan on coming out if possible. They’re all at the county administration building at 667 Ware Road in Woodstock, and are normally quite civilized affairs, so not to worry there, and you won’t be alone. And of course if you can’t make it, you can watch the proceedings live on the McHenry County Meeting Portal.
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.