Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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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 FOID, Fairness, and Pfleger Tom Shafer commentary SCRA Meeting July 2, 2007 August 2007 GunNews Tom Shafer speaking at the July 2, 2007 SCRA Meeting Next Shafer recognized his two pages in GunNews that covered him like a tent saying he almost felt guilty. Who should he pay to keep it fair?? So he thanked everyone, the people at Champaign who publish GunNews, the people who edit and compose it, the people who distribute it, the people who advertise in it and those who allow members to put it into their facilities where it can reach the public. The new people at tonight's meeting all said they read about our organization in GunNews. Shafer said we are trolling constantly to encourage new members with fresh ideas in order to succeed at our chosen path. Members gave a round of applause to everyone involved with GunNews magazine. Shafer congratulated Mary Ann Young who finally received her FOID card after approximately five months. The state police said she was just lost in the system! Mary Ann said her $5.00 check cleared her bank on January 29, 2007 and she just received her FOID card two weeks ago. The state police swore to us that issuing a FOID card would never take more than 30 days. But Mary Ann's FOID card is dated February 1, 2007. Mary Ann waited almost five months for her FOID card. Shafer said his son's card took 69 days. Shafer wants to have faith in the bureaucracy but when he hears this kind of stories about a woman whose criminal record is clear, background clear, difficulty 0, conflicts with the police 0, a law that she is just exercising her God given Second Amendment Constitutionally enumerated right and it takes five months. They never apologized, they never explained, they never said "sorry", nothing. They just said "It just got lost in the system!!!" Oops, there went her rights for five months, thank goodness she didn't have a stalker at her back door, an enraged ex-husband, a mean boyfriend or a jealous tenant, someone who was actually wanting to do her damage as she couldn't own and protect herself for that entire five months. "Sorry, it just got lost in the system!!!" So congratulation to Mary Ann. She deserves that much. When that same FOID card system was passed in 1967, they said, "Its the only gun law we'll ever need for this state, it will work to keep guns out of the hands of criminals." These are direct quotes from the debate in 1967. It was passed after the assassinations nationwide. They said, "We will institute a FOID card system that will keep guns out of the hands of felons, you have to get the card, it will only take 30 days and it will only cost five bucks. Don't worry a bit, it will go great. It will go great and that will solve all of our crime problems." Thats the ridiculous rhetoric they gave us in 1967. Now we evolve to 2007 where the nicest lady in the world, Mary Ann, has to wait five months to exercise her rights. Shafer said there is nothing happening at the state. They're so involved with the one month budget, no budgets and all kinds of budget overtime problems that gun legislation is not even on their radar screen. Shafer reminded everyone again that any legislature that can make a 10-round ban can make a 6-round ban, a 4-found ban or even a 2-round ban, any arbitrary number they can pick out of thin air. So whatever your difficulties are, if you can't solve them with two rounds, they've only giving you 2-rounds, or only giving you 4-rounds, or whatever they think that you ought to have. The philosophy Shafer brings to the program movement is that its not about what they think, its about what gunowners think and what we allow them to do, not what they think they are going to do to us. Thats the constant ideological struggle that we go through. The McCarthy bill, HR2640, the NICS "Improvement" system. Its an improvement alright, an improvement of their bureaucratic power and a huge lessoning of your rights. When they told you about the Child Abuse Bill, they were going to expand on child abuse so that these horribly neglectful abusive despicable parents that torture, starve, neglect and abuse their children, could be caught and their children taken away and put into good homes. Everyone was for it but what it evolved into was some pseudo state DCFS woman waits in the bushes while you walk to get your mail and leave your child for 13 seconds alone in your house. "Oh, I gotcha on abusive parent." That's what the law evolved into. The way the bill is stated is much different than the way its put into real enactment. The McCarthy bill is sinister. It you take a prozac because you're going through a difficult divorce and they can prove that, there go your gun rights forever. Thats the difference between the way the law is stated with all its lofty goals and all its lofty language, the NICS "Improvement" system. The slightest hint that you want to go talk to a therapist about your recent job loss, your recent divorce or the recent death of your beloved grandmother. Oops, there go your gun rights forever. Took a prozac? There go your gun rights out the window. Thats the reality. Don't ever buy it for a minute, it is sinister legislation that has to be stopped! Gun owners in America are smart, all eighty million of us. The NRA columnists are smart. The people over in New Jersey who have been fighting this fight for years are smart. A very smart man Shafer met along the way was involved in Washington state's pro-gun struggle. He now runs Washington state's pro-gun movement and has written several books. We are always going to outsmart the anti-gunners, they are never going to outsmart us. They are never going to be able to write a bill with some pseudo lofty language that we are not going to be able to see the reality of. They are never going to be able to outsmart us, ever. Shafer is going to go online at Thomas.gov and get the actual reading of HR2640 to see what's in it and he will bring it to our next meeting. The fairness doctrine. Everyone has listened to the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news for all those decades of Jennings, Brokaw and Rather, how they troweled out that swill of leftist propaganda where every story was a anti-gun story. They did a poll, a Lexis Nexis search of all their stories on firearms. Of 190 gun stories, 182 of them were anti-gun. Shafer watched all their evening news for all those decades trying to become more informed on gun issues, listening to all the stories that Connie Chung, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather put out, every one of them a vile, bilious anti-gun diatribe. And they said, "Oh thats fine, thats fair". But now talk radio and the right wing has changed everything. The talk radio messages out there now are huge. On the blogs, on the internet and on talk radio, it has changed radio from the way we knew it and the right wing now has a voice, oftentimes a pro-gun voice. Now what you hear from Washington is, "Oh, we've got to have a fairness doctrine, you're not telling the other side!" Where were these guys for twenty-five years when Dan Rather was swilling it out with a big spoon trying to get us to lap it up? Where was the fairness doctrine talk then?? Oh that was fine, they were being totally fair. The right-wing gets a voice for ten seconds and they're screaming fairness doctrine. Don't buy it for one moment!!! They absolutely can't stand it that we go around them and we still get our pro-gun message out. They will use any method fair or unfair to try to shut us up. Rich Miller used to send out a daily fax called "Rich Miller's Capitol Fax". He now has a column in the Illinois Times newspaper. When Shafer was actively over at the State House, he and Miller saw each other on a regular basis. Miller's mother-in-law writes letters to the editor of the Journal Register. Her name is Diane Greenholt. At least ten years ago, when the Journal Register had been running a series on hunting because it was in the fall, Diane Greenholt wrote a letter one month about a anti-hunting diatribe that said, "Shoot a nerd, save the herd." Shafer called the Journal and said," That's a threat, that's deliberately saying shoot a hunter and you ran that. That's disgusting, that ought to be criminal, that should have been edited out and you should quit printing all of her letters. Is she being sarcastic? It didn't sound like she was being sarcastic. It sounded like she was being serious, that she wanted you to shoot a hunter to give out her kind of blatant anti-hunting message." And sure enough, they got off of it. They wrote and said they were not going to run any such messages anymore and they made her apologize. Later on, Diane Greenholt was at the Capitol to meet up with her son-in-law and Shafer said to her, "Are you the lady that wrote that letter that said, "shoot a nerd, save the herd? My dad was a hunter. Are you talking about shooting my dad and my grandfather?" She said something like, "You mean gun guys are just horrible." Shafer said, "Yes when you write a letter like that you'll find me downright unpleasant." Shafer has never read Miller's column and has never subscribed to his fax. But if it had ever had a pro-gun message in it, Shafer guarantees that someone would have sent it to him because Shafer has been immersed in the pro-gun culture for a long time. If Miller had ever put in one pro-gun deal, Shafer would listen to him because now Miller is talking about Kotowski throwing these threats back and forth and the state police showing up on somebody's doorstep. Shafer thought I'll be darn, that old Miller finally jumped into the pro-gun, anti-gun politics in Springfield. Shafer always likes to find out what's behind the scenes. So that's the behind the scenes story of Rich Miller. Anybody who's had any association with Diane Greenholt for any length of time, Shafer wouldn't believe anything they had to say, he wouldn't even believe them if they said, "Good Morning." Since Miller's column was written, Jackson and Pfleger were arrested outside of this Riverdale gun shop. It's really ironic. Shafer has been called, Redneck, Throwback, Clansman, Skinhead, Gun Nut, and Psycho, and those are just the ones that are not outright profanity, just because he has tried to deliver a consistent pro-gun message. Shafer never got to lodge a complaint, the police never said, "We'll make them cut it out." In fact the opposite was true. When somebody put a BB hole through Neil Hartigan's window when he was running for governor, you know who's doorstep they showed up on. Shafer's, asking him where he was. Shafer said, "Oh, something bad happened, you go to the gun guy. Outrageous, leave and don't come back without a warrant." Years later when Shafer had an active presence at the Capitol, when Ryan was Secretary of State, Shafer was there with no permit required because it was previous to the permit system they have now implemented where you have to sign this big form and give them 24-hours advance notice and have the letter in your hand which says specifically in it to the minute when you can be there, when you can appear and when you have to disappear. This was all before that. Shafer was there and Butler was there. The Chief of Police of the Secretary of State, a fellow named Howlett showed up at Shafer's front door and told Shafer he didn't want him lobbying anymore. Shafer said, "Well I'll bet you don't big boy, but I'm going too!!! Where's that phone number for the FBI because it sounds to me like I'm being abused under the color of authority." They can't show up and pull police rank on you if you've done no crime, that's a violation. Shafer said, "Leave, don't ever come back." Shafer then went to the FBI and said, "Have him leave and don't have him ever come back or I'll be back here." They said, "Mr. Shafer, he won't be back and let us know if he is." "You're doggone right I will." At that point Shafer figured he had better start writing stuff down because if you're an activist, outspoken, and especially if you're political, they feel like they own the police. They can sic them on whomever they want. Of all the names Shafer mentioned that he has been called, nobody who called him any of those names ever had a cop show up on their doorstep and say, "What are you calling that nice old gun guy Tom all those horrible names for?" They never investigated one time, not ever, no matter who it was. Whether it was that guy who married Christie Heffner, his name was Merrimets. Senator Merrimets came over and practically punched Shafer's lights out on the floor of the rotunda. Did Shafer get any police protection, any assistance, any cops show up at his door. Heck no, Shafer about got the tar wailed out of him and absolutely nothing happened. Pfleger's Faults What's ironic is Shafer is the bad guy with his pro-gun message, in the media, in the press, and in the Chicago media especially. Shafer has never been arrested for it ever, has never committed a crime with it ever. But Pfleger and Jackson blockade illegally in conspiracy, they did it together, a lawful man's business and prevented commerce from coming and going. They got arrested for it but the Chicago media covered it like they were heros for committing that criminal act. Shafer says this is a funny state we live in where the honest guy who doesn't break the law is the villain. But two thugs in conspiracy commit an obvious criminal misdemeanor bordering on a felony and are made out to be the heros. That irony is not lost on Shafer and it shouldn't be lost on you. Its funny how the media can make the villain into a hero and make the hero into a villain and a lot of the public will buy it. So thats the roundabout way through Rich Miller and all of his relatives at Capitol Fax getting over there because he talked about it in his column. Shafer didn't bring it up. Miller talked about it. The police did make an arrest of Pfleger and Jackson so there is a pending court case and it is a misdemeanor and Shafer is going to follow it through the state court system because it did happen in Illinois. We'll see what the conviction is and if there is a trial or plea bargain. From the Capitol Index Return to SCRA Home Page |