Illinois wasn’t particularly happy about allowing concealed carry, I suspect. The state passed the law, but it wasn’t to thunderous applause.

After five years, any problems with people carrying guns in a state where they were legally barred from doing so before would have become apparent. That’s plenty of time for issues to crop up, right?

Well, according to one police department at least, there aren’t any issues.

It has been nearly five years since Illinois allowed gun owners to carry concealed weapons.

2019 will be the first time that concealed carry holders will have to renew their licenses.

Rockford Police Investigator Chris Aldrich says the first five years under the law have gone pretty smoothly.

“We have not had issues with those individuals, dealing with our officers, which, again, we’re very thankful,” he said. “We want to keep it that way.”

…

Local police officers have been working with citizens who regularly carry a weapon concealed on their body.

“We fully support people using their 2nd Amendment rights, just do it legally and cooperate with law enforcement and we’re not going to present you any problems,” Aldrich said.

Honestly, what these officers are seeing isn’t surprising. This is what concealed carriers have done in every other state.

The reason is that those who seek out and receive a permit to carry a gun aren’t criminals. They’re not criminally minded, either. They’re ordinary citizens who want to defend themselves from the bad people of the world. They’re not problems for police. They don’t want to be.

Not just that, but most of them are smart enough to recognize that the police have a tough job as it is. The last thing they need is a bunch of lip from people who are also armed.

That’s just a recipe for disaster. Luckily, concealed carriers understand that easily enough. They don’t want trouble, so they try not to cause any.

Yet there is still opposition to concealed carry. Some people are convinced those of us who carry are just wannabe cowboys looking for a chance to pull a gun and blaze away.

Their perceptions are generally based on their own biases, on strawman versions of us that exist only in their heads, not reality.

So what can we do?

Just what these concealed carriers are doing in Illinois. Be good, honest citizens. Carry legally and responsibly. Use force when called for but not until then. Do it right.

If we keep doing that just as we have been all this time, it won’t make the arguments go away, but it will prove them to be the hysterical nonsense we’ve always known them to be. Screaming about blood in the streets time and time again, only for no blood to show up, will invite the inevitable comparisons to the boy who cried wolf. Eventually, everyone will stop listening because they know it’s nonsense.

What the Rockford Police Department is seeing is perfectly normal. It’s not news.

It just looks like news because the anti-gun media thinks this is shocking.