Lower than 24 hours after a brand new Illinois legislation mandating that firearms be locked as much as stop entry by kids or in any other case unauthorized individuals, a 7-year-old Chicago youngster was reportedly shot in a house within the Windy Metropolis’s northwest facet.
Maybe no mishap may higher illustrate the futility of adopting such laws with the expectation it is going to stay as much as its promoting.
When the Each day Herald reported on the brand new legislation, the headline, which led with the phrases “Lock ‘em up,” might have misled some to imagine town was going to jail armed criminals. In actuality, the brand new statute, signed by anti-gun gov, J.B. Pritzker six months in the past in Springfield, really appears extra designed to penalize gun homeowners by hitting violators with fines which can go as excessive as $10,000.
No one was instantly taken into custody following the New 12 months’s Day taking pictures, which left the sufferer wounded however anticipated to be okay. As famous by the Each day Herald report, “Failure to conform isn’t against the law.”
WLS Information in Chicago famous in its report, “However it’s nonetheless not clear how the 8-year-old was so simply in a position to entry a gun moments earlier than he allegedly pulled the set off.”
What is obvious is that the brand new Illinois statute—basically like every other restrictive gun management legislation—failed nearly instantly. The legislation, Senate Invoice 8, dubbed the Secure Gun Storage Act, fastidiously notes in its synopsis, “Supplies that if the firearm is carried by or underneath the management of the proprietor or different lawfully approved consumer, then the firearm is deemed lawfully saved or stored.”
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This will or might not fulfill the Supreme Court docket’s language about locking up weapons within the textual content of District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 Second Modification case, which reminded the nation that the precise to maintain and bear arms belongs to particular person residents, not simply militia members, and that handguns are protected by the modification.
The Heller ruling, authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, notes, “In sum, we maintain that the District’s ban on handgun possession within the residence violates the Second Modification, as does its prohibition in opposition to rendering any lawful firearm within the residence operable for the aim of rapid self-defense. Assuming that Heller just isn’t disqualified from the train of Second Modification rights, the District should allow him to register his handgun and should subject him a license to hold it within the residence.”
It has lengthy been a matter of frequent information that authorities can’t legislate in opposition to stupidity, and when it adopts restrictions on the basic proper enshrined within the Second Modification, criminals routinely ignore them.
A have a look at the favored web site Heyjackass.com, which tracks homicides in Chicago, tells the story. In 2025, the web site says, town racked up 433 homicides, of which 362 concerned firearms. Heyjackass.com acknowledges final yr’s totals are down from 2024 by higher than 30 %. Even the variety of folks shot and wounded, a complete of 1,592, was down 35 % from the earlier yr.
Different provisions of the brand new legislation, defined within the synopsis, embrace:
Supplies that the court docket might order an individual who’s present in violation of the Act to carry out group service or pay restitution in lieu of the civil penalties imposed underneath this Part if good trigger is proven.
Supplies that nothing within the Act shall be construed to preclude civil liabilities for violations of the Act.
Supplies {that a} violation of the Act is prima facie proof of negligence per se in any civil continuing if a minor, an at-risk particular person, or a prohibited particular person obtains a firearm and causes private harm to the loss of life of oneself or one other or makes use of the firearm within the fee of against the law.
Illinois isn’t the one state with a brand new storage mandate. California additionally requires weapons to be saved in a locked protected (SB 53). And that’s not all. Beginning April 1, the Golden State restricts gun purchases to a few per thirty days after a court docket ruling struck down the one-per-month restrict as unconstitutional. Different restrictions will kick in at mid-year.
With state legislatures opening for enterprise inside the subsequent few weeks in lots of states, look ahead to Democrats to push much more restrictions on law-abiding gun homeowners, whereas tending to go softer on criminals. Sponsors of such laws will stay intentionally oblivious to the New 12 months’s Day occasion in Chicago.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, writer of a number of books on the Proper to Preserve & Bear Arms, and previously an NRA-certified firearms teacher.
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