Time and time again, it’s been said by many, including me, that the Second Amendment is the thing that makes all the rest of the Constitution work. Think about it… any law that has nothing backing it up, does it really have a chance of working? Imagine that you got a parking ticket. You look at it and throw it away because you know there’s no police force going to come after you… no one will ring the doorbell and put you in cuffs and MAKE you pay the ticket. With no enforcement of a law, why would anyone obey it? In all likelihood, they wouldn’t, and that’s the heart of the matter. In America, we are guaranteed that the government cannot and will not infringe on our right to own and bear arms. Do you see how it works?
In February of 2019, the newly-elected Governor of Illinois signed a bill into law. It was definitely an anti-gun law but it was what is referred to as a “back-door” law…it doesn’t outright outlaw guns, because that would never go over, but many firearm shops in Illinois are being forced to close because of a hot-button law that ensures state-level gun licensing. Some of the law’s details are that it would instruct state police to issue gun shops their certifications based on a sliding fee that could range from $300 all the way to $40,000. It would also force the shops to clear several new hurdles such as using a gun storage plan, holding annual staff training and allowing local law officers to perform inspections.
Many gun advocates voiced their frustrations saying that the new guidelines mom and pop stores would be “forced to close through oversight by anti-gun appointees or being priced out of business.” One such owner lamented, “I’m just going to retire, I guess,” when he shared he would close his shop after 40 years of business. “I hope that I can live off of what I’ve saved over the years.”
March of 2019 brought this…The state of Pennsylvania is now one step closer to the means to confiscate every firearm by instituting a gun registry in the Keystone State. HB0768 would establish a gun registry forcing every gun owner to register every firearm they own with the state. Not only that, but the bill would require gun owners to re-register their collection every single year. The fee would be ten dollars for each gun they own. Also, the bill requires a new background check for each firearms being registered. It’s known as the Firearms Registration Act. Oh, and the background check is the same one you have to go through to purchase the gun in the first place. Now that’s not all, you have to also give the Pennsylvania State Police your home address, your work address, your telephone number, your social security number, your date of birth, your age sex and citizenship…most of which they should already have anyway from the process of you getting your permit. This is all more information than you need to give to vote if you were approved to buy the gun and you buy it. Then you submit for the registry and for whatever reason the background check denies you, you are now a criminal if you don’t hand your brand new gun over to the state police for them to destroy it.
You won’t be allowed to sell the gun, either. If it is rejected for the registry, it is now illegal. You can’t sell or transfer it. Then, every other gun you own is now under threat because one denial will likely lead to ALL your guns being retroactively denied. The police can deny you for any reason, too. They don’t have to prove anything or even tell you why.
Let’s go a little ways further back… 2013 actually. Edward J. Erler spoke at Hillsdale College spoke there in February, and he led off with this statement: “We are currently mired in a frantic debate about the rights of gun owners. One example should suffice to prove that the debate has become hysterical: Second Amendment supporters, one prominent but less than articulate member of Congress alleges, have become “enablers of mass murder.”
Special animus has been directed against so-called assault rifles. These are semi-automatic, not automatic weapons—the latter have been illegal under federal law since the 1930s—because they require a trigger pull for every round fired. Some semi-automatic firearms, to be sure, can be fitted with large-capacity magazines. But what inspires the ire of gun control advocates seems to be their menacing look—somehow they don’t appear fit for polite society. No law-abiding citizen could possibly need such a weapon, we are told—after all, how many rounds from a high-powered rifle are needed to kill a deer? And we are assured that these weapons are not well-adapted for self-defense—that only the military and the police need to have them.”
Folks, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the anti-guns people are woefully ignorant about the very weapons they are talking about and wanting to ban. Almost any major city which has/had a Democrat government, has strict “gun control” laws, yet the shootings persist, and no one can explain why…but we know, don’t we?
Parting Shot: Keep your guns, know your rights, and remain free American citizens.
