Anti-Gun Bills Make Way Through Illinois Legislature

opposingviews.com ^ | 5 March, 2012 | John Velleco

[marktwain]

Flurry of Anti-gun Bills Saturates the Illinois Legislature -- But one bill would repeal the FOID card!

As you are probably aware, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pressing for increased gun controls in Springfield.

According to press reports in the state, “Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently called for a mandatory gun registration with a $65 fee [which] would pay for improving a background-checking system that has failed to process 100,000 mental health records.”

Of course, including mental health records in the background check means that more military veterans who are suffering from PTSD will be denied their firearms rights. This has already happened to more than 150,000 vets nationwide.

Thankfully, one legislator is fighting back. Senator William Sam McCann has introduced SB 3340 to repeal the FOID card. This is one of the few silver linings in a legislature that has been inundated with a flurry of anti-gun legislation.

Consider just some examples of anti-gun legislation that is currently moving through the House:

* HB 1294 -- bans many, if not most, semi-automatic firearms

* HB 1599 -- imposes long prison sentences for “unlawful use of weapons”

* HB 1855 -- criminalizes failure to report lost or stolen guns

* HB 4149 and HB 4456 -- Bans private sales of handguns

* HB 5167 -- imposes a 2% surtax on ammunition

* HB 5831 -- requires registration of all handguns

ACTION: Please write your state Representative and Senator and urge them to oppose ANY violation of your Second Amendment rights. Urge them instead to follow the approach of SB 3340, which would repeal the FOID card -- an unconstitutional requirement which has done NOTHING to curb crime in Illinois.

Click here, where you can type in your address to find and contact your Representative and Senator.

You can cut and paste the messages below, which are customized for each chamber.

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Dear Representative:

I would have thought that, after the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision in 2010, legislators would have finally learned that my Second Amendment rights are off-limits, as far as they are concerned. But now I see that most legislators inSpringfield just don’t get it.

Consider just some of the anti-Second Amendment bills that are moving through the House:

* HB 1294 -- bans many, if not most, semi-automatic firearms

* HB 1599 -- imposes long prison sentences for “unlawful use of weapons”

* HB 1855 -- criminalizes failure to report lost or stolen guns

* HB 4149 and HB 4456 -- Bans private sales of handguns

* HB 5167 -- imposes a 2% surtax on ammunition

* HB 5831 -- requires registration of all handguns

Do you realize that, since the Supreme Court ruled against the Chicago handgun ban two years ago, the murder rate in the city has dropped to a 45 year low?

I would urge you to support the Constitution and oppose ALL of the bills I listed above. Instead, please support legislation like SB 3340 which would repeal the FOID card.

Sincerely,

---------------------------------

Dear Senator:

I would have thought that, after the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision in 2010, legislators would have finally learned that my Second Amendment rights are off-limits, as far as they are concerned. But now I see that most legislators inSpringfield just don’t get it, and there are several anti-Second Amendment bills that are currently moving through the legislature.

Do you realize that, ever since the Supreme Court ruled against the Chicago handgun ban two years ago, the murder rate in the city has dropped to a 45 year low?

I would urge you to support the Constitution and oppose ALL of the bills I listed above. Instead, please support SB 3340 -- introduced by Senator William Sam McCann -- which would repeal the FOID card.

Sincerely,

[marktwain]

Interesting information on Illinois legislation.

[MSF BU]

So in other words you could not exercise your 2nd Ammendment right without paying a $65 fee to the state every year or periodically? That sounds a lot like Massachusetts.

[Basil Duke]

Chicago, the cesspool from which King Barry oozed, runs the state, with an assist from dingbat downstaters who still think voting “Democrat” is a vote for Give “Em Hell Harry Truman. These folks are unabashed Socialists (at best) and Marxists (at worst). Note the mayor’s brazen effort to stick the 2nd Amendment up his rear end. He simply doesn’t care what gun rights advocates think, because he knows the Chicago machine will prevail. The very thought of having to pay a fee to exercise a constitutional right should be sufficient to have the bastard who suggested it tossed into a dungeon and nourished on wet, moldy bread for the rest of his life. Instead, it’s treated as something pedestrian and rational - the next “right step” toward Progressive utopia - where the only people with guns are the pols’ bodyguards and the feral scum of the inner cities.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

This is because their big fear is that guns will turned against them...nothing more.

[upcountryhorseman]

The NRA should get on this: These are clear violations
of the Second Amendment.

[muir_redwoods]

Illinois is a fetid fascist swamp comprised of a pretty good state grafted on to a disastrous socialist city-state that serves as a feeder school for corruption. The good part of Illinois should somehoe separate from Cook county and let it fail on its own.