Illinois' "Gun Free Zone" law fails. Again. Yes, welcome to the Henry Pratt Company, proud home of a "gun-free" zone sign on the front door. It has the force of Illinois law behind it, by golly. And we all know how much comtempt felons like Gary Martin have for the law and some silly sign.
Friday, when called into a meeting to get fired, Martin pulled out a Smith & Wesson pistol – illegally possessed, illegally carried in public, and illegally carried in a gun-free zone – and started shooting people. Shooting people is illegal in Illinois, too, by the way.
But Gary Martin didn't care. Because Gary Martin is – well, was – a criminal. And criminals are gonna commit crimes. Gary Martin was arrested not once, not twice, or thrice. Indeed, Aurora cops hooked him up six times including on domestic violence-related charges.
Oswego police also arrested him.
And all this is on top of time spent in a Mississippi prison in the 1990s for a felony conviction.
Yet some bureaucrat at Illinois State Police issued him a FOID card in 2014. Then when Martin went in and bought a Smith & Wesson pistol, and lied on the Form 4473 (another felony), the Illinois State Police failed yet again to catch the felony conviction in Mississippi. And the sale proceeded.
Figuring if the Illinois State Police were inept enough to issue him a FOID card and inept enough to allow a sale to go through, Mr. Scumbag applied for a concealed carry license.
In the course of the enhanced background check for a carry license, authorities found the Mississippi conviction.
Just speculating here, but I'm going to guess someone at Aurora PD saw all those arrests and were compiling an "objection" complaint to the Illinois State Police on this guy's CCW application. In the course of that, they probably did a criminal history query and found the felony conviction for aggravated assault. And the couple of years he spent in prison.
The Illinois State Police then rejected the concealed carry application and revoked his FOID card. And demanded Mr. Martin surrender his gun(s). Of course, Martin didn't.
And he carried that pistol to work on the day he got canned. And he shot some managers, a college intern, and some co-workers. When cops showed up, he skipped rounds into their lower legs, wounding five. Because cops don't wear bulletproof shin guards.
So, as gun owners, we wait for JB Pritzker and the rest of the Gun Control Industry to tell us that we should make what Gary Martin did illegal-er.
Of course, the simple truth that the only thing that stops a bad person like Gary Martin with evil in his heart is a good guy with a gun. Not a "gun free" zone sign.
Comments are closed.