By their own Democratic Governor of all people.
From The Chicago Tribune:
More than two years after Aurora mass shooting exposed flaws in state gun laws, Illinois Democrats have yet to act
‘Exposed Flaws’ is a nice way to say that making unenforceable mandates into mandates doesn’t actually work. A that not everyone respects is one has very little sway unless backed by force. We’ve known for years that even the most basic and logical enforcement of gun laws is way down LE’s to do list. They rarely care when someone fails a background check, they rarely follow up despite the fact a marked prohibited person attempted to purchase a firearm. This alone is an acknowledgment that gun control doesn’t work as advertised. If they’re already ignoring the most basic core tennent because it doesn’t work, why pile on more?
But Gun Controllers don’t ask questions like that, too logical.
A month after Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019, giving Democrats complete control in Springfield, flaws in Illinois’ gun laws were exposed when a convicted felon whose state firearm owner’s identification card had been revoked opened fire in an Aurora warehouse, killing five co-workers and wounding a sixth along with five police officers.
Not to diminish the tragedy, but… maybe broaden your focus?
The case became a rallying point for gun safety advocates, who’ve pushed for mandatory fingerprinting for FOID card applications, universal background checks for gun buyers, and a system that ensures people whose FOID cards are revoked hand over their weapons to authorities.
Which would help how? How exactly will mandatory fingerprints, UBC’s, and “a system that ensures” FOID revocations are enforced..
Sorry but if we aren’t able to follow up on denials, how are revocations gonna be any better? And what about the folks who are just going to ignore it and do their thing anyway? Ya know.. criminals.
This isn’t a rallying cry, it’s another bloody shirt to wave for cheap political points by even cheaper politicos. The problem is the useful idiots in Windy City are calling the credit due with the crew in Springfield.
More than two years later, however, Pritzker and the Democratic-controlled legislature haven’t enacted those policies or any other major gun safety measures, even as they successfully pushed progressive measures that range from legalizing marijuana to abolishing cash bail.
“These are complicated issues,” Pritzker said of gun control last week in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
No they aren’t. You just can’t give them the simple and correct answer, that these policies are pissing into the wind.
“We have Democrats from downstate, from areas where people are deeply concerned about protecting their gun rights,” he said. “And then we’ve got people who live in other parts of the state who believe, as I do, that we need to have a greater focus on gun safety, but it’s a complicated challenge in order to get enough votes put together.”
Because let’s just ignore your Republican and Independent constituents right? Of course.
It’s only complicated because it doesn’t work. So you have to keep pedaling your snakeoil as the Chicago body count rises and your FOID card does jack squat to curb the tide. *que blaming neighboring states*
Despite going into overtime, lawmakers adjourned their spring session June 1 without reaching an agreement on gun legislation that would address the issues the Aurora shooting thrust into the spotlight.
You want to know why, because it was never going to be a priority. It was a cheap way to get the anti-2A vote. They know that even in their deep blue territory more and more Democrats are becoming more and more pro-gun. Which means if these policies keep failing they realize more and more that the emperor is looking mighty bare bottomed.
Solution? Don’t actually enact the policy and leave it in the infighting limbo. Doing something without doing anything. A neat trick.
The House approved a measure with the bare minimum 60 required votes that would require fingerprinting for FOID card holders — the second time the chamber has showed support for the idea since the Henry Pratt warehouse shooting in Aurora.
The Senate passed its own bill — which has the backing of Pritzker’s Illinois State Police — that would make fingerprinting optional.
Lawmakers are set to reconvene in Springfield next week to take up an energy policy overhaul. But while House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Hillside Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday that the House also would take up other outstanding issues, the Senate’s gun safety legislation was notably absent from the list.
See. Limbo.
They promise it is a priority and they promise it will be on the to do list, but the longer they don’t actually have to do anything because they are ‘doing something’ by deliberating the better for them. If they never enact the policy they can just use the circle of blame instead of admitting the policy was ineffectual.
A spokeswoman for Welch, a co-sponsor of the House gun control bill, did not respond to a request for comment.
Shocking [/sarc].
The more stringent elements of that proposal make it a nonstarter in the Senate.
“The mandatory fingerprinting just wasn’t going to pass the Senate,” said Democratic Sen. Dave Koehler of Peoria, who’s sponsoring the measure that includes voluntary fingerprinting. “That’s just a step too far for any gun owner to think about because the whole point of trying to do legislation is to not go after law-abiding citizens who are gun owners.”
Funny how they’re a little wary of abuse of power when they’ve consistently been abused by power and seen power abused.
The Senate measure was approved by a 40-17 margin with a lone Republican vote. Supporters say it would make help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and make it easier for legal gun owners to keep their FOID cards and concealed carry licenses up to date, addressing the problems exposed by the Aurora shooting while also alleviating a backlog of applications to state police that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
And you can believe as much of that as you so choose. When have adding more restrictions and requirements to something ever made a process faster? That before we get to the utterly ridiculous line of ‘keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them’ which is simply the meme-grade throw away line to vaguely suggest certain individuals, whom they promise they can accurately identify despite all evidence to the contrary, should not have firearms. It’s a classic straw man tactic because everyone can picture someone who we wouldn’t want having a gun, be they an imbecile, a criminal, or a terrorist. But then when it comes to enforcing the dirty reality of control, all of a sudden things get really grey really quick.
Under the proposal, the state police would be required to continuously monitor state and federal databases for information that would trigger a revocation of someone’s FOID card or concealed carry license. The bill also would charge a state police-led task force with taking away firearms from people who’ve had their FOID cards revoked but haven’t turned over their weapons.
Well, good luck with that. Unless the revocation comes immediately with an officer attached to it there isn’t going to be a long line of folks eager to comply with an order that disarms them just because the state told them no more pew pews.
Exhibit A: https://newschannel20.com/news/local/less-than-half-of-revoked-foid-cards-in-illinois-returned
The measure also directs the state police to create a database of guns that have been reported stolen and would require background checks for private sales or transfers, with a requirement that sales records be filed with a federally licensed gun dealer within 10 days.
More annoying red tape, I’m sure that will help keep criminals from doing the murder and stuff and non-compliance will be low. After all, it was only less than 50% for FOID cards under the current rules.
To cut down on red tape for gun owners, FOID card and concealed carry license expiration dates would be synced and the two would be consolidated onto a single card, with a digital version available.
Oh! Oh ho! Now that is the absolute height of convenience right there. Makes all the rest of the nonsense worth it, only one card instead of two and with the same expiration date. Probably a birthdate, I am guessing, so you have to pay even more fees on that wonderful anniversary of your uterine independence.
Gun owners also would be able to have their FOID cards automatically renewed if they submit fingerprints — a carrot for making that choice and the key departure from the House version, which would require all applicants to submit prints.
Give us that identifying information and we will make our infringement slightly less infringy. We’ll give you a golden sticker too! Look how accommodating we are being to the totally uninfringed gun owners of the great state of Illinois.
Fingerprinting became a focus of gun safety advocates in the wake of the Aurora shooting because it showed the potential for keeping guns out of the hands of people who aren’t legally allowed to possess them.
How?
The shooter had his FOID card revoked after fingerprints he submitted to speed up his concealed carry application flagged an out-of-state felony conviction that made him ineligible to own a gun in Illinois. The system broke down, however, when authorities failed to make sure he turned over any firearms in his possession.
Yeah? And that magically won’t happen? Nobody is gonna slip through the cracks or get away with stuff during all this ponderous red tape?
A 2019 Tribune investigation found that as many as 30,000 guns were potentially in the hands of people who’d had their FOID cards revoked in the previous four years. A follow-up review last year found improved compliance but also an increase in the number of firearms that were unaccounted for.
And what exactly about the new plan will improve these number so measurably that it is worth increased hassle and risk of other forms of non-compliance?
The piece continues along this vein for a good while, but nothing in it amounts to more than “We wish bad people won’t do bad things and our strategy is to penalize good people to try and catch a few more actually bad ones…”
It’s piling ineffectual policy onto ineffectual policy without putting any foreably effective mechanisms in place to catch the criminals. It’s like throwing random bits of junk onto a path with joggers and hoping one of them trips, and hoping on top of the first hope that the one that trips was actually a menace to the trail somehow. Casting a wide net that is clearly designed to catch tuna but telling everyone you are looking to pull shrimp out while you do. When you ask them why they aren’t using shrimp nets, they yell at you that they have to use something.
Further down it is noted
The Illinois State Rifle Association, which has opposed the existing FOID law as an infringement on the Second Amendment, has taken a neutral stance on the Senate proposal, a key development for Democrats who support gun rights. Executive Director Richard Pearson did not respond to a request for comment.
Neutrality in this is probably a capital trade, instead of burning their stash of it on a noble but futile gesture they can come back and gain ground with a later move as many other states are gaining.
Still further down…
“Every time we pass a measure, we’re trying to close off one of those pipelines that allows illegal guns to flow into communities, and we think this is a big one,” she said.
Yet it doesn’t work. You act like these arms pipelines are anything more than people who do not respect the authority of the state, who don’t care, who know they’re only at moderate risk of prosecution, and this won’t change those attitudes. It will only change those who still respect the state, although it is likely to lower that number further.
Read the whole thing here, but you get the idea. Illinois is promising gains against violent crime that simply aren’t that feasible without doing the one thing they constantly fail to do. Prosecute with a purpose the crimes that you want to curb. Make it known that there are no easy outs. Follow up on failed background checks. Clear some homicide investigations even…
But no… more red tape for the law abiding, just in case they aren’t. That’s the ticket.
