What slipped through the cracks while our attention was focused on the introduction of the U.S. congressional bill was another, on a state level in Illinois, that was filed with the Illinois House clerk on November 6, 2015, sponsored by three Democratic State Represenatives,Emanuel Welch, Rep. Pamela Reaves-Harris and Jaime Andrade, and which directly challenges the Supreme Court ruling inDISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER, which held "that the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to possess firearms and that the citys total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right."
Via the ruling:
"The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
The Illinois billHR0855, titled "2ND AMEND-NOT INDIVIDUAL RIGHT," is far more dangerous in language and intent than the Assualt Weapon Ban of 2015 because there is little chance the Weapon Ban will pass, and a higher likelihood that the Illinois state bill will pass considering the composition of the Illinois House stands at 71 Democrats with only 47 Republicans.
The danger in this bill is that they are going after private ownership of guns for if they can ban private ownership, they can take the next step and confiscate weapons legally owned now by making it illegal for private citizens to possess a firearm.
WHEREAS, Gun violence is an ever present problem in the State, as well as nationwide; an example of which is 8 persons dying in Chicago in one week in October due to gun violence; and
WHEREAS, In the past few years, court rulings, including the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia V.Heller, in interpreting the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution have overturned long standing precedent,which had supported state and local authority to deny gun possession when necessary to promote and protect public safety; in order to reach its decision, the 5 member majority of theUnited States Supreme Court either ignored or misinterpreted much of the clear and plain wording of the Second Amendment; and
WHEREAS, As stated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens in his well-thought out dissent on behalf of 4 Justices in Heller: "The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty ofthe several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature's authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution."; rather the Second Amendment's original purpose was to act as a check on federal gun-making policy, not to prevent individual states from creating gun policy as they saw fit; and
WHEREAS, The legal view of the Second Amendment as a collective, militia right, and not an individual right, held for over 200 years until the Heller decision in 2008, which invalidated a law barring individuals from possessing a handgun not registered before the law took effect and annual registrations for the remaining handguns; and
WHEREAS, The Heller decision and other pro-firearm industry court rulings have resulted in a proliferation of guns in numerous communities and have diminished the security and freedom of our citizens to enjoy a life free of gun violence; living with the fear of gun violence is contrary to living in a free society; high levels of gun violence are a threat to the security of whole communities; and
WHEREAS, The cost of gun violence has been pushed onto everyone except the people and companies that produce and sell firearms; the firearms industry benefits financially when more guns are sold; more firearms in circulation leads to more gun crimes, homicides, and suicides to the extent that gun-related deaths will soon exceed the number of deaths in automotive crashes; but the Heller decision effectively said that most of the Second Amendment should be disregarded in favor of the part that is most profitable to the firearms industry, "the right ofthe people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"; and
WHEREAS, Throughout the history of the United States,federal and state laws have regularly placed restrictions on who can legally own, possess, and use firearms; even prior to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, gun control laws were enacted; therefore laws restricting gun access are not anomalous to American law; and
WHEREAS, Before these court decisions, state legislatures had been able to pass laws restricting gun access if it was in the best interests of public safety; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the courts, especially the United States Supreme Court, to restore interpretation of the Second Amendment as a rightafforded to state-sponsored militias that as Justice Stevens stated in his Heller dissent, " ... it does not curtail the Legislature's power to regulate the non-military use and ownership of weapons ... ".
Emphasis and bold print mine.
BOTTOM LINE
The whole resolution is about restricting access of private citizens to legally own weapons.... they aren't going after specific weapons as the introduction of the Assualt Weapon Ban of 2015 in the U.S. House of Representatives.... this bill is going after all privately owned guns.
This is a beta test, this is the end goal of the Obama administration and Democratic politicians.
Once they have banned private ownership, they will have given the state of Illinois the right to confiscate weapons from citizens that refuse to hand them over.
For those that have been waiting for the next volley in the governments attempt to disarm Americans.... this beta test is it.
The video below is older, but no less relevant today as it was in 2013 when a war veteran, Kevin Tully, stood up at an anti-gun forum in Chicago and explained exactly why the Second Amendment is so important, what it means and what it is meant to protect us all from.
Tulley states "The threat of tyranny today is no less than the turn of the century, the 1900s, or 1800s, or 1700s."
