Plan on purchasing, owning, transporting and/or operating a firearm in your lifetime?  Do not relocate to the state of Illinois. The state has one of the worst gun laws in the country and the Illinois Police and the Illinois Attorney General really need to stop pursuing innocent gun owners, sellers, and users, and pursue those who actually commit crimes that injure or harm others.  

Stemming from a public safety initiative, Illinois implemented a law in 1968 that says a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card must be issued by the Illinois State Police before a resident can possess or purchase firearms or ammunition. Whether this initiative has been successful in providing safety to the public is a story where the evidence in support of such an act leaves much to be desired.  

Upon reviewing the State’s crime-rate statistics, nothing out of the ordinary has occurred after FOIDwas made law. Nationally, we see crime rates increase through the 1980s with a decrease across the board, in the mid 1990s through today. My gut tells me that FOID has done absolutely nothing to provide for public safety, and instead, FOID serves as a template for other anti-firearm states in the Union to pass similar laws, costing the Illinois taxpayer an untold amount of funds, all in the name of “public safety.” Um, I don’t think so. 

In fact, there is no evidence to show that obscene gun control laws protect anyone but criminals. Venues where we see lenient gun control laws, we see less crime. Creating and implementing obscene laws that restrict innocent American’s from selling and possessing firearms violates the Second Amendment, and opens the door for more hoodlums to commit more crimes. 

Yet, the anti-firearm fanatics will build hurdle after hurdle to reduce, restrict and ultimately control, the rights of innocent Americans and their use of firearms, contained specifically in the Second Amendment, and made applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, without a blink of an eye.

In addition to the law that requires a FOID card be provided by the State Police, Illinois law requires that when a firearm is sold by an individual having a Federal Firearms License or sold by an individual at a gun show, the seller must perform an inquiry to the State Police to verify that the buyer’s FOID card is valid before a firearm can be sold. 

Hurdle after hurdle for innocent Americans? Yes.  Providing safety for innocent Americans? No. Wasting tax payer money? Yes.

For example, in the matter of People v. Holmes, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed a decision involving the FOIL act. In this case, the District Court ruled, and the Appellate Court affirmed its decision on appeal, that Defendant, Leonard Holmes, Jr. is liable for allegedly failing to properly transport a firearm under the FOIL act umbrella. In April 2011, the Illinois Supreme Court in a unanimous decision found that Mr. Holmes did nothing wrong and reversed the lower court’s decision. Now, is that a big, fat waste of time or what?

When authorities make it so difficult to purchase ammunition, let alone firearms, this dissuades the people from using firearms at all. Meanwhile, the people have been protecting themselves with firearms and/or using same for hunting, target practice and the like for hundreds of years.  There is nothing wrong with firearms, just like there is nothing wrong with using a knife for cutting meat. Instruments do not commit crimes, people do.