Can government tell people they can’t pack pistols? Some would say ‘no!’

I can’t help but think the Illinois State Rifle Association is showing just how ridiculous and overbearing their interpretations of the right to bear arms truly are, what with the way they called “most onerous” a bill approved this week by the Illinois House of Representatives.

Victim of overbearing government? Some would say 'yes'

That bill is one requiring people seeking permits to legally own a firearm to submit their fingerprints – which would make it easy for police to check to see if there are any reasons this particular individual ought not have such weapons.

THE BILL WAS motivated by past incidents, including one in suburban Aurora, where a man with a criminal record that should have stopped him from owning firearms had managed to purchase them anyway.

The man who walked into his former employer and began shooting people (he was p-o’ed) slipped through the cracks of the process we already had in place to make sure people with relevant criminal records don’t obtain such weapons.

Which means these people shouldn’t have pistols or rifles or any other such firearm.

Yet it seems the people whose only interest in the U.S. Constitution is in the (some might say obsolete) Second Amendment are interested in protecting the “rights” of people whom those of us with sense would think it a ‘no-brainer’ that their rights to own firearms have been forfeited.

SERIOUSLY, IN THE Aurora incident (that left five people AND the gunman dead), the man had a felony aggravated assault conviction in Mississippi and had multiple arrests in Aurora and Oswego.

Technically, the law would have made his Mississippi conviction (for which he served a little over two years in prison) ineligible to purchase a firearm legally.

Yet he was issued a Firearm Owner Identification card in Illinois in 2014 in large part because the background check did not include a fingerprint check – which would have revealed the Mississippi conviction and made him ineligible.

That FOID card is what allowed the man to openly walk into gun shops and purchase the weapons (at least one of which he is said to have used the day he walked into his former employer and began shooting – upset that he had been fired from his job).

THE LEGISLATURE’S ACTION might appear common-sense to many, but to the people who want to view firearms as some inalienable, God-given, right, it is one that has them screeching and threatening to take legal action to find a judge somewhere whose willing to let his own ideological leanings interpret the law in such a way that the gun owner becomes the “victim.”

And yes, it would seem that it was rural and outer suburban-based legislators who provided the bulk of votes against the measure – which narrowly passed this week 62-52 (60 votes needed for approval).

There were other provisions of the bill, including one that says someone whose legal right to own firearms has been revoked must actually surrender them to police or document that they’ve turned them over to someone who can legally possess them.

Which would appear to be very sensible – except to those who think that gun owners ought to be able to slip through the cracks of bureaucracy in order to keep clutching their pistols in the grips of their fingers – until said moment that their grip becomes cold and dead!

IT STRIKES ME as hypocritical for some to think that these restrictions on firearm ownership are flawed. Particularly if they’re the types of people who think that a person’s felony conviction for a crime ought to forevermore prohibit them from being able to register to vote in elections.

Then again, there also are those types who want to think there’s no such thing as a unit of government that they’re obligated to respect.

It reminds me of one time I saw one of those daytime talk shows where a clergyman was the guest being interviewed – and he showed as evidence of his disdain for government his own special driver’s license. One not issued by his state’s motor vehicles bureau because he thinks no state has a right to tell him he can’t drive.

About the only consolation I take in any of this kind of thought is the notion that someday, these people will have to confront the lord almighty and have to justify their knuckleheaded line of logic. My faith says they won’t be able to do so.

  -30-

A ‘real’ national emergency is seen in cinematic home town of Stan Mikita’s Donuts -- not along U.S./Mexico border

A real 'national emergency'

Maybe it’s evidence that a deity is watching over us, and that he had nothing to do with Donald Trump becoming president – the way some of the more religiously overzealous ideologues amongst us like to claim.

But on the day Friday when Trump tried to claim that conditions along the U.S./Mexico border are so violent and drug-infested that they constitute a “national emergency,” we got to see an incident that truly qualifies.

BY THAT, I’M referring to the shooting incident in Aurora, Ill., on Friday, the one that gained national attention as the latest of public outbursts that wind up with multiple casualties.

In this case, we’re talking about the “stressed out” factory worker whose reaction to learning he was “fired” from the job was to pull out a pistol he was carrying (illegally) and start shooting.

Police ultimately killed the man in question, but five other people were killed and wounded – including a few police officers themselves. 

Who thinks more alongside mindset … 

The sad aspect of this incident is that the details of all these public outbursts usually wind up becoming so similar that they all become intertwined in the public mindset. This particular moment happened in the unfortunately-named city in west suburban Chicago – since there also was the 2012 incident at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

HOW MUCH YOU want to bet some people won’t be able to keep the two incidents straight?

To me, the notion that we have so much violence occurring in parts of the country that would like to think they’re isolated from conditions that would cause such incidents in the first place is the real “national emergency.”

… of the American people? It ain't Trump!

It ought to be the evidence needed to show that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is correct when she claims a future Democratic president could easily use the concept of a “national emergency” to push for the stricter gun control laws that conservative ideologues claim are essential to the “American way” of life.

Although that threat didn’t particularly sway Trump away from using “national emergency” from trying to force funding for a U.S./Mexico border barricade.

PROBABLY BECAUSE HE realizes that the bulk of Democratic political professionals, and even many Republican types, have too much respect for the ideals of democracy and what really is the “American way” to try anything so rash and irresponsible.

Twisted sense of amendment's purpose

In short, Trump counts on the fact that the bulk of us aren’t as absurd as he is.

In fact, many were trying to score political points against Trump by dinging the president for not speaking out vociferously enough about the incident – with some saying they wonder if he’d have been willing to use the incident to his advantage if it had somehow involved a Latino gunman

Because then, it would have fit into his line of thinking about all those foreigners coming here to kill people.

JUST LIKE HOW on Friday morning he was eager to claim “emergency” conditions about all the illicit narcotics being brought into this country – even though the reality is they’re being brought here because there’s a market for them amongst the U.S. populace – many of whom probably voted for Trump in the first place.

If it were real, it could comfort us from Friday's violent outburst

I’m not trying to downplay violence across the nation, much of which comes about due to the ease by which many can obtain firearms. It’s just a sad reality that conditions aren’t going to chance until we come to the realization that our overly-loose interpretation of the Second Amendment to have open use of firearms is going to have to be adapted.

That amendment, after all, says, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” but also cadges it with rhetoric about “well-regulated militias” and “state security” that too many “gun nuts” prefer to ignore.

One other reality of Friday’s incident – Aurora, Ill., won’t just be in the public’s minds as the home town of “Wayne’s World.” I’m sure many Aurora-types would just as soon go back to the days of people showing up and asking for the location of the mythical “Stan Mikita’s Donuts” shop.

  -30-