By Mike Keleher
OK, OK, the feel-good liberals and Governor of Illinois rammed through and signed their mangled “gun safety act” yesterday after running it through the political meat grinder all weekend. 2.5 million law abiding gun owners did not want it to go through but had no way to stop it since the liberals had all the votes in their pockets, and they get a feel-good law to hold up for their re-election bids (after all, once in office you spend most of your time working on getting reelected to keep that office power.)
As onerous as all of this was, the sun still came up today.
Guns Save Life and their fellow coalition members will be filing suit to first halt this law, and then get it completely overturned, as most of the contents are Unconstitutional and individual pieces copied from other anti-gun state laws have been consistently smacked down by state and fed courts to include the famous black robed singing group “The Supremes.”
I have also seen Gun Owners of America and the American Firearms Association, the Illinois State Rifle Association with the help of the Second Amendment Foundation all saying they will file suit as well. It is definitely on. Turns out even in this politically correct age you can go too far!
While this law was thrashing through the state congress this past week the NRA sent emails asking for money so they could do something…you know, something. These were different than their normal emails just asking for more money for you know… something. This time if you contributed money, you didn’t get the crappy pocketknife and sticker. Still waiting to see them make some promises or better yet take action in Illinois.
Here are two good news gun law stories that brightened my day today after watching the Illinois fiasco way too closely all week.
1. Federal Judge Halts NJ Law limiting Concealed Carry in “Sensitive Areas.”
A Federal Judge granted motion to temporarily strike down a new New Jersey law limiting concealed carriers from exercising their rights in “Sensitive Locations”. The idea the state could limit travel to a large list of identified public areas was joined by a ban on carrying on private property without expressed permission. So yes, despite the fact the courts required them to allow concealed carry permits, they did not want people licensed to legally carry to be able to carry in public or on private properties. Seem restrictive? You bet. Thank you judge for seeing this…and thank you Illinois Legislature for including very similar languages limiting firearms possession in their new Illinois anti-gun law. The Illinois section should be smacked down just like the New Jersey law.
New York passed a similar state law about “sensitive areas” this fall after they were beat down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June in the NY State Rifle and Pistol Association V. Bruen case, where they were trying to limit issuing carry permits only for “justifiable need.” New York state’s new “sensitive areas” rule was put in place in response to the Bruen case, and it was blocked by a U.S. Appeals Court in December 2022. Pretty sure the U.S. Supreme court won’t be too happy to see NY back on the roster later this year behaving like a spoiled kid who got caught misbehaving in 2022.
2. National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act Bill Filed in U.S. House.
With the new 118th Congress empaneled in 2023, one of the first bills to be filed was HR38 to allow national reciprocity for concealed carry permit holders. U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina) filed the bill to set up the extremely common-sense idea that any law-abiding citizen issued a concealed carry permit, by any state, should automatically be allowed to legally carry concealed firearms in any state in the nation.
Your driver’s license is valid in every state. Even your marriage license is honored in every state-why not a state issued concealed carry permit? This national reciprocity idea has been knocked about in Congress for the last 20 or so years, and hopefully it is an idea whose time has come. A press release advises there is bipartisan support and has 118 original cosponsors.
Supporters cite the fact concealed carriers should be allowed to defend themselves and others and not have to stop at state lines to see if the next state recognizes their state permit. Detractors claim it is just dangerous for citizens to have guns and put others at risk in complete denial of all legitimate studies like those pioneered by John Lott where statistically areas with guns have always equated to less crime and concealed carriers have not added to street crimes.
HB38 is of course in its infancy and has to make it through committee for a chance to get voted on the floor like hundreds of other new bills who will be filed this year.
HB38 was observed sitting on some steps outside the capital this week with a young freckle face boy and observers overheard them sing. “I’m just a bill, I’m just a bill, sitting on capitol hill…”
Is or can a suit be filed to recoup the cost of having to buy new magazines beacause the ones that came with the gun are now illegal??
Good point John. The state never addressed what would basically be a “taking” of private property by the government if you had to turn them in or they removed them at point of sale. I believe your question about replacement magazines would have been filed by the liberals under the famous legal precedent of “sucks to be you.” They don’t care about the cost of what their laws would inflict upon the law abiding.
Good the last version of the bill grandfathered the previously purchased “standard capacity” magazines to be retained by owners. There is an awful lot of PMAGS out there that never hurt anybody…
You won’t have to buy new or ruin your existing ones – yet. I looked into doing the permanent modifications to mine with limiters that are commercially available. Fortunately, they grandfathered everything in, though I guess in the future we are stuck with buying California complaint mags. The real kicker is basically there are only a few places you can even possess them in Illinois if they are over the 15/10/5 scheme in the law. Home, non-public place with permission (like a friend’s property), range, gunsmith, FFL, or in transit. Everywhere else is verboten.
Consider this – if your carry gun has more than 15 rounds natively, you are going to have to limit the magazines to 15 or less, probably with a physical limiter. I carry a Five-Seven, with 20 and 30 rounders standard. No more. I will have to put limiters in whatever I carry, since otherwise I would be a felon everywhere I went with 16 or more rounds in the magazine. At least they took that permanently modified crap out of the final product, which would have required you to epoxy, rivet or otherwise pin all your magazines to 12 rounds, or destroy them. That little proviso would cost some gun owners thousands of dollars.
Don’t be surprised when this law fixes nothing, and they come back for another bite at the apple. These vermin need to be slapped down hard legally for what they just did.
Until I see some actual action, none of this is feel good news. This must be overturned as soon as humanly possible, and has to be injuncted immediately. Registration of guns with ISP (or any other agency) is so blatantly illegal that it should have never been allowed to stand anywhere (NY, CA and NJ come to mind). If I recall, NY got about 5% compliance with registration. Expect the same here in the Peoples Republic of Chicago.
NRA is worthless. I got an e-mail this morning from ILA sucking around for cash and asking me to contact Commissar Pritzker and ‘ask’ him not to sign the bill. I replied back that he signed it last night. Makes me regret all the money I donated to those slugs over the years.
Here’s another thing to add to the lawsuit barrage. Last year these clowns passed the ghost gun law that said you had to serialize even NIB Poly80 receivers. No guidance given. Now, even if you managed somehow to find an FFL that could do the work, you can’t use them anyway, because ALL manufacture of AR pattern rifles has now been made a felony. You cannot build your own rifles any more. You can’t even transfer the kits to someone else out of state anymore – law says they can only be given to an FFL. You cannot tell me that they didn’t consider that when they threw the manufacturing thing into this ‘law’.
Here’s some feel good news for you all. Over 30 county sheriffs in Illinois have already come out saying that the new law is unconstitutional and they will not enforce it. Both my sheriff and my Chief of Police have stated same publicly. Illinois Sheriff’s Association also opposes.
Before long, you are going to have about 95 counties that refuse to enforce this tripe. The rest are hard core communist with the expressed intent to disarm law abiding citizens by any means possible. Blowhard Pritzker is threating to ‘fire’ cops that won’t enforce the law, but that is 100% empty threat. He does not control duly-elected sheriffs, or local officials. He can fire state cops, but that’s it.
When I was in the military we were told we had to obey all lawful orders . Thin is not a lawful order if it violates the constitution.
If Pritzger is going to remove anyone who doesn’t enforce the law does that mean he will remove sanctuary city mayors for refusing to obey immigration laws. Liberals all like selective enforcement.