In just a few days, Illinois' latest assault on the right to keep and bear arms will take effect. With gun and magazine bans already on the books alongside measures like "red flag" laws, waiting periods, and a wide variety of "gun-free zones", it's hard to imagine how the state's gun laws could get even worse, but this time around lawmakers are enacting new mandates to existing laws that deal with gun storage.
The Illinois Safe Gun Storage Act could potentially impact almost every gun owner in the state, but its effects will be most significant on gun-owning moms and dads.
Part of the law requires firearms to be stored if there is anyone not eligible under federal and state law to handle a firearm.
“If it's not on your person then you have to have it locked up and securely locked up,” U.S. LawShield President Kirk Evans told The Center Square.
Evans said the law goes beyond increasing the current age threshold from 14 to 18 for when the firearm should be locked up.
“Sort of the big one is that the statute adds two additional categories of folks who you can't allow access to firearms, and those are at risk persons and prohibited persons,” Evans said.
He said it’s unworkable.
“How in the world are you going to know about someone's criminal history?” Evans said. “How are you going to know if they just posted on Facebook that they're going to shoot up a school? It makes it very, very subjective and difficult for individuals to figure out.”
It's already against federal law to allow a prohibited person access to a firearm, so that provision isn't as concerning to me as the new requirement that guns be kept under lock and key if anyone under the age of 18 resides in the home. Evans is right that it's not going to be possible to know if someone in the household is considered "at-risk", but the law does contain language stating that a violation depends on the gun owner knowing or "reasonably" should have known that someone was a prohibited person or at risk of danger to themselves or others.
To me, the biggest problem is that the new law strips parents of their ability to decide for themselves whether their kids should have access to a firearm. Illinois law previously applied to minors 14 and younger, which is already questionable, but forbidding all minors from touching a gun in the home, even if they need access in the case of self-defense, is a one-size-fits-all policy that tramples on common sense and the rights of parents.
Democats in Virginia are mulling over a similar change, and as I noted in my coverage last week, I've covered plenty of defensive gun uses over the years that involve minors protecting themselves or other family members with a firearm. If a parent believes that their child has the education, training, and maturity to have access to a firearm if one is needed, they should be free to make that decision for themselves.
In fact, the Safe Gun Storage Act contains a provision that the law does not apply "if the minor, an at-risk person, or a prohibited person gains access to a firearm and uses it in a lawful act of self-defense or defense of another", but that amendment is of little help given that the default is that all minors should be unable to access a firearm. Home invaders generally don't give advance notice of their plans, so it's not like parents will have forewarning that trouble is on the way and their son or daughter can access a gun without running afoul of the law.
The fact that lawmakers included that provision suggests that they too know there will be circumstances where minors need access to a firearm in order to keep themselves safe. Instead of writing a law that truly takes those circumstances into consideration, though, they slapped on an amendment that pays lip service to the inalienable right of self-defense while punishing parents who actually choose to trust their kids with access to their guns.
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