HB 5471 prohibits the delivery, sale and purchase of assault weapons in Illinois and lists dozens of specific weapons. It allows current owners of these ubiquitous firearms to keep them — for now.
Dec. 31 is the drop-dead date for owners of semiautomatic weapons in the Land of Lincoln to register with State Police. And with the number of these wildly popular firearms in circulation, there should be a deluge of people rushing to comply.
Only, that’s not the case at all.
Officials behind the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA) released more telling numbers on Wednesday. A grand total of 15,164 Firearms Owner ID cardholders did as told with the deadline looming.
That’s out of millions in the state who fall directly under the mandate. What is clear is that there is a massive instance of civil disobedience brewing in Illinois.
How many? Wednesday’s total left 2,400,317 FOID holders who have yet to register.
PICA demanded that citizens who own the most popular rifles in the land put their name and weapon/s on a state registry. This also included many semi-automatic shotguns and handguns along with several accessories that must be dutifully accounted for.
Owners of these firearms are required to create an account with Illinois State Police. This means they must have a state-issued ID and a FOID card. HB 5471 demands they submit an endorsement affidavit through their FOID card.
This ill-conceived law is just the latest example of legislators targeting law-abiding citizens to combat criminal activity. It is nonsensical to presume that lawbreakers will comply with new regulations any more than they do with statutes already on the books.
That is simply a pipe dream.
But this gives lawmakers the chance to claim they did “something” while skirting the hard choices necessary to truly address rampant crime. It also stretches the tentacles of Chicago politics across vast swaths of the state. The city has an outsized influence on the region’s political landscape, and this ban is clearly an attempt to address Chicago’s exploding crime rate.
Meanwhile, the rest must pay for the city’s issues by handing over their constitutional freedoms. Only, they have thus far refused to do so.
Besides the knowledge that gun registration is the first step toward gun confiscation, there is a specific reason for Illinois gun owners to resist.
As reported by Guns Save Life, some in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D) inner circle revealed the intention to “close the existing owner loophole.” The outlet reported that an announcement will follow a mass casualty incident, particularly if it occurs in Illinois.
Legislation would then be introduced for those who registered their weapons to surrender them to Illinois State Police within 90 days. With the registry already in place, it would be a simple task for law enforcement to knock on the doors of those who fail to comply with confiscation.
Sound paranoid? Obviously not to millions of Illinois gun owners who are steadfastly refusing to give the state an inventory of their constitutionally protected weapons. They know what follows a gun registry.
There is word that Pritzker’s team will try to work around the mass civil disobedience by leaving the registry “open” for the foreseeable future. But very few who did not register by Dec. 31 are going to suddenly have a change of heart and fall in line with the state mandate.
