Gun control in Illinois is a failed experiment. A program that was started with the noble goal of making it difficult for street criminals to get their hands on firearms has done little to prevent the spread of gun violence. Gun control has had the opposite effect, allowing criminals to arm up with ever increasing firepower while denying the law abiding residents of Illinois the ability to return fire.
In order to own a gun or purchase ammunition in Illinois, a resident has to apply for a Firearm Owners Identification Card, or FOID for short. Any Illinois resident who is twenty one or over, or 18 with parents permission and has not been in a mental institution; convicted of a felony; charged with a felony; charged with domestic battery; or is subject to an order of protection is eligible to apply. Once you have the FOID card you are eligible to purchase a firearm and ammunition in the state. There is a twenty-four hour wait for long guns like rifles and shotguns, and a seventy-two hour waiting period for hand guns. The problem with that is the people the government is trying to keep the guns away from do not and for the most part can not apply for their FOID cards. Since they don't have FOID cards they are not going to go to a licensed, reputable dealer, they won't get the background check done, and the police will have no record of their purchase.
Until recently it was against the law in Chicago to register a handgun. Chicago passed a handgun ban in 1983 and it was in effect until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ban in 2010. The court ruled that Chicago's ban on registration was unconstitutional in the case of MacDonald vs. Chicago. Chicago residents can now register their handgun, if they take a safety course with a minimum of one hour of range time and four hours of classroom time; and then they than have to pay the city a one hundred dollar fee for the permit.
If a resident jumps through all of the hoops the state of Illinois and the City of Chicago has put in front of them, they can now legally exercise their second amendment rights inside of their home. It is still a crime in Illinois to exercise your right to bear arms, but progress is being made now that we can again keep arms.
Illinois' gun control laws are unconstitutional. The second amendment states "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. "(U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights). In Illinois, the government tends to ignore the part that says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Illinois makes it a crime to bear arms, yet the only real crime is the selective interpretation of the constitution.
Recently the Illinois Senate has proposed a bill known as "Family and Personal Defense Act". If it passes it will allow law abiding gun citizens to apply for a concealed carry permit. Right now, Illinois is one of only two states that make concealed carry illegal. Illinois is the only state in the union that views the second amendment with utter disregard. If this law passes it will no longer be just the criminals on the streets with guns. The good people of Illinois will finally be able to defend themselves without being persecuted for it.
Let's face it, right now, Illinois is not a safe place to live. Every time you turn on the news, reporters are talking about yet another murder. In Illinois, a state that makes it illegal to carry a loaded gun, there were six murders per hundred thousand people. In Texas where it is practically a crime to not have a gun, there were 5 murders per hundred thousand people. In Wisconsin, a state that allows for the open carry of hand guns, but not the concealed carry, there are only 2.5 murders per hundred thousand people (FBI UCR 2009). The statistics don't lie, you are safer when you are allowed to defend yourself and don't have to rely on an overworked police department. It is safer to walk down a street in the worst neighborhoods in a state with liberal gun laws than it is to walk down any street in the city of Chicago.
Anti-gun lobbyists like to tell people that if carry laws pass the streets of this country would turn into the wild west. That idea is as far fetched as it can be. If you were to look at every other state that allows some form of carrying a weapon, you do not see people meeting in the street at high noon to settle their differences. The local bank isn't being held up a couple of times a week, and there is not the constant threat of train robberies. In fact in carry states, you see none of the crimes that the old west was famous for.
Some of the Anti-gun people say owning a gun is a danger to children. When you turn on the news and hear a story about a child being hurt with a gun, it is a majority of the time an illegal firearm. It is an illegal firearm owned by someone who has not gone through the safety training that legal firearm owners go through. Guns are dangerous but a gun is only a tool, and like any tool, making it available with adult supervision and teaching the child proper safety procedures will severely diminish the threat. The people who are waiting for this law to pass are for the most part responsible individuals who know to keep the firearms locked up when not in use, they know not to store a loaded gun in reach of children, and therefore allowing concealed carry will not lead to increased injury to children.
Another argument against concealed carry is "it will put more guns on the street." Well, yes, it will put more guns on the street. It will put guns in the hands of people who follow the law. The people who will apply for the permit and begin carrying their guns when it is legal to do so are not criminals. They are not sitting at home planning their drive by shootings and their bank robberies, just waiting for the day when the government says it is ok for them to carry. The guns people need to worry about are already on the streets. Criminals who misuse firearms are already carrying their weapons regardless of what the law says they can or can not do. The new guns on the street will be carried by people who have gone through at the very minimum the state mandated safety training. Responsible gun owners are not gang bangers who shoot at people for wearing a different color shirt. Responsible legal gun owners are not going to shoot innocent people or police officers in a battle over their drug turf. If a legal gun owner draws and fires their concealed weapon, it will be for a good reason, such as self-defense or the defense of others. When seconds count, you can’t count on the police who are minutes away.
There are numerous documented incidents in which responsible gun owners used their firearms to save lives. While most of these incidents take place in the home where it is legal in Illinois to use a firearm in self defense, there are also several incidents that occur in public places. For instance, at a store in Wilmington Delaware, the owner was closing for the night when a group of teenagers attempted to rob his business, and then shot at him with a rifle. He drew his own weapon, returning fire wounding the attacker and saving his own life. In another incident in Dallas a man was waiting for his wife outside of a grocery store when armed men entered, began firing and robbing customers. The man dialed 911 and while he was waiting for the police, he received a call from his wife and on that call he heard her tell the robbers she had nothing in her purse, a shot, and then silence. The man who was a concealed weapons permit holder drew his gun, rushed in to the store, and when faced by one of the armed men shot him twice. No one but the offender was injured because of his actions. If either of these events had occurred in Illinois, lives would still have been saved, but the hero in each of these situations would have found themselves arrested for violating the gun control laws of this state.
There are also times when responsible armed people decide not to use their weapon and avoid making an already bad situation worse. In the January 8th shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, one of the men who subdued the shooter was legally armed. Joseph Zamudio was near the scene when it happened, and because he was armed he rushed to the scene to help. When he got there, people were already attempting to subdue the shooter, so he rushed in and helped to hold him down.
Gun ownership in the United States is a right not a privilege. The founding fathers felt so strongly about this issue, it was included in the constitution. The very fact that this country exists today is because of privately owned firearms. When our forefathers marched out to fight the British, they did so with their own guns, not one given to them by the government. It was a gun in the hands of men who knew how to use it that tamed the west, not kind words. When we sleep safely in our beds at night it is because there are men and women out there with guns, and the twelve gauge in the closet. It is time the government of Illinois abandons the failed policy of gun control and restores the citizens constitutional rights.
