Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois


Jim Butler



Illinois:  Welcome to the Last State Without Right-to-Carry

by Jim Butler President, SCRA
August 2011 GunNews

 



Illinois is the last state that denies its law abiding citizens the right to legally carry a handgun to protect themselves and their families from violent, predatory criminals.

Chicago has had some of the most restrictive gun control regulations in the state, and has fought the hardest against right-to-carry.

Ironically urban areas like Chicago are the very places that benefit the most from non-discretionary handgun permit laws.  Violent crime rates fall the mos in these areas of dense population and concentrations of minorities with carry permit laws.

This shouldn't be too surprising since law-abiding citizens in these areas must fend for themselves to a great extent for their families' own protection.

Nobody should be required to surrender his or her life, health, safety, personal dignity or give up their property to a criminal, nor should a victim be required to retreat in the face of attack.  Citizens have a right to expect safety within their own homes and vehicles.

Women also benefit more than men in states with right-to-carry laws.  Carrying a handgun increases a woman's ability to defend herself from bigger and stronger men.  Right-to-carry also allows handicapped and seniors to better defend against attack.

Courts have judged time and time again that you have no right to police protection.  You are on your own and police may arrive after a threat is ended, or even after you are dead,

Police are merely historians for the most part, and if they are lucky might even solve the crime.  Nothing obligates them to be there when you need them -- even if you or your estate can show in court that the police knew you were in danger.

Take away the means of self-defense and every other right becomes irrelevant.  If you can't defend yourself or the lives of your family, then your property rights are meaningless, as are rights to religious observance, speech, or press. Your right to a jury trial or to be free from cruel and unusual punishment are irrelevant if you are dead!

Illinois, led by Chicago politicians, in depriving it's law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves.  This is not "civilized" but barbarous, and these anti-self-defense politicians are effectively accomplices of murderers, rapists and thugs. 

It reveals these politicians' totalitarian nature as they accept the disorganized random havoc created by criminals as less of a threat to them than law-abiding men and women who are willing to defend their freedom and independence.

As the last holdout to concealed carry in the nation, it is time for Illinois to enter the 21st century and pass a non-discretionary concealed-carry law that allows law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families.

No state that has passed concealed carry has ever repealed it!





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