The Shafer Report by Tom Shafer

The first thing Shafer talked about was how everybody has their own gun experience, if your Grandfather took you hunting or if your Dad showed you how to shoot, or if you taught yourself how to shoot. Maybe you ended up with a big gun collection.

Shafer encouraged everyone to write down their own gun experience. Include a lot of descriptive detail, your age, where you were at the time, the climate, whether you lucked out and whether it went good or bad. It doesn't matter, the more descriptive the better. Write it down and we will publish it in GunNews.

It's delightful to see your own story in print. You can fluff it up a little bit as long as you don't outright fabricate it. If your memory is a bit faulty that's ok especially if it was many decades ago. Everyone has a little bit of faulty memory. GunNews needs the personal anecdotes. It makes the paper closer to the people. It makes them think about their own firearms, hunting and outdoor experiences. It doesn't have to be strictly firearms related. Firearms related would be good but it could be some memorable canoe trip where you had a firearm with you, some memorable hunting trip where you did or didn't get your game. Jot it down and over the winter when there is nothing else going on, sit down, proofread it, use spell checker on your computer or whatever you need to do. Read it, let your wife and kid read it until you think, that's pretty good. Punch up the ending of course and make yourself look good and use a lot of description.

Your story will become a nice little tribute to the vast gun experience across America and will look great in print as long as you don't outright make it up as you go along. You'll be very happy that you didn't.

Everyone has at least ten or twelve paragraphs in them. Don't flitter back and forth from one paragraph to the next. Make it all one unified theme such as your first gun outing, your first gun mishap, or maybe someone died and left you their big gun collection. Write it down and let others enjoy your gun experiences.

Veto Session
Of course it's the dead of winter. It was three days two times this month. They're working on the State Capitol so they had it over at the Lincoln Presidential Library Atrium and also the old State Capitol. So Shafer went over there with his pro-gun signs like he usually does. He's restricted at the Capitol because they have a permit process but the permit process wasn't in place because they weren't at the Capitol complex. So he was able to go over there at his leisure and talk to some of the old reps and some of the new reps. They had no gun items on their agenda.

One day there were a hundred people or so there for the electric rate freeze because the electric rate deal is money. A big rate increase and the utilities are regulated in Illinois and the politicians desperately want everyone to think they have a handle on rates and prices and costs and are riding herd over the utilities because of the Commerce Commission. It was all pole-axed up in politics. The utilities and the Cub people had their lobbyists there and the Citizens Utility Board had their people there lobbying the other way to extend the freeze and supposedly save us money.

While that was going on Shafer gave them the sign just to let them know that even though there were no gun items on the agenda, the gun owners haven't gone anywhere. We're as strong now as we've ever been. The democrats realize that if they want to keep control of the Illinois Legislature, they need to keep the anti-gun stuff off the agenda. In fact the state democrats in the senate picked up seats this last election. So they've even more powerful than they were before under President Emil Jones.

Shafer said we still have a lot of work to do. Anythings possible under Blago. Shafer doesn't trust him any further than he could throw him. But its nice to let the legislators know the gun owners are still out there so he certainly did.

Armed Robbery Spree
The last thing Shafer talked about was Gregory Hullum. He is the hardened criminal that went out for three or four days and just robbed everybody. He shot a guy, right across the street (on MacArthur) at the Currency Exchange, in the belly for no reason.

Later Gregory Hullum attempted to rob a drapery store and the two women who worked there. He came in and said "Gimme all your money." They said "We don't have any money, would you like some drapes?"

So this is this ozone this guy was in. Shafer got the rest of the story which he is still researching and of course there's going to be some trials and the guy is facing all kinds of time. Shafer has heard as many as twelve consecutive armed robberies of places that didn't even have any money.

At age seventeen Hullum broke into a woman's house and raped her. He was sentenced to twenty years and did seventeen years. From the time he was 18 until age 35 he had already been in prison for seventeen years. That didn't get his attention or change his life of crime. They let him out and he was still on parole after the seventeen years he did for rape and home invasion when he allegedly committed another series of armed robberies three months ago. They caught him for those and put a $200,000 bond on him.

He bonded out of his three previous armed robberies with his girlfriends money and was right back on the streets. Apparently he figured since he was going to be convicted on these three armed robberies and do tall time, he might as well rob with his pistol until he got caught. It took the authorities six and a half days to catch him.

Shafer said he could write a book on this. This hardened criminal terrified the city of Springfield for days and there was a literal fear across the community caused by one guy on a crime spree. So Shafer is busy obtaining more details on Mr. Hullum along with the police response. The District Attorney is on the defensive now as to why Hullum was ever granted bail.

There are some deals here where he was caught with a firearm. You know what they charge hardened criminal felons who have served seventeen years when they're caught in possession of a firearm? FOID card violation.

So this story like they say in the trade, has legs, this story is going somewhere. There is a huge story here and its a sad story. We not only have a shooting victim but all of the other folks who were terrorized by a hardened criminal holding a gun in their faces.

This guy is the poster child for Concealed Carry. The victim, a working guy with a family, who was shot by Hullum is speaking to Shafer.

It's a huge story and it has handed gun owners a powerful argument for the Concealed Carry issue

An SCRA member commented that when Gregory Hullum was still out running around, television showed the Qik & EZ store out on Monroe Street one evening. The next afternoon this member was in there and the manager happened to be there. The member was talking to him and commented "You know, if we weren't one of two states." The manager caught on right away. The public is already aware that we are one of two states and if they weren't, that was one case to bring it up to make sure.

Shafer said remember, its public opinion at the end of time that passes legislation. Its the public and when they're clamoring for some type of change our way or someone else's way, that talks to these legislators and says "I don't care if the Speaker of the House is against it, my people want this and we're passing some form of this in this session! That's all it takes to put us over the top.

Shafer said he would be a pitiful activist from all his veteran years of activism if gun owners let this Hullum case pass away without using it to our advantage to push our pro concealed carry cause. This guy fell right into our laps.