Chicago shootings put spotlight on Illinois gun laws

There is no evidence to show that the above requirements are anymore beneficial to the well being of the public than the background check performed by a federally licensed firearms dealer, as it is not the violent prohibited individuals seeking to legally purchase firearms.

 

Your last sentence has nothing to do with the rest of your paragraph.

An FOID implies governmental permission to exercise a right. That's not acceptable, and doesn't seem to keep Chicago criminals from possessing firearms or ammunition.

 

Stop taking what I wrote out of context. 6Gunner misleadingly implied that the good guys with guns would be stopping the bad guys were it not for "totalitarian gun laws". You and Rucker61 appear to concede that that claim is false.

 

Do the laws in Illinois prevent those living in the gang infested areas from legally arming and defending themselves? No one expects civilians to patrol and clean out someone else's neighborhoods, but if gun ownership was affordable we might see more armed citizens in South Chicago.

No one cares if the criminals off each other.

 

It does because it shows why Illinois authorities need to take an active role in regulating FFL's.

States can exercise broad authority over personal gun ownership in order to protect public safety. The Tenth Amendment protects the traditional police powers of the state. In the 18th Century some states required individuals to swear an oath of loyalty to the state or be disarmed. Back then they didn't want people who were loyal to Great Britain to be armed. Now the concern is criminals being armed.

 

What do you mean? Also, FFLs are regulated federally.

States have very narrow authority over the right to keep and bear arms. Some simply exceed that authority. If the issue is criminals with guns, do something about criminals with guns. Find them, arrest them, prosecute them and punish them. Chicago has a very poor record of doing these tasks.

 

And what precisely can states do that the ATF cannot, that justifies such an approach being engaged in?

False. States do not have any greater authority over legal private firearms ownership than the united states federal government. This was stated in both the Heller and McDonald rulings on the matter. States do not have the ability to restrict legal firearms ownership by claiming it is necessary for public safety. The united state supreme court went out of its way to specify that the second amendment was not subject to judicial interest balancing where it would be weighed against vague, poorly defined standards such as "public safety" whatever that may mean to whomever is asked on the subject.

Beyond that particular matter, the restrictions in place in the state of Illinois have done nothing to prevent prohibited individuals in the city of Chicago from acquiring the majority of their firearms from the state of Illinois itself. According to the findings of the ATF itself, the state of Illinois supplied more firearms to known prohibited individuals than any other state where a successful firearms trace was performed.

 

<Rule 2> A hundred years of corruption and totalitarian gun laws won't be undone overnight.

Illinois - and Chicago in particular - had to be forced by the courts to give up their laws and many cases continue to be filed against the city for its refusal to let go if its gun-banning past. The catastrophe that is Chicago did not happen overnight. Corrupt Chicago politicians have been in bed with the criminals of Chicago going back over a century; the current band of Democratic lawmakers there, led by Rahm Emmanuel, have pushed the situation until police can't and won't respond to neighborhoods where the gang violence is rampant and actually facilitated by the city government. The universal bans on gun ownership might have been reversed in Chicago, but in the worst of the violence-afflicted neighborhoods poverty is one of the biggest issues, and when you can barely afford to pay your rent and feed your kids you can't spend the money to buy a serious self-defense sidearm. Note the issues of extreme gang violence aren't happening anywhere near as often in the more affluent parts of town.

 

Nothing I said was false. NOTHING. You don't have to like it, but them's the facts, bubba.