Tag Archives: gunban

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Daily Broadside | Writing More Laws Won’t Solve the Problem. Plus You’re Trampling My Rights

Sorry I was AWOL last week. Lots of factors at play. Upside was keeping my eyes off the screen; downside was a lapse in my snappy, incisive commentary on the circus that is the United States of America these days.

I happen to live in Illinois and our esteemed governor, JB Pritzker, signed a broad ranging “assault weapons” ban in January this year that requires owners of any guns on the banned list to register them with the authorities by December 31, 2023. They can keep such guns (how benevolent! how gracious!) but if that person doesn’t register them with the Illinois State Police before the end of this year, they risk being fined or jailed or both.

This is, of course, an extreme infringement on our Second Amendment rights: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

INFRINGE, verb
1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

Whenever there is some kind of law or regulation enacted on the ownership of firearms, there you have an infringement. Making me fill out paperwork and register with the government is an infringement on my right to “keep and bear arms.” Making me pay a fee in order to own a gun is an infringement. A “right” in its purest form is not something that a government bestows or manages, but something that I already have, free and clear from government interference.

Yet that doesn’t stop the “””elected””” bureaucrats from trying to manage speech, religion, guns or any of a dozen other things that the US Constitution guarantees to its citizens.

Illinois citizens are fighting back.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A firearms retailer and a national gun rights group have filed an emergency plea with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to block Illinois’ assault weapons ban.

The plea argues that law-abiding citizens in Illinois are facing irreparable injury as their fundamental right to keep and bear arms is being infringed.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request for an injunction made earlier this year. I’m not overly confident that this will fare any better.

Meanwhile, the Illinois State Police is urging gun owners in the state to register their assault-style weapons in compliance with the Protect Illinois Communities Act. The legislation prohibits the sale of 170 firearms, but owners of previously possessed weapons can maintain them if they are registered with the state before January 1, 2024.

This is where it gets interesting. The Illinois State Police are urging Illinoisians to register their guns, but Illinois sheriffs are not being so supportive.

At least 74 Illinois sheriff’s departments vow to defy state assault weapons ban
The sheriffs say they believe the law violates the Second Amendment.

By Peter Charalambous
January 13, 2023, 6:01 PM

Just days after Illinois became the ninth U.S. state to ban assault rifles, the state already hit a roadblock to implementing the law: defiant sheriff’s offices.

At least 74 Illinois sheriff’s departments have publicly vowed to defy elements of a recent gun-control law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, which banned assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and switches. The offices have vowed to not check if weapons are registered with the state or house individuals arrested only for not complying with the law.

You might pass the legislation, but enforcing it is a whole other world.

I don’t support this legislation. It came on the heels of a heinous crime in a community not far from where I live, as described in the Response in Opposition to Renewed Application for Injunction Pending Review filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by the City of Naperville and the State of Illinois.

“On July 4, 2022, a shooter armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle and 30-round magazines opened fire on an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois. This weapon made it possible for the shooter to fire 83 rounds in less than a minute, killing 7 and wounding 48. A Highland Park ordinance prohibited the sale of assault weapons, but the shooter had legally purchased the murder weapon elsewhere in llinois.”

Yes, a heinous crime committed by a kid who bought the gun legally. The reaction by our state legislators—the Democrats—is to ban anyone and everyone from having any gun they deem an “assault weapon” so that such crimes are no longer committed.

A noble goal, but impossible to achieve. All they’re doing is stripping law-abiding citizens of their rights. The problem isn’t the gun; the problem is the person who’s using the gun.

This is where we try to use laws to tame the human heart—an impossible task. The only thing that can change a heart is the love of Christ, and that can’t be legislated.

For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:5-6)

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Daily Broadside | 80 Illinois Sheriffs Won’t Enforce New Gun Ban

About a week ago or so I wrote about the new Illinois law that bans the sale of military-style firearms, despite it being clearly unconstitutional. At the end of the column, I said that Democrats use lawfare to make citizens sue for their rights.

Legal challenges have already been filed against the law, which we thought might be our only recourse, but lo and behold, sheriffs in 80 Illinois counties have vowed to not enforce the law. They have all issued similar statements in explaining their decisions. For example, here is the statement that Monroe County, Ill., Sheriff Neal Rohlfing issued.

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. One of those enumerated rights is the right of the people to keep and bear arms provided under the 2nd Amendment.

The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people.

I, among many others, believe that HB 5471 is a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.

Therefore, as the custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement official for Monroe County, that neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the State, nor will be arresting or housing law abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with non-compliance of this Act.

These sheriffs have obviously banded together to defy Pritzker and are turning it into a conflict between enforcing state law and protecting the Constitution of the United States. The state may not infringe on the rights of the people through the law, and the police may not infringe on them through enforcement.

Here’s a map of the counties declining to enforce the gun ban law, effectively making themselves sanctuary counties.

Map of counties of Illinois which will and will not be enforcing Illinois’s new Assault Weapon Ban from MapPorn

This of course did not sit well with the hard-left, anti-Constitutional Pritzker, one of the many governors who shut down their states during COVID and kept renewing their emergency powers.

Gov. JB Pritzker warned that law enforcement “will in fact do their job” on enforcing Illinois’ new gun ban or else they “won’t be in their job” as some sheriffs have announced they will not enforce it.

The Illinois sheriffs are showing us one way through the constant barrage of anti-constitutional overreach by government at all levels, whether local, state or federal. Just like certain cities and states declared they were “sanctuary cities” where they would not enforce federal law concerning illegal aliens and turning them over to ICE, so the same tactic can be used by those who respect the Constitution of the United States.

How this plays out over the next year will be a good test of this strategy.

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Daily Broadside | Keep Your Hands Off My Guns

Daily Verse | Job 19:4
“If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.”

Tuesday’s Reading: Job 20-21

Happy Tuesday, my friends, and welcome to the last day of May. Just like that, we’re through five months of 2022.

I hope that in addition to taking a moment to reflect with a grateful heart on those who fought, bled and died to secure our freedoms and strengthen our country, you enjoyed time with family and friends. I slept in, spent the day working in the yard, and enjoyed some juicy, grilled steaks for dinner followed by a homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream.

Very American!

And we gave thanks for the freedoms we enjoy and for those who gave their lives to make it possible. The older I get and the more aware I am of how fragile (and rare) true freedom is, the more grateful and humbled I am to live in this great nation.

If we could only get our leaders to think the same instead of going through the motions and mouthing empty platitudes that sound right but ring hollow. Brandon laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery where he said, “Today, we renew our sacred vow. It’s a simple vow. To remember. To remember. Memorial Day is always a day where pain and pride are mixed together.”

I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust that he was sincere in his comments. I have my doubts but maybe in that moment, he meant it. Where it gets sticky for me is that the Resident visited the site of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas over the weekend. On Monday, he said some things about the right to bear arms that these multitudes of men and women he so honored died to protect.

President Biden on Monday took aim at 9mm handguns, appearing to suggest that the “high-caliber weapons” ought to be banned.

Let’s just stop there a second, shall we? “High caliber weapons”? Caliber is the nominal bore diameter of a firearm. Think of the gun barrel as a pipe. The inner diameter of the pipe is the nominal bore diameter.

Nominal bore diameter also applies to the diameter of a bullet. So when we talk about 9mm handguns, we’re talking about barrels that accommodate a 9mm bullet.

But where is Brandon getting the notion of a “high-caliber weapon”?

You might have a “large caliber” weapon or a “high-powered weapon” but, technically, there isn’t a “high-caliber” weapon unless you’re referring to wider diameters. But that doesn’t necessarily mean more powerful cartridges.

It’s like calling an AR-15 an “assault rifle.” There is no such thing except in the fevered ignorance of a progressive.

“High-caliber weapon” is a misnomer, perhaps to create the perception of something more dangerous—or maybe it’s evidence of “I don’t know what I’m talking about and neither do the people talking in my earpiece so I’m making $#!+ up.”

It’s hard to know since these people are both ignorant and lie with great enthusiasm, but I’m betting it’s the latter with Brandon.

Either way, it’s inaccurate.

Also, why the 9mm handgun? There are .22 caliber handguns, .45 caliber handguns, .357 caliber handguns, .38 caliber handguns and more. Why is Brandon picking on the 9mm handgun? Is it more dangerous than any of the others? It’s smaller than the .45 caliber. It’s nearly the same diameter as the .357 caliber.

Why the 9mm?

Recounting a visit to a New York trauma hospital, Biden said doctors showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds.

“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body,” Biden said.

Ah. He’s comparing the damage done by a .22-caliber bullet and the damage done by a 9mm bullet. One lodges in the lung, the other “blows the lung out of the body.” With one, the person is still alive and might make it home with both lungs intact. With the other, the person has lost a lung and presumably died.

My question is, Why would that person end up in the hospital with a bullet in their lung or missing a lung?

Maybe Brandon is thinking of gangbangers who shoot indiscriminately at each other in Democrat-run cities?

Oops, no, he makes clear that he’s thinking of personal defense.

“So, the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting,” Biden added.

Ah, so the guy he’s thinking of is in the hospital with a .22 bullet in his lung because he was shot in self-defense. But according to Brandon, there is “simply” no “rational” basis for these “high-caliber weapons” when it comes to “self-protection” or “hunting.”

Huh.

You don’t say.

Then why does the U.S. Secret Service equip all of their agents—the very same agents that provide around-the-clock security for the Resident—with a 9mm Glock handgun instead of a .22 handgun?

I’ll tell you why. Brandon is singling out the 9mm because it is the most popular caliber among law enforcement, the military, and the general population. It is as powerful, more accurate, and easier to shoot than the larger .45 or slightly larger .357 calibers, which often have more recoil than a 9mm.

In other words, citizens with 9mm handguns have (mostly) equal fire power with what the authorities carry.

Can’t have that.

Most egregious were Brandon’s comments on the Second Amendment.

“Remember, the constitution was never absolute.”

What in the actual blazing bullocks does he mean? “The constitution was never absolute“?! I mean, first of all, is he really referring to the entire document? That would be par for the course with progressives, who see the constitution as a “living document” which is another way of saying, “it can change when it suits our agenda.”

Then the Waffle Cone-in-Chief narrowed his focus with the ridiculous argument he’s used before.

“You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed,” Biden said. “You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”

Ackshully, Joe, you could.

This is a slightly revised talking point that he used in an interview with Wired magazine in 2020, which Politifact ruled “False.” In another article about Brandon’s statement, the authors write, “Indeed, as pointed out by Politifact, personally-owned ship’s cannons were used on American privateers in the War of 1812, with more than 500 letters of marque issued by President James Madison’s administration authorizing such legal piracy. Should we mention here that Madison was a Framer of the Second Amendment?”

In other words, Brandon is lying. You could own a cannon, the U.S. Constitution is absolute, and the only reason he wants to ban 9mm handguns is that they are the most popular handgun in America.

Do not trust this man.

Period.