Your turn: New gun law just another reason for people, businesses to leave Illinois
We applaud 80 Illinois sheriffs who have expressed their position that the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act banning weapons is unconstitutional and thereby unenforceable.
The governor of Illinois and the Illinois legislature once again passed a sweeping piece of legislation during a “lame-duck” session in rapid fashion with little or no debate.
If you are the average citizen out there trying to put food on your table and take care of your family, you may not have had the time to follow the gamesmanship in Springfield.
Two years ago, about the same time the lame-duck legislature passed the Safe-T Act. The Safe-T Act was anything but safe, and the new Protect Illinois Communities Act will do nothing to protect them.
More:Your turn: Strengthening Illinois gun laws will lead to safer communities
Gov. JB Pritzker assured us that this new gun ban law was abiding by the constitution, and that he knows because he is a lawyer.
According to his official biography his graduation from law school was his only achievement in the legal profession. Those who voted for this gun ban know full well that the Supreme Court will strike this down as unconstitutional.
In June of 2022 the Supreme Court ruled against a New York conceal-carry law and the decision was interpreted as an expansion of gun rights and your right to bear arms. A second version of the New York law is again being challenged in Federal Court and may end up in the Supreme Court.
The New York Times ran a story recently with this headline; “California Has More Than 100 Gun Laws. Why Don’t They Stop More Mass Shootings?” The article is about the recent mass shootings in that state and guess what the politicians proposed to stop it? Of course, more gun laws.
The new gun law in Illinois is an attempt to make law-abiding citizens criminals. Does anyone in their right mind think that banning guns will have any affect on criminals? One of the individuals who opposed the gun bill stated: “…are you going to go house to house…” when trying to enforce this law.
Thankfully, the sheriffs in this state, who by the way do not work for the governor and are elected by us, are drawing the line when it comes to denying us our Second Amendment rights. I think we can also feel assured that if asked to deny any of our other rights that will refuse to violate their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
In DuPage County, the board chairman went after the sheriff for stating that he too would not enforce those laws that are clearly unconstitutional. After threatening censure of the sheriff and weeks’ worth of drama, the chairman backed down.
The scary part in all of this is the number of elected officials and the public who favor the attack on the Second Amendment. What happens next time when the First Amendment gets challenged?
The authors of the gun ban legislation in Springfield have publicly stated that they are not done yet. Their wish list would include more gun bans. We have a right to defend ourselves.
The Chicago Tribune recently ran an article about police response times where thousands of 911 calls, including serious crimes, took up to an hour. Gun banning will not take the guns away from criminals it will simply disarm our citizens.
The narrative around these gun bans is that we have to get “assault weapons” off the streets and that these are “weapons of war."
They say that times have changed since the founding of the country and that they only had muskets at that time. At that time a musket was a weapon of war too and the founders never envisioned disarming their citizens.
The politicians have once again foisted a phony solution to a complex issue. They are all backslapping each other and telling the public that they are safer and that they actually did something about this when in fact they did nothing but cause more people to be unsafe.
Our politicians have given people and businesses one more reason to leave this state.
Rob Schlensker is a member of SAFE Winnebago County. Todd Wilke is a member of SAFE McHenry County. SAFE stands for Safe Active Family Environment. The organizations fight to restore and preserve safe environments by supporting elected officials who are proponents of public safety.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Your turn: Gun law gives people, businesses reason to leave Illinois
