ILLINOIS—It’s fairly clear that the Illinois State Police, as well as the majority of our state legislators, don’t want the citizens of this state to carry concealed weapons.
Never mind that the majority of the state (perhaps with the keen exception of the Chicagoland and Metro-East areas) are lawful FOID card holders, experienced with handling guns of all sorts, and are responsible in their use of them. Never mind that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals gave the state legislature 180 days to construct a law to allowed concealed carry in our state, the last in the union to allow such a thing after our rights to do so were taken away from us decades ago. Never mind that the law is now in place.
Now, the state police are going to drag their feet getting the permitting process going. Who knows, it may be ANOTHER six months or more before this is ready to go. And the fees associated with it, we’re willing to bet, will probably increase before it’s all over, since it’s going to “take so long” and “be so labor-intensive.”
Mary Shepard was trying to offset that a couple of weeks ago, but thus far, her efforts have been, pardon the pun, shot down.
Shepard is the woman who was beaten in a church in Anna in 2009, the victim of a parolee who came to rob the place and found Shepard and another woman there. Shepard effectively argued that had she been legally armed, she could have subdued her attacker; but Illinois law doesn’t allow a person to carry a weapon on them unless they are “in their own abode or on their own property.” No other state in America has that ridiculous restriction; every state has a version of either concealed or open carry of weapons for protection…one of the many reason the Second Amendment exists.
Shepard’s lawsuit was what helped originate the Seventh Circuit Court’s decision last December to remove the restrictions from Illinoisans’ Second Amendment rights. But most recently, Shepard has been in front of a judge in East St. Louis, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, arguing that the current delay is continuing to violate Illinoisans’ Second Amendment rights. In coverage of this, various news outlets have reported:
Shepard, in court filings, called such a delay unreasonable and insisted it “constitutes an unacceptable perpetuation of the defendants’ infringement of the Second Amendment rights.” While noting she wasn’t challenging elements of the new permitting process, Shepard said her issue was over “the complete ban on carrying firearms that continues to exist until the permitting process is up and running.”
A week ago Friday (JUly 18, 2013), U.S. District Judge William Stiehl ruled that the lawsuit was moot, and threw it out. Shepard (who is joined in the suit by the Illinois State Rifle Association), do have leave to refile, however; Stiehl at least gave them the opportunity to “file a new complaint spelling out why such a wait is onerous or illegal.”
Carmi’s Valinda Rowe, testifying earlier this year on behalf of concealed carry while displaying a photo of a beaten Mary Shepard
We’re with Shepard and the ISRA; of course it’s both ‘onerous’ AND ‘illegal.’ Concealed carry is concealed carry. If we have a law permitting it, restrictions (such as the permitting process, fees, etc) should be waived until the state’s entity that puts them in place (the state police) gets them in place, instead of the other way around. The state, as usual, has it backwards: We, the people, have to wait on the laws before our rights are given back, instead of allowing us our rights as soon as the law is enacted. After all…when the state enacts a “traffic law” or “drug law,” THAT’S effective immediately, right? But apparently, when the state gives us back our god-given rights they took from us unconstitutionally years ago, it just doesn’t work that way.
There’s no word yet on whether or not Shepard an the ISRA will be refiling in ESL; if they do, we’ll bring it to you. In the meantime, what is your opinion? How do you feel about the delay, which is expected to be another six months or more while the state police set up the “permitting process”? Would you be willing to be under the permitting restrictions after six to nine months of allowing concealed carry without restrictions…? Or is that a ridiculous premise? Let us know your thoughts.