[ought-six]

I'm a DuPage County gun owner (can you tell by my screen name?). The Illinois Constitution is pretty explicit, and says that citizens of Illinois have the right to keep and bear arms, subject only to police powers (it makes no mention of a militia). And Illinois courts have ruled that "police powers" are very restricted, and do not include licensing of firearms, or excessive fees. In a nutshell, the "police powers" alluded to are basically restricted to situations where the state government is in danger of being overthrown by armed rebellion, in which case it doesn't really matter what the Illinois Constitution says because the gig will have been up.

[Travis McGee]

The old Soviet Union also had a nice constitution, but people were afraid to claim those rights, because they would be arrested.

Sound familiar?