Friday, March 07, 2008

Illinois Continues War on Gun Owners

HB4357-- House Sponsors: Rep. Edward J. Acevedo, Elizabeth Hernandez, Maria Antonia Berrios, Luis Arroyo and Cynthia Soto
Amends the Criminal Code of 1961. Provides that 90 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act, it is unlawful for any person within this State to knowingly manufacture, deliver, sell, purchase, or possess or cause to be manufactured, delivered, sold, purchased, or possessed a semi-automatic assault weapon, an assault weapon attachment, any .50 caliber rifle, or .50 caliber cartridge. Provides that beginning 90 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act, it is unlawful for any person within this State to knowingly manufacture, deliver, sell, purchase, or possess or cause to be manufactured, delivered, sold, purchased, or possessed a large capacity ammunition feeding device. Provides that these provisions do not apply to a person who possessed a prohibited weapon, device, or attachment before the effective date of this amendatory Act if the person has provided proof of ownership to the Department of State Police within 90 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act. Provides that on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act, such person may transfer such device only to an heir, an individual residing in another state maintaining that device in another state, or a dealer licensed as a federal firearms dealer. Specifies penalties for violations. Provides exemptions. Provides that the provisions of the Act are severable. Effective immediately.
HB4393-- House Sponsors: Rep. Luis Arroyo and Elizabeth Hernandez
Amends the Criminal Code of 1961. Changes references in the statute on unlawful sale of firearms from "sell" or "give" to "transfer". Prohibits multiple sales of handguns within a 30-day period. Creates the offense of unlawful acquisition of handguns. Provides exemptions and affirmative defenses. Penalty is a Class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class 4 felony for a second or subsequent offense.
Well, the resident Marxists have made their orders clear. So, Illinois gun owners--what are you gonna do about it? Each and every one of you, personally?

[Via HZ]

23 comments:

... said...

"So, Illinois gun owners--what are you gonna do about it? Each and every one of you, personally?"

I wonder if we would be better off looking at this issue as a group rather than trying to do something personally or individually. Lone individuals can do little by themselves. A peaceful, firm, and united response from a well-organized group of people seems to make more sense. So maybe the question should be, "what are we as gun owners going to do together to counter these attempts of disarmament"? (ideas may range from calling representatives to lobbying at the capitol. But what ever we do we should try to make it an organized effort and not just have individuals out there doing their own thing.)

Just a thought. :-)

Anonymous said...

I followed the links to the Legislators sponsoring these atrocities. The number of typographical errors in their biographies is incredible. There is nothing like incompetence to make one feel at ease about their elected leaders.

Illinois has allowed their great state to be hijacked by these morons. I think the "individual" effort David speaks of is getting out the vote, and hopefully sending these gun-grabbers packing.

David Codrea said...

John and Texas Shooter: The individual effort should not be limited by anything any of us can think up--who knows what individual innovation can lead to?

That said, yes, by all means, if group action is your thing, get involved--personally. Don't shrug it off and assume that because a group exists, it is going to carry the load for you. Get personally involved--sign their petitions or send their emails or send them a donation or do whatever the group you observe is most effective recommends. Heck, join several groups.

And yeah, if you can find a meaningful political opponent to punish these mini-tyrants, do that too.

Perhaps some can get letters published in the newspaper, or are comfortable calling in to talk radio. Maybe someone will start their own website to act as an innovative clearinghouse in addition to what the more traditional and established groups are doing. Maybe someone will lead a letter-writing campaign at their next gun club meeting, or maybe start a local political activism group--who knows?

My whole point in asking what will YOU do is to urge everyone to be responsible for doing something--our biggest obstacle most of the time is the "Let George do it" apathy, resignation and just plain laziness--and I find people are most motivated and effective doing things when they do what they have a passion for, something you or I cannot define for them.

Curtis Lowe said...

OK...Then how about I buy a .51 caliber rifle/cartridge, or a .49?

If I want to sell to my neighbor, I'll amend will, making him an heir to $1.00 of my estate, sell him the gun, and then amend my will again...

Idiots.

Federal Farmer said...

This coming Tuesday - March 11, is IGOLD, Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day.

Last year we planned for 1000 people and 1500 showed up. This year we have planned for 3000.

We have also added a march down Capitol Avenue.

Join us at the Springfield Hilton at 12pm for a rally. The march will be at 1pm and another rally at the Capitol will follow. Then we all go into the Capitol to lobby our respective legislators and the 4 leaders.

It is important that our legislators see that there are many ordinary people involved in the guns rights community in IL.

Join IllinoisCarry.com. This is a great group of grass roots activists that don't just bitch and moan but make things happen in IL.

If you live around Springfield, join the Sangamon County Rifle Association. There are some first rate folks there working for gun rights in IL.

If you live around Champaign-Urbana, join Guns Save Life (also known as the Champaign County Rifle Association). An awesome group. I live in Chicago and joined their group.

Join the ISRA (Illinois State Rifle Association). This group does alot for gun owners including paying for 3 full time lobbyists.

Join a local gun range or two. Support shooting events in IL.

I belong to: IllinoisCarry.com, NRA, ISRA, CCRA, SAF, Darnall's Range, LeRoy Rifle and Pistol Club and I'll probably join more.

Also, don't just join, be active. If you are an NRA member, go to meetings, send them mail telling them what they should do. Ditto for other groups.

Anonymous said...

It's probably no coincidence that all of this anti-gun legislation is coming prior to what is likely going to be a major recession and probably a depression. The Fed printing more money is just killing the dollar.

Elected officials don't want to be on the hot seat and have armed constituents if TSHTF.

Anonymous said...

It's ironic don't you think that Lincoln's election in 1860 set in motion the inevitability of the War between the States, and now there are Illinois politicians doing their dead level best to be the spark that starts another civil war?

I think perhaps it is time for the Illinois and/or national groups to push federal prosecutors to file charges of sedition at least and treason at worse. This should be done with as much fanfare as possible, news releases where and if possible, flyers passed out all over the state, participation in talk radio call in shows.

Yeah, I know the chances of getting the charges filed are slim and none and slim left town. But by making enough noise and pointing out publicly and loudly that these tyrants cannot possibly not be cognizant of the fact that what they have proposed as law is a violation of their oaths of office, their constituents, the nation and is in direct conflict with lawful behavior as required by elected officials under the Constitution of the United States of America. That this proposed legislation is a betrayal of America cannot be denied by any honest man. Betrayal of this nature is the crime of treason at worst and sedition at best, and carries penalties.

We should demand as publicly as possible that those charges be laid by the USDOJ, and then when they refuse to do their duty, unleash another round of publicity.

It may do no good in waking the majority to the dangers that threaten them, but if it does not, then they deserve to be crushed.

At present the majority thinks this is about guns and public safety, it is not. It is about whether or not we shall live free in the world's most noble experiment in government or as slaves in the traditional conditions of the serfs of every other nation on earth.

We must awaken them, further we must educate them, for they are ignorant of the system of government the founders established and the absolutely humane aspirations that guided them. This is the hard part. A legless man cannot play soccer effectively, neither can an ignorant man be assumed capable of governing himself, but he can be assumed to want to restrict others autonomy.

It's a tough job, but if we don't do it this way, any victory will be very fleeting, because at present the ignorami vastly outnumber the knowledgeable.

Federal Farmer said...

What is your next step on making that happen SA?

David Codrea said...

We should demand as publicly as possible that those charges be laid by the USDOJ, and then when they refuse to do their duty, unleash another round of publicity.

We did exactly that, for about a year--collected over 30,000 actual signatures from every state in the union asking John Ashcroft to put his fine words into action and enforce violations against our 2A rights just as certainly as the Justice Department would if someone's voting or other rights were being violated by the state.

What we received is what is legally known as "deliberate indifference"--where govt knows bad is going down but turns a blind eye on purpose and let's it keep happening. When it's the federal DoJ, who do you turn to next?

All we got for our efforts was a letter from the head of the terrorism division (gee, I wonder what they were trying to tell us with that?) basically letting us know they didn't give a damn.

Go here and look at all the articles--plan on spending at least an hour just to get an overview of the level of effort we put into this. Since we've already covered this ground, I think it's safe to assume that:

A. Nobody in government will care because they don't have to.

B. There will be no mainstream publicity because the press is against armed citizens.

C. Most gun owners won't care either, and if they won't, the general electorate will care even less.

We pretty much expected these results, but wanted to take away the illusion that Republican words actually translated into real world support. That didn't matter with gun owners either. And the band plays on.

Jerry The Geek said...

If the 'encoded ammunition' bill is passed into law, all other considerations will be rendered mute. What good is it to have a gun,when you can't make or buy ammunition?

http://tinyurl.com/35ual6

Sendarius said...

Umm, I am not sure that I should make this observation; perhaps there is some unwritten rule prohibiting the naming of the elephant in the room. What the heck though, I am in Oz, what are you gonna do except insult me? :)

Has anybody noticed that ALL the sponsors names seem to be Hispanic or Latino or whatever? I don't see single German, Irish, Polish, Dutch or other name listed there.

Just what IS the dominant ethnic origin in Illinois?

Anonymous said...

well then we all know the next step, don't we?

Anonymous said...

Back in the day they had a political action kit that was composed of three things and a simple set of instructions,

* politician
* rope
* tree
* some assembly required

David Codrea said...

Sendarius, elephants are always welcome in these rooms.

As for nationality, why, once the "path to citizenship" is smoothed, we'll all be Americans. And democrats for the most part.

Federal Farmer said...

Enh. The Senate AWB is sponsored by one of our worst, a guy by the name of Kotowski.

House is controlled by a guy by the name of Madigan. Senate by a guy by the name of Jones.

Are we going to start looking for suspicious middle names now?

Bottom line, aside from David's advice, much of the advice I'm seeing here isn't useful.

Any Illinois folks out there that want to work with a group that actually gets things done, go to

href="http://www.illinoiscarry.com">Illinois Carry
. We do much of what David suggests: LTE writing, letters/calls to

Congresscritters, planning for IGOLD and other grass roots efforts like the

href="http://pro2aresolution.com">Pro Second Amendment Resolution
.

Anonymous said...

Ok, now that my level of frustration with y'all has abated somewhat I will try again.

To counter David's argument that it is useless to press for charges because we did that when Ashcroft was USAG I say this.

Of course we weren't successful with Ashcroft. Despite his proclamations he was part of the power elite. He was insulated by many layers of elected and appointed officials all of which he could use for cover for his inaction.

What I suggested above does not target the power elite. In the first place, I don't like begging. In the second place their job, no matter its description, is to maintain the status quo. Which simply means that they have more in common with and more loyalty to their political opposition than they do to the nation. The idea being to keep those on top, on top and those on bottom impotent to do a damn thing about it.

That is why my idea was aimed at educating the majority of citizens to the point of outrage by showing them how they are being betrayed. Hence, everything I proposed was a system for reaching the average citizen. We average citizens outnumber the power elite and their enforcers by about 312 million to 8 million. What do you think their reaction is going to be if and when we can make them realize we are all pissed and willing to do something about it?

We cannot do that unless we target the public with our message. If we can get their ear for a whlle we may settle it peacefully through the ballot box. Even though, the odds are that the power elite will remain the very same people harming us now. That is so because the only thing they really believe in is that they are too much better than everyone else to have to do honest work for a living. Ergo, a great many of them, once placed in fear of such a dire fate will have epiphanies at a higher rate than a Southern Baptist Tent Revival.

Those who don't have an epiphany, if we instill enough outrage in their constituents, will be turned out of power.

Their other possible reaction is armed force. If they resort to that, as they very well may, due to their belief in the lesson taught at Ruby Ridge and Waco. If they do resort to that force and are not met with superior force, we will lose, but still be better off. For we will then have no excuse to pretend we don't see the monster.

This must be a bottom up effort. As has been accurately noted a top down effort will not work. When we go begging a man to do his duty we have already learned he does consider himself obligated to do so. Therefore, hearing only from the choir has not near the effect on him as facing an entire angry congregation.

Or we could all just kneel and kiss their fucking jackboots.

Anonymous said...

"does NOT consider himself" is how it should have read. Damn cataracts!

David Codrea said...

"We?"

I'll be delighted to drop the tiller and pick up an oar.

Whose the "I" leading this "we"? I can't wait to hear the plan, because so far, and let's get ego out of the way and be honest, I've been pretty much a mediocre failure at this.

Anonymous said...

You have not been anything approaching mediocre, and the failure is not yours, but ours. The people who refuse to look, becasuse we fear what we will see, and if we see it we have only two courses. One is take action to stop what is wrong, the other is to admit we are too damn cowardly to do it.

Going with the first means we are risking our comforts and likely much more, even our lives. Going with the second means we have to be ashamed of ourselves while we condemn our children to slavery.

We can avoid immediate risk and self censure by not seeing. It is our job to make them see. If we can. I don't know if it is doable.

There is no ego at stake here. I was noting that we need to change our target group. It seems everybody missed that. Of course we need to keep what pressure we can on our elected officials, but we need to increase that pressure by getting more people to realize how they are being screwed. We need more than just the gunowners.
We need everybody we can convince that all their civil rights are in danger.

There are a large number of pro-gun groups. Pro-gun groups or associations are in actuality civil rights groups. We need to approach average "I don't own a gun Joe" and show why and how his civil rights are being stripped and get him to actively support our fight.

The one thing I seem to experience differently than most on these boards is that I never meet anyone opposed to RKBA. Never! I don't care who I have talked to or where we discussed it, everyone in my area seems to believe in the right.
What I have found is that most of them aren't gun people and are unaware of the struggle over civil rights now taking place. They are, therefore also unaware of all the civil rights violations being visited on the public in the war to suppress the right guaranteed by the second amendment.

This is where we need to strike. If we can make them see all the other rights being violated and all the chicanery by law enforcement and adjudication, we have a chance of their becoming aware of activities and rights they do exercise as being eroded by the our mutual enemy in this fight for liberty.

If we can accomplish that we can break the insulation of our officials in high places. If we get strong enough to turn out of office city councilmen, county commissioners, state reps, governors,etc. at these lower levels when they take their marching orders from above in the political hierarchy, rather than from us, the equation changes.

These lower level electees will realize they can no longer rely on protection from above and therefore will not be willing to risk to provide protection for those above.

We just aren't angry enough as a people about what is happening to us. It is our job to educate if we can. The anger should follow. But we must do it at the bottom.

Anonymous said...

The "I" should be all of us, everywhere and anywhere we get the chance. I can be an "I" on a call-in show, or letter writing, or letter to the editor, or just in conversation at the check-out line. Every damn one of us can be an "I" in that regard. Enough of us become a 'we'.

But we will always need people such as you at the front so we don't lose our way. I am merely trying to influence the selection of targets to strengthen our numbers. There are people who would fight with us, even though the don't exercise RKBA, out of convictions of right vs. wrong. Most of them just don't really know what is taking place or the beating our constitution is taking at the hands of government.

I know we will never reach them all. We don't need them all, but we do need more.

Anonymous said...

All I can say is "WOW!" How did things go so wrong in IL? Two states over, a mere 145 miles, Ohio has had concealed carry for 4 years, with over 100,000 licenses issued. I am a member of OFCC, Ohioans for Concealed Carry. We had a picnic last summer with our children, wives, and our guns, open carried and concealed. The main speaker was Ohio Gov Strickland. He walked among us armed citizens, shaking hands, lots of pictures. No shots fired, imagine that! You guys have some major voting to do over their. I do have ties to IL, as my son lives and works in Peoria. God bless you all and good luck! If Ohio can do it, you guys can.

David Codrea said...

We need to approach average "I don't own a gun Joe" and show why and how his civil rights are being stripped and get him to actively support our fight.
Again, I hate to sound all been there and done that-y, but that is exactly what we did with Citizens of America--we put pro-RKBA ads on radio stations across the country aimed at average citizens--professionaly produced, written and acted-and after a year folded for lack of support.

Our biggest problem is apathy--people don't get motivated until its their ox getting gored. Until thjat happens, they just don't care--and of the ones who do, only a few actually do anything about it.

I don't know how to change that, but I keep making a damn fool of myself trying anyway. It probably amuses the keepers watching rats try to figure a way out of the box.

Anonymous said...

All I can say to that,David, is that I have experienced the same damn thing. That is why I have no sympathy for anyone abused by the system. I may have anger at the perpetrators of the abuse, but I have never had any sympathy for willing victims.

All I can say is if they are crushed they will be crushed with their hands clasped in supplication. If I am crushed, my hands will be clasped on a weapon.

Still I feel we must not quit trying to get them engaged. If for no other reason, the serenity of our own consciences when the SHTF.