AP Photo/Michael Conroy

When the government started requiring cigarette manufacturers to put warning labels on their products, it did so after a mountain of evidence showed that smoking was bad for you. I’m not talking about correlations or studies with questionable methodologies, but research that really showed that smoking was a damn good way to kill yourself in the long term.

For anti-gunners, waiting for “proof” that guns are just as bad–proof that will never materialize because you can’t prove a falsehood–is unnecessary before issuing warnings, at least in Illinois.

Democratic Representative Kathleen Willis introduced House Amendment 1 to House Bill 96, which would place a health warning for prospective gun owners.

According to the NRA-ILA, this amendment “would criminalize private transfers, require local law enforcement to obtain warrants to seize firearms from holders of revoked Firearm Owner’s Identification Cards (FOID), and make the process to apply for a FOID card more expensive and cumbersome by requiring applications be made in person with Illinois State Police (ISP).”

Now, there are new reports about how this bill will make FOID applicants receive a Surgeon General-style warning about the potential dangers that come with firearms ownership.

The warning specifically says:

Warning: The presence of a firearm in the home has been associated with an increased risk of death to self and others, including increased risk of suicide, death during domestic violence incidents, and unintentional deaths to children and others.

This is ridiculous, especially because that “association” is tenuous at best.

The studies that suggested the link are highly questionable. Further, other studies indicate that there’s no such link.

So why do it? Well, my own opinion is that this is yet another effort to dissuade people from purchasing guns. It’s a step toward adding to the stigma of gun ownership within the state especially so that should something horrible happen, anti-gunners can paint the gun owner as irresponsible because he bought the gun despite the state’s warning.

It’s a tactic meant to undermine the individual’s desire to have the means to protect themselves.

After all, gun owners are far less likely to tolerate broad restrictions on guns. Even the Fudds out there have hard and fast limits in their minds on where gun control goes too far.

So, if anti-gunners can dissuade people from owning guns, the thinking is that they’ll be far less likely to oppose new gun control regulations. While Illinois is an anti-gun state, it doesn’t have carte blanche to do whatever it wishes to restrict gun ownership. Convincing people that owning a gun is an irresponsible act–something it’s clearly not since the police can’t and won’t protect you from a violent attacker–then perhaps they can get that blank check.

These supposed warnings won’t make anyone safer. It won’t help anyone. The most violent city in the state, Chicago, will continue to see the spread of black market guns that won’t have any associated warning attached nor require any background checks or any other bit of gun control.

In other words, it’s another proposal that only impacts the law-abiding. Again.

Either anti-gunners haven’t figured that out, in which case it’s a miracle they can muster the brainpower to breathe, or they do. If so, then they may well be the evilest people in American history.