Dick’s firearms restrictions sound nice, but will they really make a difference?

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I found a statement from Dick’s Sporting Goods in my e-mail box – the one telling me they’re going to stop sales of assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines at the stores the company controls.

One less place selling assault-style rifles

Pretty soon, that statement had been turned into a story that was showing up on news organizations across the nation – heck, it was the lede story for the Chicago Sun-Times’ website for part of the day.

SOMEWHERE, THERE’S A public relations executive who earned their money for the day – they got Dick’s corporate name into the public eye, and in a way that will be viewed sympathetically by the general public.

A good day, I suppose.

Except that I’m not the least bit convinced this move will make any dent whatsoever in the flow of firearms that exist amongst the public – and are what causes the threat of violence that exists these days in our society.

Because I’m not convinced that the kind of people who are obtaining firearms for violent purposes who really have no business thinking of themselves as gun owners are those who go to big, public shopping centers when they seek out their weapons.

I WRITE THAT knowing full well that Dick’s officials admitted that one of the weapons used in that Parkland, Fla., school shooting that left 17 dead last month was a shotgun that had been purchased from a Dick’s store.

That was truly the fluke.

Perhaps I’ve been influenced too much by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other activists who get worked up over gun violence. As a reporter-type person, I have seen them do many protests at gun shops that usually are in isolated locations. A place like Dick’s would be far too public for the kind of people actually having thoughts of large-scale violence for whatever foul reason they concoct in their minds.

And I’m not about to blame places like Chuck’s Gun Shop, located in suburban Riverdale just a few blocks across from the Chicago city limits. Although Jackson and the Rev. Michael Pfleger have often said they think Chuck’s sells many of the weapons that eventually wind up being used for nefarious purposes, even that store in a decaying suburb (one I lived in for a few years back when I was a young child) may be too out-in-the-open for conspiracy types.

WHAT ALWAYS ASTOUNDS me is the trail a weapon can take from the time it was legally sold to the point when someone decided to enrich themselves by selling it to someone whose intent is some sort of foul play.

It’s certainly not anything that would involve Dick’s.

Heck, Dick’s itself actually cut off sales of automatic rifles several years ago following another school shooting incident in Connecticut – one that involved children far younger than the teenagers who perished in Florida. What this act involves is cutting off sales of such weapons at the Field & Stream stores that also are a part of the corporate family.

Obviously, cutting off the sales at Dick’s proper several years ago didn’t prevent this incident from occurring. In fact, it makes me agree with a television-type pundit I heard recently who said that if the incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School (where very young children were killed) didn’t motivate political people to act, then likely nothing would.

I DID FIND it interesting to see Dick’s says it will no longer sell firearms of any type to anyone under 21, which is a step in the right direction.

Particularly since it is an idea being contemplated by the Illinois General Assembly, where on Wednesday the Illinois House of Representatives approved an identical age limit, while taking up the enactment of several firearms-related restrictions that allegedly will make the public feel more secure.

Seeing a business voluntarily take on such a restriction is more likely to work than a state law that, I’m sure, ideologues will claim is another unfair regulation meant to hem in business.

But it still doesn’t change the fact that this move by Dick’s is but a tiny piece of the overall solution. Just as I’m sure our state Legislature’s actions are motivated in part by their desire that we quit focusing attention on other issues (sexual harassment, anyone?) they’d prefer we ignore.

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Let the crumb-bum pay!

I’m starting to wonder if finding someone to blame, then making them pay some sort of fee that allegedly will erase the problem they cause, is the latest tactic for governmental units trying to raise funds.

PRECKWINKLE: Looking for cash

Earlier this year, the state gave its approval to a new law that charges a fee on top of the cover charge assessed by many strip clubs. Money from that fee paid by men who feel the need to check out some “jugs” or “buns” will go toward a state program that will provide financial help for clinics that deal with rape victims.

THE SAME THEORY seems to be at work in a proposal that the Chicago Sun-Times says is being considered by the Cook County Board to come up with money to balance out their budget for 2013.

Specifically, the newspaper says that county board President Toni Preckwinkle wants to charge a “violence” tax on firearms and their ammunition sold out in the suburbs.

We really don’t have gun stores within the city limits, so this would impact the people who use such shops to purchase their weapons (somehow, I doubt the street dealers who provide the bulk of illegally-purchased firearms are paying any taxes to the county).

In talking to the Sun-Times, Preckwinkle aides admit that such a tax isn’t going to raise huge sums of money. It reads more like this is meant to make a statement that these firearms are causing serious, and in many cases, fatal injuries.

SO PERHAPS SUCH a tax is appropriate in trying to raise enough money to maintain the county hospital system, along with the courts and county jail that have to incarcerate many of those who get caught committing various versions of ‘unlawful use of a weapon.’

Personally, it doesn’t bother me to learn that firearms owners are being hit with such a fee. I don’t own such weapons. The selfish part of my personality says, “It won’t hurt me.”

But the reporter-type person in me has dealt with the activists who fight on behalf of this issue, and I’m fairly confident they’re going to take up this cause with all the fury and anger they can arouse.

The real question will be to figure whether Preckwinkle is just trying to score herself some cheap political points at this moment of time – only to let the issue drop once we get closer to the day in December when the Cook County Board will actually have to decide what should, and should not, be in the county budget.

SOMEHOW, I SUSPECT this is going to fall into that latter category. It provides a lot of cheap rhetoric to bolster Preckwinkle’s ego, but likely will never result in anything resembling public policy.

All talk. No action.

Perhaps we ought to acknowledge Toi Hutchinson for at least pushing her idea (the strip club fee that the more sarcastic of pundits dubbed the “pole tax”) through to the point where it become something resembling law.

She got something done, even though the kind of people who want to view an ammunition and weapons tax as somehow unjust, unfair and un-American are the same ones who earlier this year were defending a man’s right to see some boobies without having to know that some of his cover charge will support rape-crisis centers.

I SAY IF it makes that particular guy think for just a moment about the tawdriness of his behavior, then perhaps that fee is worth it.

Such as perhaps a weapons fee might make a person think about whether they truly needed to have this particular firearm – or was this purchase about nothing more than their egos feeling shriveled.

Making the purchase nothing more than a form of Viagra for their minds.

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Law enforcement types backing 'concealed carry' gun change don’t sway stance

The conservative ideologues who long have liked the idea of changing Illinois law to permit people to carry pistols on their persons while out in public (they say it’s for self-protection, but I wonder if they just get off on the idea of being able to use the weapon on another human being) are claiming a significant jolt for their pet cause.

Every police officer I have ever known has hated the idea of “concealed carry” because they’re wary of anything that puts more weapons on the street.

YET THE ILLINOIS Association of Chiefs of Police, which engages in some lobbying of the Legislature on issues related to police (they hate the idea of medical marijuana and think cars should be required to have two licenses plates – instead of one), came out last month and said it no longer opposes “concealed carry.”

They’re not the only group related to police officers that says it can support a means by which people would be issued permits that would let them carry that pistol in a shoulder holster or tucked in a purse (so long as they don’t tuck it in the back of their waistband).

The Chicago Police Sergeants’ Association made its own stance in favor of “concealed carry” earlier this year. Although a part of me wonders if their support for the measure is just a means by which they can be cantankerous and disagree with the top brass.

Interim Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard made it known this week he still hates the idea of people walking around Chicago with handguns and thinking they will encounter a situation in which they would be legally capable of using them.

THE CHIEFS ASSOCIATION is a little different. But since that group represents the interests of law enforcement types outside of Chicago and whose current board of officers includes people from Champaign, Momence and Sherman (a Springfield suburb), I wonder if this is just a group inclined to think it wants to be opposed to Chicago – which has been the leader in keeping measures such as “concealed carry” from becoming law in Illinois.

What is different this year is that the gun-types who have been eager for this measure for decades are feeling a little emboldened. The fact that Richard M. Daley is now a political lame duck (with Rahm Emanuel making the mayoral appearance on Friday at Wrigley Field for the Chicago Cubs’ Opening Day festivities) makes them feel the time is now to strike to get this measure passed by the General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn into law.

There also is the fact that our state government has made some serious moves on issues ranging from marriage to capital crimes, and has taken a progressive stance that makes Illinois among the leaders in the nation.

That actually has some political people feeling that some sort of bone should be thrown to the conservative ideologues – particularly those from outside of Chicago who are willing to have the “Democrat” label attached to their name.

THAT “BONE” COULD well wind up being allowing someone to issue a card that permits the bearer to have that holstered pistol on his (or her) person.

Personally, I think it is a bad trade-off, although I am aware there are individuals who will vehemently disagree with me to the point where I’d be concerned about them ever having a pistol in their presence.

If anything, I think that situation confirms my stance on this particular issue, which is that we ought to regard firearms ownership as being similar to owning a car – some people should be prohibited from driving.

So what will happen? I’m not about to venture a guess, particularly since news reports indicate that state Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg (who includes the National Rifle Association among the groups that have endorsed his electoral bids for the state Legislature) himself admits his “concealed carry” bill will be amended between now and the time when it meets its ultimate fate this spring.

HE ALSO SAYS he’s negotiating with law enforcement groups to try to get their strong support – appealing to the naturally conservative ideological nature many of these police officers have to get them on board with a bill desired by many conservative ideologues, particularly in the outer reaches of Illinois where Paducah, Ky., or Cape Girardeau, Mo. (Rush Limbaugh’s birthplace) are a more real daily-life presence than Chicago.

This is one of those perennial issues on the Springpatch Scene. I can remember all the same talking points on this issue coming up in the debate that occurred when I covered the Illinois Statehouse more than a decade ago.

Is this an issue whose time has finally come? Or will the urban majority that comprises more than two-thirds of Illinois’ population keep this measure in check for yet another year?

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