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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 "Die in" a Dead End Event Tom Shafer SCRA Meeting 9/3/07 October 2007 GunNews Shafer began by talking about the demonstration put on recently in Springfield by the Illinois Coalition Against Handgun Violence, formerly the Illinois Coalition to Ban Handguns. This group's Chris Boyster claimed he wanted to have thirty-two people dressed in black lay on the sidewalk in some kind of commiseration with the Virginia Tech victims. He only had twenty-eight people and six of those were children that were taken out of school on a school day to participate. It was 100 degrees at noon and there was absolutely nobody on the sidewalk except for Shafer and two other pro-gun guys. It was blisteringly hot. Boyster's people were all dressed in black and they laid on the sidewalk for all of about 15 seconds. Then they all got back up and ran under a nearby shade tree and started drinking ice water out of bottles. It was a broiler. A police officer came over and said to Shafer, "No counter demonstrations without a permit." Shafer replied, "No problem, I have a few pro-gun signs in my truck but I'll leave them in there. There isn't much here to counter protest to." The entire event took all of about eighteen minutes from start to finish and they ran back like a bunch of little chicks under the shade tree before they all keeled over. If you're dressed all in black on a 100 degree afternoon on this hot sidewalk, you liable to not to be keeling over from demonstrating, you may be keeling over for real, especially the young people whose mothers took them out of school for this event. They were four people short, they only had twenty-eight. There was not one person from the public to even call it street theater. Nobody saw it except for the three pro-gun guys. It was a media event only, staged totally for the media. It was in between the two municipal buildings in Springfield at 8th and Monroe. There's an arch over a fountain and there's the regular municipal center, what used to be called the old county building which is now called the municipal center west, and it was on the sidewalk in between those two buildings. Shafer asked Boyster, the leader of this group, a one man band with a roladex and a speed dialer, that's his entire group, no membership, no meetings, "I thought you retired?" Boyster answered, "No, I got a kid in Catholic school that I've got to pay for." So somebody is obviously paying him to do this type of work. He has a revenue stream from somewhere as a paid lobbyist for this coalition That was the die-in. Shafer has been to a lot of pro-gun, anti-gun stuff but this was undoubtedly the biggest sham deal that he has ever witnessed. The media came over and interviewed Shafer because someone had put out an Illinois Times article that said, "It only took a half-hour to buy a gun in Illinois." Shafer said, "Who ever told you that is either outright fabricating material to you or they are just totally misinformed." Then he told her about the 30-day FOID card that now takes 60 days. Shafer had a little tie-in story to that about his own FOID card that he had just received in the mail. When he called up the State Police to inquire why it was late on day 31, they said they were 60 days behind. Shafer sent his renewal application in for August and they were just now doing May renewals. Shafer said, "What do I have to do? The man on the phone replied, "Look, we're 60 to 70 days behind and you're just going to have to wait!!! Shafer remembered that quote from some nameless, faceless, bureaucratic clerk over at State Police headquarters who told him, "You're just going to have to wait!!!" So Shafer hung up the telephone, picked it back up and called his State Senator who, after listening to Shafer's story, got on the phone and called the State Police. They promptly fished down to the bottom of the pile and Shafer got his FOID card two days later!!! Just the kind of thing Shafer hates when they do it, he did it. Shafer says he is as bad as they are. Shafer said he wanted to call the clerk back to see if he still said, "You're just going to have to wait!!!" "Well I didn't have to wait very long Big Boy!" Because Shafer pulled rank and got his State Senator's office to call the State Police and they had to dig down to the bottom of the pile, find his application and send it off. From the Capitol Index Return to SCRA Home Page |