Mark your calendars, Illinois residents--IGOLD '09 is March 11th

Sleeping on the job again; I seem to have neglected to mention that plans for IGOLD '09 are already well underway. "What's IGOLD," you say? I'm glad you asked.

IGOLD stands for Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day--a day for those of us in Illinois who value the right to keep and bear arms to go to Springfield and make our voices heard in the Capitol Building. As gun owners and advocates of the right and responsibility to provide for our own defense, it's only logical that we exercise the right and responsibility to fight the political battles necessary to defend that right. Organizations like the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) do a great deal of good work on that front, but in the end, it's up to individual gun owners (who are, let's not forget, voters) to let our public servants in the Illinois General Assembly know what we want from them. IGOLD is a good way to get that message across, even to those legislators who are a bit hard of hearing.

IGOLD '08 was a great success, with between 2500 and 3000 gun rights advocates getting the message to Springfield. This year, we need to do even better than that. Here's the link (again) to ISRA's IGOLD page. Getting to Springfield can be quite a chore for folks in many parts of the state, but ISRA, Illinois Carry, and Guns Save Life (also known as the Champaign County Rifle Association) have thought of that, too, and have sponsored much of the costs for buses (from 25 starting points!) to Springfield and back--details are here.

Are your gun rights worth one day?