Illinois Bill Requires Lawful Gun Owners To Transfer, Turn In Firearms

From pixabay

Imagine lawfully owning something, only to have the government decide you can’t be trusted with that same item. You can’t be trusted, they say, because some dipstick on the other side of the country decided to use a similar item illegally and horribly. Because he was of a similar age to you, you can no longer have that item.

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You’d be pissed, right? You’d be furious. More importantly, you’d have every right to be.

Now, make this item a gun–something ownership of which is protected by the United States Constitution–and you’ve got a nice summation of the bill recently passed in Illinois.

As different states are looking at their gun laws in the aftermath of mass shootings, the Illinois State House and Senate passed a bill in late February that would require 18- to 20-year-olds to turn in their “assault rifles” within 90 days.

The Associated Press reports Democratic Rep. Michelle Mussman sponsored the bill, and it passed in the House 64-51.

If signed into law, it will prohibit people under 21 years old from buying or possessing “assault rifles,” high-capacity magazines, and .50-caliber rifles.

“There’s always the debate about whether or not it’s appropriate to have a discussion in the heat of the moment,” Mussman said on the House floor. “But I think that what we are seeing right now is a demand from the public that we stop kicking this down the road. That we actually do something about this.”

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If there is an upside to this, it’s that officials say the plan isn’t to go door to door looking for guns. However, anyone age 18- to 20-years-old in possession of a banned firearm will be charged with a misdemeanor.

As if that makes everything all better.

First, let’s bear in mind that this is the same age category we regularly see enlist in the military, where they’re trusted with far more firepower than the average American will ever see anywhere outside of a movie. They’re issued actual select fire and fully automatic weapons and, in a war zone, are required to be armed at all times. Since we first responded in the wake of 9/11, there have been no incidents in American-controlled territory that would change that.

Then they get home and are suddenly unable to be trusted with certain weapons? Are you kidding me?

This is blatant age discrimination from the party that’s supposedly all about combating discrimination. Hypocrisy from the anti-gun Democrats, however, is hardly unusual.

However, expect laws like this to be challenged through the legal system. While the Supreme Court has appeared squeamish to take on another gun case in the years since the McDonald decision, it’s clear that we’re going to need SCOTUS to step in and clean up the mess anti-gun legislators have made of our Second Amendment rights in many locales.

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There’s simply no way this kind of bigotry can be allowed to stand. As decent, law-abiding Americans, we all have a right to be treated like adults, and that includes those who may be new to the ranks of adulthood. Exercising our Second Amendment rights is a sacred thing, something being blocked by the Illinois legislature.

 

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