Earlier this year, Illinois passed a law that "prohibits the delivery, sale, import and purchase of more than 100 so-called assault weapons, in the form of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns. Also banned are the delivery, sale and purchase of high-capacity magazines of more than 10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns." Those owning such weapons before the ban took effect are required to register those weapons with the state or face criminal consequences: a misdemeanor for a first offense and felonies for subsequent violations. The registration period began on October 1 and runs through the end of the year. But, as the Chicago Tribune reports, "With less than 6 weeks before deadline, 3,400 gun owners have registered guns covered by Illinois ban." To put this into context, the article explains:
While the degree of compliance is impossible to determine, the number of people who had registered through Nov. 21 represented just 0.001% of the 2.4 million people holding Illinois firearm owner’s identification cards, the state-mandated permits that authorize residents to own guns. FOID card owners might not own guns not covered by the ban, or have any guns at all.
And the state has made it impossible to register any of the weapons without a FOID card.
Of course, the purpose of the law is not to reduce gun violence. It wasn't motivated by the huge number of black murders committed everyday in the state but by the rare occurrence of a mass shooting: the shooting on the Fourth of July in 2022 in Highland Park that left 7 dead. And, given the history of such registration laws in other states, Illinois law makers could not have reasonably expected any widespread compliance with the law. Which begs the question whether the purpose of the law was to allow them grounds to arrest members of a certain class of people when they deem it necessary to do so. That is, to have grounds to arrest and imprison someone who, otherwise, they would have no grounds to do so.
Wonder when someone is going to challenge all of that mess . . . and win.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the law was to disarm law abiding citizens making them unable to defend themselves against negro predation and more importantly, to the minds of the Illinois regime, making them unable to resist Illinois' tyrannical gubmint.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't even require people to turn in their firearms to "disarm" them, because the fear of the firearm being confiscated or their being imprisoned means that they won't dare use the prohibited firearm in self-defense.
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