by John Boch
President, Guns Save Life
After weeks of watching Illinois Democrat House Speaker Michael Madigan play the political games he’s famous for, we are no closer to a good carry bill today than we were on the first day of this session of the General Assembly.
Yes, we’ve fought tooth and nail to push back against highly-restrictive carry bills, the most “reasonable” of which was a leftists’ dream “may-issue” carry bill which in effect is a Jim Crow law to keep two-thirds of law-abiding African-Americans in Illinois segregated from their right to have a gun outside of their Cook County homes. This and other similar bills in both the House and Senate would also leave Illinois gun owners to navigate a mish-mash of local ordinances, leaving many to conclude the risk of inadvertent arrest is just too great.
We lost on our “shall issue” carry proposal by seven votes, as a number of Chicago Democrats negotiated more restrictive changes to our initial “shall issue” bill. In the end, these Windy City Democrats didn’t deliver on their end of the bargain, instead voting “present” or not voting at all despite their negotiated pledges to vote “yes”. Thanks guys.
As you might imagine, that vote left us disappointed and cynical, as though there’s not enough reasons to be cynical about politics in the Land of Lincoln.
There’s been plenty of other machinations by gun-grabbing leftists. The good news is we’ve proven time and time again we have the votes to stop bad bills. The bad news is some squishy legislators are defecting, notably couple who aspire to higher state-wide office.
So, what’s going to happen next?
Your calls are tipping the scales our way as the other side tries to saddle us with bad “may issue” bills, so stay frosty and keep calling. Be ready to redouble your efforts to pound the phones if we send out an alert.
We will get carry in Illinois. “How soon” is the million dollar question.
How good the final product looks will be directly proportional to the amount of effort you put into this between now and June 9th, in particular.
If it does happen on June 9th because of a failure to come up with a legislative remedy, be cautious about strapping on your personal defense tool.
My recommendations, like those of most other trainers, would be to conceal your firearm carefully, ensuring it won’t become exposed or visible to others.
Don’t talk about it with people outside of your closest family and friends, and caution them against making comments about it in public.
Use common sense about where you carry. Don’t carry in bars, cop shops, courthouses, airports, casinos or stadiums, to name a few places.
Realize that a police officer might choose to arrest you for exercising your rights and that you will have to litigate later in a court of law.
The good news is we, as gun owners, have been under similar threats for over a decade with fanny pack carry and the arrests were few and far between and not once resulted in a conviction.
A healthy dose of common sense will go a long way towards safely exercising your right to carry in Illinois, both now and after some sort of carry system is implemented.
Be careful and stay safe, regardless if you choose to carry or not..
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