Primary Elections and looking ahead to November
Gun owners did pretty well with candidates who won most of the contested primary races. Our biggest disappointment happened in far southern IL where Darren Bailey wasn’t able to defeat 4-term incumbent Congressman Mike Bost. Despite the national Republican Party spending a lot of money there, Bailey only lost by a couple of percentage points. I suspect that if Mr. Bost keeps drinking that Washington DC water and supporting gun control schemes, Darren Bailey will be back in two years with better success.
I’ve been told by people far more into politics than I that if the Illinois Republican Party doesn’t get its act together and if gun owners don’t turn out in November, we may lose 2-3 more pro-gun seats in the House and 1-2 in the Senate. Just brace yourself. The “leadership” of the Republican Party in Illinois is inept on a good day.
What can you do to impact results? You can help with election integrity efforts in your neighborhood or community by volunteering as an election judge or a trained observer. As always, motivate right-minded friends to get them out to vote. Vote early and vote often.
Legislative.
A chain isn’t going to be enough to secure your wallet with the General Assembly now in session. All they need is a simple majority to pass something through the end of the Spring Session. Frankly, we don’t have votes to stop gun control bills.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that the Democrat House and Senate leadership usually introduces the worst of the worst bills in the dead of night without any notice to anyone. They did that with PICA and the SAFE-T Act before that.
Probably the most likely gun control measure to pass is a bill to automatically give search warrants in Emergency Orders of Protection and Red Flag orders. These would allow cops to search for and seize guns, ammo and gun parts. They’re also expanding who can file for an OP to include someone who claims they’ve been “intimate” with you. Call this the “Bad Tinder Date” expansion.
We’ll be watching and you should as well. Watch Greg Bishop’s YouTube channel called “Bishop On Air” for the latest updates. Greg works in the General Assembly and broadcasts live each morning. Those are then available to listen to anytime.
The court case involving the illegal alien in Chicago
The federal court case involving the “new American” or whatever the White House is calling illegal aliens this week has been sensationalized all beyond belief.
Yes, an Obama-appointed federal judge ruled that an illegal in Chicago cannot be prosecuted for illegally possessing a gun under the Bruen decision.
This is an “as applied” decision, meaning it’s only for this one defendant in this one instance. It doesn’t apply to all persons unlawfully in the US.
Let’s give the judge the benefit of the doubt that she’s just following the law like she’s supposed to as an inferior court.
Lastly, not all of us may like all of the things that the Bruen decision brings… things like reformed felons, non-citizens with guns, etc. But we’ve seen what happens when we give politicians the ability to nibble away around the edges of our rights, especially when it comes to guns.
Having said all that, this case does bring us one baby step closer to illegal aliens as police officer. How so? The only thing keeping illegal immigrants from Illinois police jobs at the moment is the federal prohibition on illegals possessing / purchasing firearms.
The NRA has not abandoned us!
Not only is the NRA in Springfield, but the NRA-ILA’s Illinois lobbyist joined us at a number of GSL events in the second week in April. John Weber did a great job bringing folks up to speed and taking questions from audiences.
I spoke with him about hitting a few more regional meetings and he’s looking at potentially doing so in the first week in June. Keep an eye on our website and in GunNews.
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