Working for Illinois Caucus

EDWARDSVILLE — When supporters first proposed making Madison County a “sanctuary county” for gun owners, this was what they were afraid of.

A bill banning new semi-automatic assault rifles and severely curtailing the possession of existing weapons is one of many pieces of gun-related legislation has been introduced in the Illinois General Assembly.

While that happens regularly, new super majorities in both houses and the election of Gov. J. B. Pritzker, who has expressed support for gun control, have caused a great deal of concern among gun rights advocates.

“The issues we were concerned about before are probably going to happen,” said Madison County Board Member Don Moore, R-Troy. “I guess I’m a little disheartened that the state, under the new governor, will infringe on our Second Amendment rights.”

Moore was one of the backers of a referendum to make Madison County a “sanctuary county” for “lawful gun owners.”

“We’ve done our part to let them know Madison County believes in Second Amendment rights, and we’re going to stand up and fight,” he said.

The assault weapon bill, SB107, was introduced Jan. 23 by State Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Deerfield, and sent to the Judiciary Committee on Jan. 30.

As submitted it would ban large numbers of semi-automatic rifles and some handguns and shotguns; some specifically by name and others using various criteria including the presence of pistol grips, large capacity magazines, folding or collapsible stocks, barrel shrouds and other attachments.

Owners of existing weapons would be allowed to keep them but the weapons would have to be registered, and the bill would be severely limited in who they could be transferred to. Failure to register would be a felony.

Other bills would, among other things, require Firearm Owner’s Identification Card applicants to provide a list of their social media accounts to the Illinois State Police, revoke FOID cards for those reporting losses or thefts of firearms in three separate incidents within a two-year period, and place restrictions on ammunition.

“It seems like now that there’s a super majority in the house and senate that they’re going to try to push through every anti-gun proposal they’ve been holding back for four years,” said Scott Pulaski, owner of Piasa Armory in Alton, a gun store and shooting range.

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, said they are monitoring all the bills being introduced at this time and have a number of concerns.

“There’s a lot of bills that are obviously anti-gun, but there are some pro-gun bills too,” he said. “We’ll be looking at all those bills.”

He said the make-up of the state legislature, as well as Gov. Pritzker’s stated support of gun control means “they can pass some pretty bad legislation.”

For the ISRA the proposed ban would be “pretty bad.”

“We’re going to have to resist this with everything we have,” he said. “We believe it is unconstitutional. It requires registration of your firearm. That’s always led to confiscation in the end.”

Weapons of war or sporting rifles?

Part of the issue is that because the way both sides characterize the guns affected by the bill. If you don’t know what they are talking about you might think they are entirely different subjects.

In general assault weapon bans refer to semi-automatic “military-style” rifles capable of handling large capacity magazines, although some handguns and shotguns are included.

Among purists one of the definitions of “assault rifle” is that it is select fire, allowing both semi- and full-auto fire. Such weapons are heavily regulated by the federal government and generally banned in Illinois except for law enforcement.

The semi-automatic assault rifle is epitomized by the “AR-15” style weapons.

“They take aim at the AR-15 in particular,” Pearson said. “It’s the most common rifle in the United Sates.

“They use them for self-defense, they use them for marksmanship training,” he added. “The anti-gun side just wants to say they look scary and should be banned, that’s all malarkey.”

The AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle, originally made by ArmaLite Inc. It was first developed in the late 1950s and the design was later sold to Colt, which manufactured military version, the M-16 and later the M-4.

Semi-automatic versions have been around since it was first designed, but the AR-15’s popularity took off, ironically, after the 1994 assault weapons ban.

That law banned specific weapons and weapons with certain features, but also prompted gun manufacturers to modify existing designs to meet the law’s requirements. Attempts at resurrecting the ban, which expired in 2004, have been common, and have been introduced at the federal level this year.

According to gun control advocates, the guns are simply “assault rifles” with no legitimate civilian use, and should not be owned by the general public.

“Semiautomatic assault weapons equipped with high-capacity ammunition magazines incorporate characteristics specifically designed for soldiers on the battlefield, yet under federal law they are sold as easily as bolt-action hunting rifles,” said Violence Policy Center Legislative Director Kristen Rand after the introduction of a new federal assault rifle ban bill. “As a result of the gun industry’s hyper-marketing of these military bred weapons, they are consistently used by civilians to carry out unspeakable atrocities. The easy availability of these weapons of war has resulted in mass shootings that leave families and communities devastated.”

A 2011 report by the Violence Policy Center looked at the gun industry’s reliance on “military-style” weapons in the civilian market.

“Today, militarized weapons–semiautomatic assault rifles, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and armor-piercing handguns–define the U.S. civilian gun market…” according to the study, The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market.

“Your grandfather’s shotgun has no place in today’s civilian gun market,” said the study’s author, VPC Senior Policy Analyst Tom Diaz. “The gun industry has created a unique American civilian firearms bazaar which arms thousands of criminals, dangerous extremists, and drug traffickers throughout the world. If Congress wants to find the real causes of the gun traffic to Mexico, it needs to look upstream to the gun industry’s callous transformation of the American gun market into one more suited to warfare than sport. The world’s bad guys come here for their guns because they are cheap and plentiful.”

Pro-gun advocates refer to them as “modern sporting rifles” suitable for home defense, target shooting, hunting, collecting and competitive shooting.

According to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation approximately 1.3 million new “modern sporting rifles” are made and sold each year.

“It is the most common rifle in the country right now,” Pulaski said of the AR-15, adding his store sells them “all the time.

Ease of use and the ability to customize are two of the main draws.

“You can use one rifle to do everything with,” he said. “There are a lot of varieties in caliber, a lot of configuration options. You can customize this to fit you exactly. If you don’t like out of the box all it takes is a little time and some common tools, and you can do your own thing.”

The store features an AR-15 “build room,” where customers can put together and customize their own rifles using the store’s tools.

“It’s easy to use, it’s easy to accessorize,”Pulaski said. “To put a scope on a bolt action rifle, a lot of times you have to take it to a gunsmith and spend a bunch of money. For an AR-15 you grab a set of scope rings and put them on with a screwdriver.”

Handguns used in majority of gun murders

Another question is whether gun control advocates are going after the wrong targets.

While “assault rifles,” specifically versions of the AR-15 figure in high-profile mass shootings, they and other rifles are responsible for a very small percentage of all homicides.

According to the 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report there were a total of 15,070 homicides that year (the last year full figures are available). Of those, 11,004 were committed with firearms.

About two-thirds of firearm homicides involve handguns, 5 percent rifles of all kinds and 5 percent shotguns. The remainder is committed with “other” types of firearms or the specific type is not noted. Those statistics remain fairly consistent from 2012-2016.

Gun control fight framed by geography

At the national level gun control tends to be a Republican/Democrat issue, but generally Illinois gun politics is defined more by geography than party.

While gun control is generally popular in Chicago and the Collar Counties, downstate residents and legislators tend to support gun rights.

In November Madison County voters approved a referendum making the county a “sanctuary county” for gun owners. A number of downstate counties have taken similar action. However, it is only symbolic, according to both supporters and Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons.

The Madison County Board split along party lines in approving the referendum for the ballot, with many Democrats saying they supported gun rights but argued the referendum was not enforceable and did nothing. In November the referendum was overwhelmingly approved by voters 67,672 to 33,416.

The referendum, “Shall Madison County become a sanctuary county for law abiding gun owners to protect them from unconstitutional gun laws passed by the Illinois General Assembly?” came up as a way to “send a message” to upstate politicians, according to supporters.

The Illinois General Assembly also reflects that geographic split, with most downstate legislators voting pro-gun.

Locally, Rep. Monica Bristow, D-Godfrey, has consistently voted against most gun control legislation in the last legislative session, including bills to raise the minimum age and requiring a 72-hour waiting period to purchase assault weapons, and state licensing of gun stores. She has also introduced some bills this session on easing costs and requirements on concealed carry licenses.

Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, voted in favor of all three measures, while Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Belleville, voted against the licensing but in favor of the assault rifle waiting period and age limits.

Newly-elected State Sen. Rachelle Aud Crowe, D-Glen Carbon, is taking a wait-and-see approach, saying she is waiting to see final versions of bills before considering them.

“In general I am pro-Second Amendment and have a concealed carry permit myself,” she said. “I come from a background of hunters and gun owners.

“I suspect we’ll see some of those in the next week or so, there’s a lot,” she said. “My understanding is there are still some details to work out,”

Court challenges almost a certainty

If any new legislation is approved, Pearson said it would probably lead to court challenges, something he predicts will become more commonplace after the recent change in the U.S. Supreme Court’s make-up.

Gibbons agreed.

“I think that will be immediately challenged in court, and I don’t think that will be held up,” Gibbons said Friday. “The federal courts are very clear.

“For those of us who are strong advocates of the Second Amendment, the federal courts have recognized very clearly the importance of the Second Amendment and the reach of the Second Amendment, and given us very strong case law to rest upon,” Gibbons said. “That’s ultimately where those decisions ought to be made, because this is a federal constitutional right that should be applied across the country. We need uniform standards so people know they can travel freely across the country and not have to check their guns at the border.”

Both the Illinois and U.S. constitutions provide a version of a right to bear arms.

In Article 1, Section 22 the Illinois Constitution says “Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

In the U.S. Constitution the Second Amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Gibbons said it was a “really good question” about the exact meaning of the state’s right to arms.

“There is a line of case law defining ‘police power,’ what that means,” he said. “But I think it’s a little more vague than the U.S. Constitution.”

There are two very general views on the Second Amendment. The pro-gun side views it as an “individual” right, while gun control advocates generally look at it as a “collective” right associated with the state militias.

After a ruling on the National Firearms Act of 1934, which primarily dealt with automatic weapons, sawed-off rifles and shotguns, suppressors and explosive devices, the Supreme Court was largely silent on gun regulations.

But in 2008 in Heller v District of Columbia the court struck down a Washington, D.C. ban on handguns and asserted an individual right to bear arms not related to military service. In 2010 McDonald v Chicago extended that by “incorporating” the Second Amendment as a fundamental right to the states through the Due Process Clause in the 14th Amendment.

Since then the Supreme Court has not considered Second Amendment cases, but recently agreed to hear a case dealing with a New York City law on transporting firearms outside of residents’ homes.

“For the Supreme Court to take up a case at all is pretty important,” Gibbons said. “As there are more cases and decisions on the Second Amendment issues, it gives guidance on other parts of it.

“Each case provides some guidance on the overall interpretation of that part of the constitution,” he added. “That will guide us and hopefully legislators will be looking at those decisions to recognize the limitations on their power.”

As of Friday SB108 had been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no hearings have been scheduled. HB 888, the social media bill, was referred to the House Rules Committee but there has been no other action.

State legislation can be tracked at www.ilga.gov.

Editor’s note: Four gun control advocacy groups were contacted for this story. One did not respond, representatives for two said they would have someone get back to us but did not, and one responded via email “Unfortunately, we don’t have anything to add on those bills.”