And there you have it. This is a line-in-the-sand, fight-to-the-death issue. Those who don't understand this are bereft of any sense of history and have their heads in a sack.
There's your bottom line.
Posted on 04/26/2007 8:59:09 AM PDT by girlangler
Pike County is renowned for some of the best whitetail and wild turkey hunting in Illinois. That deserved reputation has turned hunting into a significant revenue source for the county and its residents.
A threat to that revenue may cause Pittsfield, the county seat, to someday be known as the spot where a quiet groundswell of protest against the growing proliferation of firearms restrictions finally erupted into grassroots action.
On Tuesday evening the Pike County Board citing the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, passed a resolution saying no to any state legislation limiting the right to keep and bear arms would be recognized in Pike County.
Their resolution minces no words:
"Now, Therefore, It Be And Is Hereby Resolved, that the people of Pike County, Illinois, do oppose the enactment of any legislation that would infringe upon the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, and deem such laws to be Unconstitutional and beyond lawful Legislative Authority."
In short, no state law placing any limitations on firearms will be valid in Pike County.
This action is aimed squarely at a measure currently being proposed by the state legislature. This proposed state legislation would outlaw semiautomatic firearms and ban .50 caliber firearms (including muzzleloaders). It is being championed by two Chicago residents: Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
It may be popular in Chicago political circles, but it's not going to win Blagojevich any votes in Pike County.
One of the two Pike County Board Members who sponsored the Resolution, Robert Kanady, says he hopes the measure would "be the spark that lights a cannon heard all across the United States."
Co-sponsor Mark Mountain said: "We have to stand up. We have to voice our opinion. As an individual, it doesn't mean much. As a county, it means more. As three or four counties, it means a lot."
In recognition of the resolution's importance, the Tuesday meeting was reportedly the most heavily attended public meeting in county history. Residents overflowed the courtroom, spilling out into the courthouse rotunda.
The measure also had extensive public discussion. At one point, a reluctant commissioner raised concerns that perhaps the measure was a "political hot button" and not something in which a county government should involve itself.
That drew an emotional response from one resident:
"This proposed legislation would greatly harm the citizens of this county, and we believe the members of our County Board are bound by the oaths of office to speak for us on this issue.
"The issue here is not politics, the issue is freedom. Freedom began in this nation more than 200 years ago, when small groups of people like us, in towns even smaller than ours, gathered together to tell the King who tried to rule them from a huge city an ocean away, 'Enough is enough!' Freedom will only survive today if we have the courage to do the same."
In closing, he offered: "In this room tonight we are not conservatives; we are not liberals. In this room tonight we are not Democrats; we are not Republicans. In this room tonight we are Americans."
The standing ovation he received was apparently enough to convince the Commission to overwhelmingly pass the measure.
Pike County's resolution may, indeed, be unprecedented in modern history. Our research (albeit brief at this point) has yet to produce another instance of a county government having voted to refuse to enforce proposed state statutes it viewed to be in conflict with federal law.
And the Pike County Resolution minces no words as to why they felt the action necessary: "the People of Pike County, Illinois, derive great economic benefit from all safe forms of firearms recreation, hunting, and shooting conducted within Pike County using all types of firearms allowable under the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Illinois."
The resolution also cites the Commission's sworn duty to uphold the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Illinois, saying the proposed legislation currently under consideration by the Illinois State Legislature would "infringe the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, and would ban the possession and use of firearms now employed by individual citizens in Pike County, Illinois, for defense of Life, Liberty, and Property, and would ban the possession and use of firearms now employed for safe forms of firearms recreation, hunting, and shooting conducted within Pike County, Illinois.
In Canada, several provincial governments flatly refused to enforce revisions to the country's firearms registry. The provincial governments said the changers were not only ill advised, but unenforceable. Eventually their resistance became a major political factor, turning out the liberal ruling party and electing a conservative government that has systematically dismantled the registry.
The decision in Pike County was not one that was lightly made, nor considered. Officials had carried on quiet talks with outside Illinois before Tuesday evening's vote. We have learned those talks have led other local governments to begin considering similar measures as a means of expressing their displeasure with attempts to legislate firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Individuals involved in those conversations speak of the frustration of a large, and formerly quiet group of citizens who feel the will of the majority of the people is being ignored by legislators.
Should Pike County's resolution catch on across Illinois and correspondingly across America, this single action taken by a small county government may, indeed, ignite a chain of similar actions across the country that serve notice that the majority opinion of Americans heartland regarding firearms will no longer be ignored.
We will keep you posted.
--Jim Shepherd
A huge percentage of the serious deer hunters in Tennessee go to Illinois to hunt the legendary trophy deer there.
Who knew!?!
Wow! There are other Americans that share my beliefs. Thanks for the post!!
Reminds me of America, somehow. ;)
It appears to be a bastion of real Americanism today, in contrast to the liberal hellhole on Lake Michigan.
Pike County's resolution may, indeed, be unprecedented in modern history. Our research (albeit brief at this point) has yet to produce another instance of a county government having voted to refuse to enforce proposed state statutes it viewed to be in conflict with federal law.Weren't there some northern governments that banned enforcement of the various fugitive slave laws within their juristictions?
-Eric
Good on these folks. Hopefully more counties (and parishes in Lousiana) will follow suit.
Thank GOD someone has finally taken the first step!
Someone there must have read the following.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“Pike County was heavily settled by people who were originally from Kentucky and Virginia”
LOL, that explains it then. Sounds like east Tennessee (where I live). My ancestors here during the Civil War included strong Union Sympathisers and Confederate officers, and our family history is very colorful.
E Rocc, I don’t know the answer to your question, but several years ago I edited an outdoor magazine here, and a judge in Chattanooga wrote an article for us about the first attempt at government gun control nationwide occurring in this state.
I don’t have time to find that article now, but it was extremely interesting, as this judge is a dedicated deer hunter and represented some archery manufacturers as a pro shooter at one time. He is an admirable and bright man.
Oh, that many more would follow this example.
And there you have it. This is a line-in-the-sand, fight-to-the-death issue. Those who don't understand this are bereft of any sense of history and have their heads in a sack.
There's your bottom line.
Very powerful words. Makes your chest swell!
This news and allied efforts need to spread across the country like wildfire. When a state legislature takes similar steps, we'll know the tree of liberty still blooms.
Congratulations to the residents of that county for having some gumption, and for forcing their elected public **servants** to uphold their oaths of office and obey the law of the land.
Having originally come from the dark and fascist Peoples Republic of New Jersey (before escaping to Texas, F.A.), I simply can’t imagine this happening there. The Gestapo, errrr, State Police would be there arresting everyone for conspiracy to have a free thought, corrupting the placid nature of the sheeple, and multiple counts of contempt for authority.
May it be so.
All,
Here is an update on the Pike County move (way down in the editorial) from Jim Shepherd, www.theshootingwire.com, and www.theoutdoorwire.com.
Firearms - Getting Down To Undisputable Truths
Here’s a fact that is guaranteed to drive anti-gun groups absolutely insane: there is no corollary between the rate of firearms ownership and homicide and violent crime rates.
This might come as a total shock to many reporters, editorial writers and elected officials, but it is the result of a lengthy - and scientific look - at gun ownership and how it does not relate to the incidence of murder and violence by criminologists Prof. Don Kates of the United States and Prof. Gary Mauser of Canada. In fact, their summation is one that will more than likely rock the misconceptions of many: “nations with very stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those which allow guns.”
Wow.
The Kates/Mauser report appears in no less than the current issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Entitled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence” is a detailed look at gun ownership and how it, in fact, bears no relation to the incidence of murder and violence.
For some, like the Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb, the report is another case of the facts of a matter outweighing the emotional rhetoric so blithely accepted by mainstream media members. “Kates and Mauser make a solid factual case against all the emotion-laden rhetoric from the gun control crowd,” Gottlieb states. “While their research will obviously not close the debate, they’ve made a strong case against the traditional anti-gun mantra. Gun ownership is not the problem, and this new report proves it.”
Could it have come at a more opportune time? Not likely. With the rhetoric and fundraising efforts of gun-control groups at a fever pitch following the Virginia Tech tragedy, the Kates/Mauser study, if given equal coverage (a big IF), will use irrefutable scientific data to disprove the premise that individual ownership of firearms automatically means increased violence.
But this study isn’t the first time the point has been made. In an earlier study, Kates showed a declining murder rate over the 25-year period from 1973 to 1997. In that same period, overall gun ownership increased 103 percent and handgun ownership went up 163 percent. Murders during the same period dropped 27.7 percent.
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Gottlieb minces no words on the importance of the findings.
“The Kates/Mauser research strips bare the claims by gun control proponents that America is more dangerous than other countries because of our right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb sats. “What these two seasoned researchers have revealed is that some of the most violent countries in Europe are those with the most stringent gun laws. It seems hardly a coincidence that here in America, the highest crime rates are in places with strict gun control policies, such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. However, in areas here and abroad with high rates of gun ownership violent crime rates are lower. “
When I spoke with Dr. Gary Mauser, he was succinct in his appraisal of “gun free zones”.
“These ‘free fire zones’” he said, “are killing people. They encourage passivity.”
He also sent me a quote we could all remember:
“If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don’t embrace trouble; that’s as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you’ll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
In the 1960s, cartoon character Pogo uttered a phrase that became the watch words of those who still seem to believe America is the problem, and not the solution to many of the world’s ills: “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
Today, the “us” might be our consistently failing to correct the inaccuracies of the dangerous stereotypes we allow anti-firearms groups to propagate.
When we deal in facts and not emotion, our opponents are over fatal terrain. They cannot win if we force them to deal in facts.
IN OTHER NEWS AROUND THE FIREARMS WORLD...
As was reported in yesterday’s edition of The Outdoor Wire, Pike County, Illinois has fired back at Illinois legislators who seem intent on passing progressively restrictive gun laws. With an economy that’s heavily dependent on the hunting industry, Pike County’s Commission passed a resolution which has told state legislators Pike will not recognize legislation that infringes on the right to keep and bear arms as is guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
Word of that action is spreading across the United States and other small counties are beginning to discuss their own measures to prevent the usurpation of their rights by legislators they feel are either disconnected or indifferent to their jurisdiction’s needs.
As word begins to spread, the Pike County officials who spearheaded the resolution are finding themselves celebrities.
This Sunday, Tom Gresham’s taking his national radio show “Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk” to Pike County, Illinois. The reason? Gresham says “These brave people fired a rhetorical shot starting a new phase of the gun rights war.”
Gresham will feature Robert Kanady and Mark Mountain, the pair of Pike County Commissioners who pushed for the resolution as well as Dick Metcalf, nationally -known gun writer and president of the Pike-Adams Sportsmen’s Alliance (PASA). Gresham’s show will originate from PASA Park in Barry, Illinois, at the end of the USPSA’s Single Stack national championship.
Others, including Rob Leatham, 18-time USPSA National Champion and 12 time Single Stack competition champion are scheduled to appear.
And in Texas, some very unusual collaborators are taking on a group of Texas prosecutors who appear to be taking the law into their own hands - at least when it comes to Texas’ concealed weapons laws.
In a report called “Above the Law: How Texas prosecutors are placing their own judgment over that of the Legislature and the law of the land” the American Civil Liberties Union has collaborated with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and the Texas State Rifle Association to unveil the actions of some Texas prosecutors who don’t care for the clarifications made to Texas’ concealed-carry laws. The clarification states, simply, that citizens have the right to carry a legal handgun in a private vehicle.
Some Texas prosecutors didn’t like that new law — to the point several directed local police to ignore the statute.
In the joint report, it appears that in at least 13 jurisdictions in Texas, that is, indeed the case. 13 county/district attorneys, including district attorneys for counties in large metropolitan areas like Houston and Fort Worth, have instructed police officers to interrogate Texans unnecessarily, arrest Texans, or take their guns even if they are legally carrying the gun in a car under HB 823 standards.
According to the report, one County Attorney One “advised police officers that it’s simply too complicated to try and determine whether a Texan is legally carrying a stowed gun in the car, so officers should arrest for “unlawful carrying” as before and let the prosecutor’s office ‘sort out the legal niceties.’”
Those are fighting words to the authors of “Above the Law” and they have countered by naming those County Attorneys, citing examples of their having instructed officers to either circumvent or ignore the law, and publishing a guideline of “what to do if you’re stopped”.
The report hit the streets this week, and it’s expected that the County Attorneys named in it will be hitting the ceilings.
Should make for some interesting conversations over the next few weeks.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
—Jim Shepherd
I heard this on XM 166 today. The show is www.guntalk.com
Very interesting folks. Good on them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.