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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was all smiles as he signed two new gun management payments into legislation this week, claiming they’ll save lives and defend kids.
For gun house owners within the Prairie State, although, the message was clear: extra restrictions, extra mandates, and even fewer rights for the law-abiding.
The payments – HB 1373 and the Secure Gun Storage Act (SB 8) – are the most recent in a string of anti-gun legal guidelines Illinois has rolled out beneath Pritzker’s tenure.
Collectively, they mandate crime gun tracing for all firearms recovered at crime scenes and tighten storage necessities for weapons in properties, with the state arguing it will stop accidents, suicides, and thefts.
Pritzker didn’t maintain again the rhetoric throughout the signing ceremony, blasting gun house owners, the firearms trade, and anybody who resists extra legal guidelines.
He accused pro-2A advocates and the “gun foyer” of “ducking and protecting for the gun trade’s cash” and claimed he’s “uninterested in treating one thing utterly preventable as inevitable.”
The state’s legal professional normal and legislative allies echoed his speaking factors, insisting that forcing each police division to log crime weapons and mandating house storage will lastly curb gun violence.
Advocates like GPAC Illinois and Mothers Demand Motion alumni cheered the measures as “commonsense” life-savers.
The Drawback
Right here’s the issue: Illinois has been stacking gun legal guidelines for years, but Chicago stays one of many nation’s most violent cities. Lawful gun house owners have watched their rights shrink whereas carjackers, gang members, and repeat felons appear to function with impunity.
Obligatory storage legal guidelines don’t cease decided criminals. They don’t cease straw purchasers, gang members, or violent felons, they usually definitely wouldn’t have prevented town’s most up-to-date shootings. What they do is burden the law-abiding – the very folks least prone to misuse a firearm.
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Pritzker boasted about lowering shootings on state highways, pointing to the influence of legislation enforcement. However that success got here from police motion, not one other pile of rules on gun house owners.
And let’s not neglect: Illinois already handed a sweeping “assault weapons” ban, common background checks, and ghost gun prohibitions. Criminals haven’t precisely known as it quits.
Secure storage legal guidelines are notably controversial. Whereas no accountable gun proprietor objects to maintaining firearms safe, turning private safety choices into authorized mandates raises critical Second Modification considerations.
What SB 8 Means for Illinois Gun House owners:
Mandates locked storage if minors beneath 18 may entry your gun. Civil fines as much as $10,000 if a baby or prohibited individual features entry and hurt happens. Misplaced or stolen firearms should be reported inside 48 hours (down from 72). Violations are negligence per se in civil courtroom.
Rights Underneath Siege
For 2A advocates, the signing ceremony was a stark reminder that Illinois isn’t all in favour of working with gun house owners – it’s working in opposition to them.
The Governor celebrated these payments as “life-saving,” however historical past tells us they’re prone to be one other set of feel-good legal guidelines that fail to cease criminals whereas organising law-abiding residents for authorized hassle.
Count on these legal guidelines to face courtroom challenges beneath Bruen, particularly provided that the Supreme Courtroom has made clear that fashionable gun rules should align with historic custom.
Illinois has been on a collision course with the Second Modification for years, and these new legal guidelines push that battle even additional.
