Illinois is a state that we write an unfortunate amount about. It's a prime example of how gun control doesn't work and how anti-gunners keep on trying. They've passed mountains of gun control legislation, mostly because of the violence in Chicago, according to them, and yet the violence continues.
In the wake of the Department of Justice looking at the LA County Sheriff's Office's delays on gun permits, some want them to look at the Land of Lincoln.
In particular, they want the state's gun control laws examined and, potentially, addressed by the federal authorities.
Gun rights advocates in Illinois are asking the U.S. attorney general to come and review how the state may be violating residents’ Second Amendment rights.
Attorney General Pam Bondi was recently quoted saying the Second Amendment is not a second-class right after investigating delays in gun permits being issued in California. She said the U.S. Department of Justice will not stand idly by while states and localities infringe on the Second Amendment rights of ordinary, law-abiding Americans.
Illinois State Rifle Association’s Ed Sullivan said they’ve been in talks with the Trump administration.
“I think it’s timely that Attorney General Bondi would want to come in and talk to us,” Sullivan told The Center Square. “She should tackle kind of the most onerous states in the nation when it comes to anti-gun laws and so we certainly welcome anything that they want to do to kind of look at this process.”
Several Illinois gun laws, including the state’s ban on certain guns and the Firearm Owner’s ID card, are tied up in federal and state litigation.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot Bondi could do except to look at the laws and, potentially, file suit on behalf of the federal government. It'll still have to go through the court systems because the attorney general lacks the authority to just summarily strike down state law.
This is a good thing considering what we just endured four years of, but it does mean that nothing would happen overnight, and if there's a change in party in the White House before the cases are resolved, it'll go out the window entirely. No Democratic White House is going to defend our gun rights, and we know it.
But there are four years still left in this administration, and there's no guarantee that the White House will flip parties next presidential election, especially based on what we're currently seeing out of Democrats as a whole. They're kind of a mess, to put it lightly.
That means it's worth an effort, at least.
Illinois gun control isn't quite as bad as, say, California or New York, but it's bad enough and, frankly, it's not working. The FOID requirement is stupid, if for no other reason than that criminals are getting guns pretty easily despite the insistence that this law is needed to prevent that from happening.
The attempts at a ban on so-called assault weapons, which I still fail to see how any judge can uphold in the wake of the Bruen decision without making stupid arguments--and since at least one has argued that an AR-15 is a machine gun because it looks like one, so they're not above that--are another terrible example of where the state is going.
Honestly, the Department of Justice should probably assign a buttload of personnel into just examining the gun control laws of anti-gun states. They'll have plenty of work for a rather long time. Illinois is a decent place to take the next step on that effort, too.
And if the aftermath of that effort is a complete gutting of the anti-gun regulatory effort in this country, I can die peacefully in my bed, hopefully many years from now, content that much good was accomplished in my lifetime.
