The Illinois Politburo legislature has reached a new intellectual and moral low. In early February, Senate Bill 1095 was introduced, with very little text. Furthermore, what text there was consisted of a "technical change" to the language of the Firearm Owners Identification Act--and the "change" was the striking out of the word "and"--and replacing it . . . with the word "and."
Clearly, the real intent of the bill was being kept hidden at that point. Since the bill dealt with firearms legislation, and since the chief co-sponsor in Illinois Senate President and Senior Gun Rights Violator Emil Jones, it was fairly clear that when the hidden intent was revealed, it would not be good for private ownership of guns in Illinois.
With Friday's introduction of Senate Amendment 001 to the bill, the validity of that suspicion was vindicated. If the amendment is adopted (and there would seem to be little reason to doubt that it will), SB 1095 will require that the bullets of every round of pistol and rifle ammunition manufactured or sold in Illinois be stamped with identifying information. The bill is silent on what effect it would have on those who handload their own ammunition--do they now become "manufacturers"?
The bill would also make provisions for an "Ammunition Coding System Database," maintained by the Illinois State Police. The database would include every ammunition manufacturer, and every ammunition vendor, in the state, and the sale of every round of ammunition would be required to be accompanied by the logging of vast amounts of information with the Illinois State Police. Apparently, we are to believe that the interests of public safety would be best served by taking vast state police resources away from actual law enforcement, and diverting them to the tracking of every bullet in the state.
The people behind this bill are, I suspect, not quite so foolish as to believe this is a crime fighting measure--they know that ammunition manufacturers will simply decide to spare themselves the trouble and expense of dealing with Illinois, and stop selling here (and I suppose all the jobs and tax revenue provided by Olin Corporation will just be exported out of state). This is, in short, a not especially subtle bid to disarm every law-abiding citizen in Illinois.
Such legislative obscenities have been introduced in California for the last couple years, but have not passed. Illinois apparently hopes to take the unquestionable lead in citizen helplessness.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Serial tyranny in Illinois
Stumble it!
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2 comments:
the good thing is that after everyone there is disarmed besides the government and criminals, but I repeat myself, the rest of the nation can watch once again what happens to an unarmed population at the hands of corrupt government. What happens to the unarmed citizens as they're victimized at the hands of criminals of all sorts.
Unless you folks have your ropes, pitchforks, tar and feathers handy I feel for you. There's not much we can do outside the state is there?
the good thing is that after everyone there is disarmed besides the government . . .
The odd thing is that I can't find any language in the amended bill that would provide an exemption for the "Only Ones." An oversight, no doubt, that will be addressed soon. Or perhaps we're supposed to simply assume that this only applies to the lowly, peaceable masses.
As far as what can be done from out of state, I appreciate the thought, but I can't really think of anything you can do. These are the people we elected into office--I can only conclude that most of us like living under a hyper-authoritarian government.
We made this bed--now we lie in it.
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