Mission statement:

Armed and Safe is a gun rights advocacy blog, with the mission of debunking the "logic" of the enemies of the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

I can be reached at 45superman@gmail.com.You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/45superman.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Illinois gun prohibitionists' next target: standard capacity magazines

Folks, I realize that Armed and Safe has been rather Illinois-centric of late--springtime in Illinois tends to keep me pretty busy with the state level fight to hold on to what's left here of the Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms. That, in turn, tends to leave me little time for less parochial gun issues. I hope readers will bear with me for just over a couple more weeks--then the spring session ends here, which should allow me to broaden my focus some.

Anyway, Friday I talked about the Brady Campaign's (what has happened to their website, anyway--can't they afford the web hosting fees?) contemptible attempt to bully Chicago area representatives who voted against the citizen disarmament party line on HB 758 (virtual ban of private handgun sales). At that time, I speculated that their motive (apart from the joy they apparently take in being loathsome and contemptible) might be to try to exert leverage against the targeted representatives, by generating (they hoped) a wave of outrage from the (fictitious) throngs of Illinois voters who want still more oppressive gun laws--in hopes of pressuring the recalcitrant lawmakers into voting for SB 1007 (more on that abomination at Days of Our Trailers--and I've written about it too many times to list).

That does indeed seem to be the plan:

5/10/08 – Senate Bill 1007 which bans the sale, manufacture and possession of any large capacity ammunition magazine is scheduled to be debated in the Illinois House of Representatives in the next several weeks. Now is the time to call your State Representative and urge them to support this common sense legislation to reduce gun violence in Illinois. To learn how, click here
The Brady Campaign, the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, and the Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence have all identified the private handgun sales ban and the standard capacity magazine ban as their top Illinois priorities. We stopped them on the private handgun sales front, but they'll settle for batting .500, and coming back next year for what they couldn't get this time. SB 1007 already passed in the Senate (last year), so it will take only sixty anti-freedom, anti-self-defense representatives to send it to Governor Rod "Public Official A" Blagojevich's desk for his gleeful signature. The private sales ban bill fell two short of that sixty--and now they're trying to exert pressure on--you guessed it--two representatives.

Quite a coincidence, eh?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

April 17th was the deadline for Senate Bills to have their third reading. There's no updates on extension for SB 1007, so this might have died.

HB 1304, on the other hand, the Family and Personal Protection (concealed-carry) bill has been extended to the May 23 House deadline, so still some hope there...

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

You have to take the deadlines listed on their calendars with a big grain of salt--HB 796, for example, has had its final action deadline pushed back to May 23rd, despite the fact that according to the House calendar, the deadline for third reading was April 18th.

As far as I can tell, the only deadline that really matters is the May 29th spring session adjournment deadline. There will inevitably be a "special session" lasting well into the summer, but I'm pretty sure that any bill they try to pass then will need a 3/5ths super-majority.

Anonymous said...

NOW is the time to STOCKPLE magazines! As a Jewess in the US, I would like to point out that America wasn't won with a registered gun. And that crminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk. That is why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!