On August 23, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (R) signed a gun control bill aimed at reducing the record gun violence currently witnessed in the city of Chicago.
The new law targets anyone without a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card who buy guns in states other than Illinois with the intent of bringing them into Illinois — particularly into Chicago — to sell to other individuals on the streets. Doing so is now a “felony that carries a prison sentence of four to 20 years.” The sentence for repeat offenders is 30 years.
According to CNN Money, Governor Rauner and House Republican Leader Jim Durkin “made it clear that the law is aimed at reducing crime in Chicago.” Durkin voiced his support for the law by pointing to the “425 people [who] have been murdered with guns in Chicago so far this year.” He said, “Another 2,320 have been wounded. The guns in about 60% of those crimes were purchased out of state.”
On October 27, President Obama made a similar statement regarding out-of-state guns recovered at Chicago crime scenes. The Indianapolis Star quoted Obama saying:
There are those who criticize any gun safety reforms by pointing to my hometown as an example. The problem with that argument, as the Chicago Police Department will tell you, is that 60 percent of guns recovered in crimes come from out of state. You’ve just got to hop across the border.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) went even further on February 5, 2016, when he suggested that “forty percent of… crime guns” in Chicago could be traced back to purchases at gun shows in Indiana, where no background check is required.
Two points: 1. Rauner and Durkin’s support of more gun control to cover the failure of controls that are already in place is just what Obama and the Democratic Party wanted. 2. It is a solution that will fix little because it ignores the fact that it was already illegal for people without FOID cards to buy guns in other states and bring them into Illinois — particularly into Chicago — to sell. Criminals are not concerned with crossing the line into illegality.
Passing new laws — particularly new laws that are only more stringent versions of extant laws — gives the Democrats exactly what they want while ignoring the larger problem, namely, the lack of enforcement of laws that are already on the books.
The NRA made this very point regarding the lack of prosecutions for federal gun crimes in Chicago. Amercia’s 1st Freedom reported:
In 2014 in Chicago, over 2,500 people were shot—nearly 400 of them fatally—and police seized more than 6,252 guns. Yet out of those 6,252 guns seized, Fardon’s federal prosecutors saw fit to pursue just 62 weapons prosecutions. In other words, for every 100 guns police seized, federal prosecutors made just one prosecution.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.