GREAT NEWS: Crime-Free, Gun-Free Illinois Beta-Testing Gun Confiscation Law, Overriding Second Amendment!

Doug Ross Journal

Three Chicago-area Democrat state legislators have introduced a resolution petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn its Heller ruling, which found that the Second Amendment (like the rest of the Bill of Rights) applies to individuals, not some collective.  

Representatives Emanuel Welch, Pamela Reaves-Harris, and Jaime Andrade, Jr. are behind the resolution and claim that Chicago’s epidemic of gun violence is due to insufficient gun control laws, claiming that “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.”

The representatives fail to explain how Chicago, which historically has the most restrictive gun laws in the United States, has seen more than 2,000 people shot in 2015 alone, almost all of the violence gang- and drug-related shootings. The resolution, which reads as though it was crafted by an enemy of America, reads as follows:

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1 HOUSE RESOLUTION

2 WHEREAS, Gun violence is an ever present problem in the
3 State, as well as nationwide; an example of which is 8 persons
4 dying in Chicago in one week in October due to gun violence;
5 and

6 WHEREAS, In the past few years, court rulings, including
7 the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia V.
8 Heller, in interpreting the Second Amendment to the United
9 States Constitution have overturned long standing precedent,
10 which had supported state and local authority to deny gun
11 possession when necessary to promote and protect public safety;
12 in order to reach its decision, the 5 member majority of the
13 United States Supreme Court either ignored or misinterpreted
14 much of the clear and plain wording of the Second Amendment;
15 and

16 WHEREAS, As stated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens in
17 his well-thought out dissent on behalf of 4 Justices in Heller:
18 “The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the
19 people of each of the several States to maintain a
20 well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised
21 during ratification of the Constitution that the power of
22 Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national
23 standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of

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1 the several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the
2 arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest
3 interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate
4 private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no
5 indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to
6 enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the
7 Constitution.”; rather the Second Amendment’s original purpose
8 was to act as a check on federal gun-making policy, not to
9 prevent individual states from creating gun policy as they saw
10 fit; and

11 WHEREAS, The legal view of the Second Amendment as a
12 collective, militia right, and not an individual right, held
13 for over 200 years until the Heller decision in 2008, which
14 invalidated a law barring individuals from possessing a handgun
15 not registered before the law took effect and annual
16 registrations for the remaining handguns; and

17 WHEREAS, The Heller decision and other pro-firearm
18 industry court rulings have resulted in a proliferation of guns
19 in numerous communities and have diminished the security and
20 freedom of our citizens to enjoy a life free of gun violence;
21 living with the fear of gun violence is contrary to living in a
22 free society; high levels of gun violence are a threat to the
23 security of whole communities; and

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1 WHEREAS, The cost of gun violence has been pushed onto
2 everyone except the people and companies that produce and sell
3 firearms; the firearms industry benefits financially when more
4 guns are sold; more firearms in circulation leads to more gun
5 crimes, homicides, and suicides to the extent that gun-related
6 deaths will soon exceed the number of deaths in automotive
7 crashes; but the Heller decision effectively said that most of
8 the Second Amendment should be disregarded in favor of the part
9 that is most profitable to the firearms industry, “the right of
10 the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”; and

11 WHEREAS, Throughout the history of the United States,
12 federal and state laws have regularly placed restrictions on
13 who can legally own, possess, and use firearms; even prior to
14 the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, gun control laws
15 were enacted; therefore laws restricting gun access are not
16 anomalous to American law; and

17 WHEREAS, Before these court decisions, state legislatures
18 had been able to pass laws restricting gun access if it was in
19 the best interests of public safety; therefore, be it

20 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
21 NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
22 urge the courts, especially the United States Supreme Court, to
23 restore interpretation of the Second Amendment as a right

HR0855 – 4 – LRB099 15137 MST 39363 r

1 afforded to state-sponsored militias that as Justice Stevens
2 stated in his Heller dissent, ” … it does not curtail the
3 Legislature’s power to regulate the non-military use and
4 ownership of weapons … “.

It is also certain that none of these Democrats are familiar with the nation’s founding or even the one of the nation’s most critical founders, George Mason. Mason helped craft the Second Amendment that assures every law-abiding American citizen can keep and bear arms. During the Virginia ratifying convention in 1778, Mason clearly explained, “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

You can’t have a militia without an armed citizenry. The Second Amendment guarantees the citizens the right to protect themselves, their families, and their homesteads, no matter what some hack Socialist Democrat has to say about it.

Hat tip: BadBlue Gun News.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2015/12/great-news-crime-free-gun-free-illinois.html