Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
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 Legislative News Tom Shafer SCRA Meeting, April 4, 2005 May 2005 GunNews There are forty (40) full gun bills pending in the Illinois legislature since the Hale Demar victory. Remember Hale Demar was the suburban Wilmette home owner who shot an intruder who broke into his home twice. Demar was successful in getting the intruder stopped and the guy is now doing tall time for burglary and home invasion. However the city where Mr. Demar lived decided to prosecute him for having an illegal firearm. All the pro-gun groups raised holy heck about it. As a result the Illinois legislature passed a bill that said if you're using your gun in self-defense you cannot be prosecuted by your municipality. Governor Blagojevich vetoed it and the legislature over rode his veto in a huge number for an override. The national press picked up on it as a huge defeat which shows that they really only care about their anti-gun laws and they don't care about your homes and families at all. We made a lot of headway on it. After that victory the pro-gun groups said if the legislature helped us on that, maybe they will help us on a multitude of others, preemption, Concealed Carry, FOID card changes, changes in the age for FOID cards and a lot of rifle and hand gun hunting bills. So we are going to see its actually smart to see how far the legislature will help us. We're pushing them for a lot of this legislation. The bills are in every type of committee in the House and the Senate and it is impossible to follow them all unless you live up at the Capitol. There are forty of them pending. I'll follow the important ones and see what passes obviously and what comes up an inch short and I 'll give you a report back on how we did for this session. In a side issue, we are now so far ahead that Daley and Blagojevich are pointing fingers at each other saying; "Why didn't
you call us and tell
us this bill was coming up?"
"Well your
state police showed up and supported the dang thing".
"Well we
didn't do that without you". "You're not even on
the same page and you've got all the big staff and
you're supposed to
call us."
Daley
shot back;
"These are the
most important bills in the
legislature and you should have been following them and its not my
job to call you every day." So they're really happy with each other right now and I'm sitting back wishing I could whip them both with a branch. So they're in disarray and we're celebrating a huge victory with Hale Demar and all these other bills coming out of a democratic legislative committee and they're clearly on the ropes in the legislature. Now whether that will translate into Governor Blagojevich signing anything meaningful I don't know. We are moving ahead and its harder to get Concealed Carry because of the power Chicago has with so much population that their representative numbers are getting enormous. I can't remember for sure but its something like the first fifty to sixty-five rep seats are out of Chicago and the suburbs. So its tough to get anything passed but on we roll so be sure to keep writing the letters and making the calls. Its very important to keep your legislators informed that the pro-gun issue is not going to go away. I think you're seeing a big shift now in the media. They're realizing that it clearly cost them their last presidential election as well as both houses in the legislature and they're not going to get either house back with the nationwide democrats pushing anti-gun stuff. Even they're gotten off of it because they realize its a loser politically. Actually even though they're never going to say so in the Associated Press, the national news or the network news "Hey the gun people are winning and they were right all along." But we are winning and we have been right all along. I realize that people say they will call or write a letter and usually they don't write a letter and they don't call either because its so hard to manipulate the maize to try to get the actual person they want to talk to or even his secretary through the State of Illinois phone system. It's a real struggle. If you're not practiced up at it you'll get frustrated in five minutes, mad in ten minutes and you'll quit within fifteen minutes. So its a skill. You have to practice up at it. Southern Illinois democrats pushed the Hale Demar bill over the top by some huge numbers. They are carrying water for us in the house side for Concealed Carry. There has been quite a changeover with a lot of new legislators. A lot of senators and representatives have retired, passed away or just decided not to run. They've had enough because they have clearly seen that their time has passed. I think if they're seeing that, the media is finally recognizing it. They might have to grit their teeth and say "Hey, the gun people are winning." But clearly we are. I do know one thing. There is absolutely no hope for a semi-auto ban or anything like that. You can forget about it. You would hear the southern Illinois democrats screaming all the way from Shawnee National Forest. That would cost them all their jobs and they realize that. So those types of worries about any of the Daley anti-gun package passing are unfounded because they will not occur. The senate president took a couple of his bills, which are Daley's bills, through the executive committee which he totally owns and getting a bill out of that committee means absolutely nothing. It will go nowhere on a floor vote. In fact it will be amended so many times it will probably never make it to a floor vote and the chances of passing the house are zero or even getting it out of the house committee. So he can play games parliamentary wise in the Senate or however he wants it, but it means absolutely nothing statewide. And they all know that. You can see the logical progression in Concealed Carry. Retired police see the logic and wisdom in Concealed Carry. Judges and prosecutors see the logic and wisdom in Concealed Carry. Eventually it will fall from the tree like ripe fruit. It will come to the people as well. Hey, our lives and our families lives are just as important as theirs. We want to be safe as well. We just had a terrible incident in Springfield a week and a half ago, the Leonard Lindner murder. This fellow who was a Korean War veteran, spent twenty years driving a city bus, never hurt a soul, was enjoying his retirement years. Seven thirty at night Easter Sunday on the east side of town he was murdered for absolutely no reason in an attempted car jacking. Lindner was what I call John Q. Citizen. In the 1950's if you murdered John Q. Citizen they electrocuted you. They caught you, they convicted you, gave you the death penalty and they carried it out. John Q. Citizens are the guys who are the bread and butter of our society. Guys that served in the military, then put in a twenty year career, raised their families and are now enjoying their retirement. They don't deserve this kind of ending! Lindner had no Concealed Carry, no way to defend himself. The suspect is a twenty year old minority kid with an obviously illegal firearm and Mr. Lindner is deceased so I'm going to wait and see if it becomes a Concealed Carry issue because of course we have a dead good guy and we have a thug with a firearm. I hate to use these types of dreadful incidents to pursue an agenda. However the other side does it. You can bet if there was a mass shooting the other side would be clamoring why can't we do something about the guns every time something dreadful happens. But here something dreadful happened and the good guy took one on the chin and nobody is standing up for him. There was no outrage publicly whatsoever, not on the national news, not on the local news, or in the paper or any other media about the death of this good guy. But if they're going to use these type of incidents against us, we certainly ought to go on the offensive because certainly we're running with the ball right now. Hale Demar broke it for us and got us in. The anti-gunners will tell you "We like you, we just want to control crime." However, Demar wasn't a criminal. This guy was a homeowner and his own village took him to court trying to get him thrown in jail and, he wasn't even safe in his own home. Simply because he supposedly violated one of their little municipal laws which was a handgun ban. It just goes to show you they'll put their laws ahead of you and your families safety. I called up their lawyer and asked him if he gave any money to the felon's defense fund and he blew up. I said well thats how y ou sound in public, you're prosecuting your own citizen, your own homeowner who pays taxes part of which in fact goes to pay this lawyers salary. We had another conversation, a week or so later I think, where the entire tone was different. I believe, although I'm not sure, that some of the comments I made started this lawyer to thinking about who he was, his position in life and what tacks he had been put into by his lawyers position of having to prosecute this Demar guy who was really just defending home and hearth against this thug who was a repeat felon with all kinds of previous felony convictions. It was shocking how much of a criminal he was and I said, It even sounds like you want the criminals to win. I said you really ought to look at your position. So in between all the caustic comments that we went back and forth with, I believe he started thinking about it and it got under his skin. So we're winning the battle I guess one lawyer at a time. Clearly we are moving ahead. In fact we are now one of only four states, Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin and Kansas that have no form of Concealed Carry. Wisconsin is teetering. There was a law passed that they declared unconstitutional messed up in the courts but clearly the Wisconsin legislature is for Concealed Carry and its a constitutional question right now. If you're interested in Concealed Carry, get Pennsylvania's license first, you don't need anything else except twenty dollars, and mail it in. Then get New Hampshire's which is another twenty spot and after those two get Florida's. With those three licenses you'll be recognized and legal to carry a concealed firearm in thirty-nine states. It will cost you about $175 total and thats good for five years. From the Capitol Index Return to SCRA Home Page |