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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 Pro-gun bills passed, state police keeping illegal database Tom Shafer SCRA Meeting, June 6, 2005 July 2005 GunNews Todd Vandermyde, the new NRA rep for the State of Illinois, is up at the Capitol constantly, eloquently expressing the gun owners' position. Todd is very good at it and very professional at what he does. He says we are seven and one in this session, seven pro-gun bills passed that are on the governor's desk. Thats not to say the governor is going to sign all seven of them. He's not going to. He's already threatened a veto on two of them. One bill that passed, SB57, (and I'm quoting here from their own incorrect language) closes the "gun show loophole." There is no loophole at gun shows. We have a FOID card in Illinois and every firearm purchaser has a 30 day background check to obtain that FOID card. So anybody who says you can buy a gun without a background check at a gun show is misleading people. However, the bill did pass, a clean version of the bill closing the gun show loophole, not forcing the State Police to do away with their data base which was our bill, the number of which escapes me right now. They tied the two together and the governor immediately promised to veto that provision which took away the State Police database. Then he decided if you send me a bill that just closes the gun show loophole, he will just veto the whole bill which he has promised and I believe he is going to follow through with doing exactly that. So If you're a buyer at gun shows I guess you now have to go through the instant check as well as the FOID card as well as the 4473 form and all the other rigmarole that goes along with buying from any dealers shop. That was about seven of the bills. The other five are various other aspects of pro-gun pieces of legislation. I heard the governor today on the radio today claiming again that he still wanted the assault weapons ban and the .50 caliber rifle ban, and he is reduced now to begging on the radio. I guess he is trying to shame these collar county lawmakers into voting his way instead of the pro-gun's way and it's just hilarious to hear this guy. He will never give up his anti-firearm, anti-sportsman's agenda. I got a letter from the governor the other day when I had called his office to speak about the database which I believed was being kept illegally by the state police. The governor wrote me back and talked about violent video games, putting more state police on the street, toll roads up in Chicago, everything else except the state police's database, the one issue that I had called him about. I have been asked, "Do they want individuals to fill out the 4473 and do the background check. If so who's going to facilitate that because the NIC system does not allow private individuals to call it." Its a good question because they continually use the phrase "unlicensed gun show dealer". That's impossible because if you're in the business of firearms, federal law requires you to obtain a dealers license so there is no such thing as an "unlicensed dealer". I guess by "unlicensed dealer" they mean a private individual who just happens to go to a gun show and sells one of his firearms, which is legal under state and federal law as long as the the buyer is a FOID card holder. This has been the law in Illinois since 1968. So they continuously talk a good game but they never really hit the issue. That's intentional. They realize in a one on one debate with the pro gun groups, they'll lose. Their position has no merit or intellectual validity. Now with the gun show sales "loophole" closed, we are so far removed now from crime control and from the real criminal element in their stealing of firearms, their not being FOID card holders and their not following other state and federal laws. Yet I 've had to jump through hoop number 1, hoop number 2, hoop number 3 and now hoop number 4 to continuously check to make sure that I'm legal and yet the illegal guy continues to run loose. So I keep talking to the governor and the lawmakers to say why are you continuously on me at every turn and every path leads to me instead of it leading to the criminal element of which the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago certainly have an abundance of. They won't answer my question. The lawmakers are not only really adept at passing pieces of legislation through the parliamentary process but they are also masters of the word games. The legislation recently passed that a taser, an electrical protective device, is now a firearm under state law, so you have to be a FOID card holder and go through a background check to purchase a stun gun. In another state, not Illinois, that same trick was used to make a bullet proof vest a "firearm." Blagojevich is finally out in the open, what I like to call naked and exposed, for his anti-gun agenda. You'll remember in the primary campaign there were about seven democrats and Blagojevich fighting it out for the nomination. A lot of the downstate voters went with Blagojevich and put him over the top. Blagojevich bested guys like John Schmidt from Chicago and a bunch of other tremendously terrible anti-gun candidates from urban Chicago and then went on to beat Jim Ryan in the general election. Let's remind our southern Illinois people when reelection time comes up that this is the governor you guys helped in the primary. But now he won't talk to us and he's terrible for the state of Illinois. He pushes the semi-auto ban and the .50 caliber ban but he will not speak to the pro-gun groups about Concealed Carry, a piece of legislation that works now in forty-three other states, has been shown to reduce crime, isn't a burden on the police and doesn't cause the wild west theatrics that the media claimed. I'd like to encourage everybody since summertime is here to go out, shoot, take your kids out to the range or to the hunting fields and stay in touch with your lawmakers over the summer since they are out of session, thank goodness. We will start the fight back up in the fall during the veto session and I will be certain to keep you informed. Million Mom March
A couple of months ago, I told you the story about the Million Mom March woman from Springfield who was arrested for drug sales, drugs in her home and an illegal firearm with the serial number removed in her home. She has recently been indicted by a Sangamon County Grand Jury on multiple felony charges including sale of a controlled substance, cocaine, to an undercover police officer. A search warrant subsequently served on her home turned up more drugs packaged for sale. That was another separate felony of drug sales and then also the firearm which she is not a FOID card holder, which was in her room in her home. She was indicted on two charges on the firearm, not being a FOID card holder and possession of a firearm with a altered serial number which is a felony charge in Illinois. I have her case numbers from her indictment and her dates for trial and I will follow through with her prosecution by the state. I will also be in correspondence with the Million Mom March group and ask that she be removed from that organization as not being a very good representative of that group. I have yet to fire off that letter, but I will bring you the results of her prosecution. If thats the type of people we're up against in the anti-gun movement, shame on them. Return to SCRA Home Page |