House Bill 5855. Yes, this is about as bad as it gets. Draconian political feel-good, liberal gun control, magazine bans, registration of sporting rifles and eliminating the Constitutional Rights of 18–21-year-old voting age citizens. Ram it through in a lame duck session lasting five days starting 04JAN with Democratic super majorities in both houses, and one of the worst-rated Governors in the U.S. will sign it in an effort to create headlines for his own political gain.
Why registration of rifles? It is so the state not only “grants” you permission to keep what you own but will also know where they are when they get the “new good idea” to ban them completely and come and get them. Gee what could go wrong? Any student of history can tell you gun registration is always a first population controlling measure of any totalitarian government. Worked great for Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, the Soviet Union, and China…just to name a few.
This bad bill is brought to you by a state Representative from Highland Park where an evil, mentally ill (Democrat voter?) shot up the 4th of July parade from the rooftop with an AR-15 rifle and high-capacity magazines and murdered 7 people.
Well by God! We should pass some more laws! Everyone needs to suffer- and if some drunk driver misuses a vehicle and hurts people, then all our cars should be limited! Turns out the shooter purchased the rifle legally and possessed a valid Illinois State FOID card and followed all of the elaborate Illinois laws to get the gun and ammunition (passed four background checks). Laws did not prevent him from committing murderous acts. Well, what if there was a Red Flag law where family, friends, schools and police could turn him in ahead of time? Oh, that’s right. Illinois has such laws. No one turned him in, and no one prevented this bad robot from committing multiple murders. He previously threatened to kill his entire family in 2019- police came and nothing happened.
The only item in HB 5855 that would have any impact on the Highland Park shooter would be to deny him an FOID card until he was 21 years old. So, with the new proposed law 18–21-year aged citizens, recognized at law as adults, could not get a FOID card or possess weapons. Repeating- the state of Illinois will declare 18- to 21-year-old adults (who can vote, be citizens, and serve in the military…you know, adults!) have no Second Amendment Rights until reaching their 21st birthday. How is that going to be even vaguely Constitutional?
This bill is brought to you by the same party who rammed through a “Ghost Guns” bill this year which made all previously legal home built non-serialized firearms illegal. They did not grandfather any of them, and no one stood up to say “Hey, these have always been legal in both the state and under federal law!” In the stroke of a pen, thousands of previously legal firearms in the hands of the law abiding were made contraband. Have you seen any big initial gun groups fighting the legality of that law? Nope. Me either.
Then, lest ye forget, this same party has its pride and joy bill, the laughingly ironic “SAFE-T Act” coming to you on January 01, 2023. Look at all they have done for you.
Contact your state legislators to OPPOSE HB 5855. Call them, email, write, walk in the door to express your polite views. They need to hear it. A .60 cent stamp on a written letter is a powerful thing in government- they usually have to generate a response. Even if it is just a staffer reading your letter-they read it. Phone messages and emails are more easily passed over.
What if I don’t know who my representatives are? Not unusual to hear. Low tech resource- they are on the wall of your post office. Digital tech- there are a ton of ways to look up your Senator and Representative online. Try out www.illinoispolicy.org/maps. Just put in your address and it will give you both Reps and Senators for the state. Easy.
Don’t know what to say? Here is what I wrote. Hand delivered it to my local offices for my vacationing elected elite (yes Dems.) Feel free to copy and paste:
“07DEC22
I am a voting constituent in your district and am writing to you in OPPOSITION to the current proposed Illinois House bill HB-5855, called by the sponsor The Protect Illinois Communities Act. This awful bill is packed full of anti-Second Amendment items designed to take away the rights of Illinois law abiding adult citizens aged 18-21, and to turn thousands of legal gun owners into instant felons for simply possessing standard capacity magazines for their legally owned firearms, as well as create a statewide registration system for sporting rifles- granting people the “right” to keep the guns they already own, for a fee, and registration is always the first step to confiscation. Did I mention interfering with interstate commerce- banning sales inside the state of the most popular sporting and self-defense rifles in America?
Please stand up for the Constitutional rights of your voters and citizens of Illinois. I saw the Governor designate thousands of previously legal (state and federally legal) home crafted guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens as illegal this past year, and you did nothing to stop it. Some small numbers of criminals were misusing and abusing these weapons (a crime) to commit other crimes- but you don’t ban cars because some drunks use them and crash into other people.
I saw the upcoming and laughingly titled “SAFE-T Act” coming to fruition on January first. That 700-page act, now amended with another 300-page bill, has nothing in it that makes any citizen safer, only criminals’ benefit, not to mention burden the police in the name of racial justice and reform. You did nothing to stop that bill from becoming a law either.
Please stand up for our rights when it comes to this new tyrannical bill HB-5855. Gun control like this is merely control of law-abiding citizens. Criminals won’t abide by yet another set of gun laws, and they can’t be legislated into giving up their bad behaviors. They ignore the existing laws- more drastic measures only burdens the law abiding and limits their self-defense ability against the rampant violent criminals loose in Illinois. What is “rampant violent crime?” In Chicago alone there have been 692 murders to date this year and 3422 human beings shot. None of those murderers/criminals/gang bangers purchase their guns legally, possess them legally or ever expect to get caught.
It is already illegal to obtain firearms under false pretenses, possess firearms without FOID cards, use firearms in a felonious manner and/or to commit murder. This new bill being pushed is taking liberty and rights from law abiding citizens not getting directly at the criminals. It is not “Common Sense”, it is the worst kind of Politically Correct/Symbolic vote keeping bill.
I am an informed voter and I follow your voting record. I communicate with several groups on social media about legislative matters and am a member of several pro-gun political groups. If you do not oppose this openly Unconstitutional bill, I will actively campaign against you in the next election, contribute time and funds to any opponent (and encourage others to do so)- it is that important.
Please exercise your Common Sense and Sworn Oath of Office to Protect the Constitution and oppose HB-5855.”
You can also file Committee Witness Slips as OPPONENT to HB 5855 which is due in a committee hearing next week on Monday, December 12,2022. Once you get into page to leave your written appearance it takes about a minute to fill out the form. Costs nothing to file and the raw numbers give the legislators a sampling of what the public is moved to weigh in on. Better than doing nothing and waiting to see what happens and how bad it is…like owning two mags over 10 rds makes you an automatic felon…yeah, it’s in the bill. Thousands of instant felons thanks to the ruling party and their feel-good bill.
I could not get the hyperlink for Witness Slips to stick in this article, so go to John Boch’s excellent article “If It Makes You Feel Any Better- Filling Out Witness Slips for HB 5855” for step-by-step instructions to file the Witness Slip.
My hope is this bill gets stalled in committee. Otherwise, it will be rammed down our throats for political expediency and we are all going to lose rights and aspects taken for granted with law abiding gun ownership.
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