Posted on 11/29/2001 1:27:04 PM PST by Ford Fairlane
DALEY ADMINISTRATION ATTACKS TRAPSHOOTING – JEOPARDIZING $40M IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
CONTACT: Richard Pearson, Illinois State Rifle Association, (815) 635-3198
WEB SITE: http://www.isra.org SPRINGFIELD, IL - - The following was released today by the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA):
As expected, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Cook County State’s Attorney Dick Devine flexed their political muscles in an attempt to impede development of a world-class trap shooting facility in southern Illinois.
Earlier this year, the prestigious Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) announced that it would move its headquarters and museum from Vandalia, Ohio to a location near Sparta, Illinois. The new 1,300-acre headquarters would include state-of-the-art trapshooting, skeet shooting, and sporting clays facilities. The site would also host the renowned Grand American trapshooting tournament beginning in 2004.
The ATA’s move to Sparta would provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the local economy with an initial boost of approximately $40 million. Additional long-term economic benefits would come in the form of tourist dollars and jobs for local residents.
Politically motivated meddling on the part of Daley and Devine placed Sparta’s good fortune in jeopardy.
In order for the ATA facility to be successful, certain improvements to the Illinois Firearm Owners’ Identification (FOID) Act would be required. Such improvements would allow out-of-state residents to purchase ammunition while taking part in competitive events at the ATA facility. Without such improvements to the FOID Act, the ATA facility might not be viable.
In testimony before a Senate committee today, lobbyists representing Daley and Devine expressed their unequivocal opposition to these reasonable improvements to the FOID Act. Later, from the floor of the House, Daley political allies made unsubstantiated claims that implementing the proposed improvements would lead to more crime and violence on our streets.
In its wisdom, the Illinois House voted 90 to 23 today in favor of implementing these important improvements to the FOID Act.
“The improvements to the FOID Act passed today by the House will greatly benefit law-abiding trap shooters while in no way hindering the state’s ability to keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” commented ISRA president Richard Pearson. “We fully expected Daley and Devine to run interference against these proposed improvements. Woefully unable to contain violent crime in Chicago, Daley and Devine would have liked the good people of Sparta to take it on the chin.”
“For years we’ve heard Daley administration officials crow about how they support hunters and sportsmen,” continued Pearson. “But when the world’s foremost trapshooting association seeks beneficial improvements to the FOID Act, Daley and his cronies do all they can to interfere. The Daley administration’s testimony before the Senate today is yet another expression of Daley’s promise that, if it were up to him, nobody would have guns.”
“I’d say that the 90-23 vote today in the Democratically-controlled House will serve as a painful reminder to Mayor Daley that not all share his disdain for the shooting sports and the people who practice them.”
The ISRA is the state’s leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. For nearly a century, the ISRA has represented the interests of over 1.5 million law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.
"Improvements." I love it.
W.T.F. do Daley and Devine have to do with Sparta?
Chicago is a mess. Transportation is unusable. You cannot get around this city barely at all. And Daley is wasting time on a local issue of a semi-rural community hundreds of miles from Chicago????
Daley can't suck enough.
Aren't those the ones with the bayonette lug?
We can call the new state "Hizzoner" and let them descend into their own little liberal cesspool.
Though I just live about 40 miles from the city, I take all possible action to avoid even visiting their, let alone drive through it.
L
I was under a different impression.
And a pistol grip. Just the sight of one made Diane Feinstein wet her pantyhose.
This depends on which bunch of 'Chicago criminals and gangsters' that you're talking about...
Daley is a pestilence on the face of the planet, as is the entire Chicago City Council.
And don't even get me started on the much-hated FOID....
I have not spent one single cent in Chicago yet. And if Daley is representative of what I would be supporting, I will gladly stay in the 'burbs.
You think YOU guys have it rough. Live in New York!!! In order to own a handgun AT ALL, you must have a pistol permit. And in order to get a pistol permit, you must undergo an approximately 18-month-long vetting process requiring approximately 100$ worth of cash expenditures with no particular guarentee of success. And if you DO manage to get a permit, in many cases the permit is severely restricted as to how you may carry, and even then, it is 99.9% impossible to get even a severely restricted permit in New York City at all.
The FOID was never intended to stop mobsters from having guns
It was intended to PROTECT mobsters from getting shot by the people they might try to rob/extort/etc
Look at the cities with the heaviest gun control: New York and Chicago. Is it any coincidence that these towns have had long histories with organized crime?
(And lets not forget the organized criminals in DC...)
40 miles in which direction? You may be really close. Joliet here.
Oh, btw.... wb Laz
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