by Mark Schwendau

And more may be coming on board soon in the interest of keeping their Constitutional oaths of office as well as getting on the ride side of history!

About a third of Illinois’ state’s attorneys want to see the Illinois Supreme Court strike down the state’s most recent gun and magazine ban brought on by Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker and the Democrats who hold the majority in the State Capitol.

Illinois Democrats enacted a ban on more than 170 semi-automatic guns and magazines holding over 15 rounds for handguns and 10 for rifles. A State registry will open in October with a January 1, 2024 deadline, or gun owners could face criminal penalties for failing to register their guns.

State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, challenges Illinois’ gun and magazine ban because it violates equal protections in a Macon County case. The law doesn’t apply to police or others in the law enforcement and security industries, which is clearly discrimination.

As soon as that county judge issued a final judgment against the law deeming it unconstitutional, the state appealed directly to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Madison County State’s Attorney Thomas Haine R is leading the friend of the court brief in support of Caulkins with a bipartisan group of 33 state’s attorneys looking to overturn the new Illinois law.

“Many millions of Americans own them, they view them as very valuable for one particular reason, and that is self-defense,” Haine said. “The primary reason statistics show individuals own semi-automatic rifles is for self-defense.”

Haine said the law puts the state’s attorneys in a legal quagmire. Haine says there are over 24 million of what the left calls “assault style weapons” privately owned in the United States today and the Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled on this issue siding with the Second Amendment and citizen’s right to self-defense. Haines said there are over 10 million magazines that hold 10 or more rounds.

“I do not agree with some state’s attorneys that seek to sort of pick and choose which laws they want to enforce based on a policy preference, but here we have a sort of a legal conflict where we have a statute, and we have a constitution, and the constitution is the law of the land,” Haine said.

Among the arguments of current Illinois gun owners and dealers is certain firearms the new Illinois law bans are in common use and are not “dangerous and unusual.” They also argue the state’s balancing of interest versus rights must be rejected, arguing there is no historical tradition of banning guns and magazines.

In their filing, the 33 state’s attorneys say, “the Act is unconstitutional because it burdens core Second Amendment rights and is not the kind of regulation historically understood to be compatible with the right to ‘keep and bear arms.’”

They further argue since the law is unconstitutional, it “places Amici in a difficult ethical and legal quandary … To avoid this dilemma and in the interest of clarity for all, Amici encourage this Court to affirm the Circuit Court’s judgment and strike down the Act as an unlawful infringement of the fundamental rights of citizens outlined in the Constitutions of the state of Illinois and the United States.”

In a push for bans on certain firearms elsewhere, including nationally, gun control advocates like the Brady Campaign point to recent mass shootings like the one Monday in Kentucky. Reports out of Louisville indicate an AR-15-style rifle was used in the shooting that killed five people and injured others.

However, gun advocates argue that situations like the one in that bank would never happen if Democrat governors like Kentucky’s Andy Beshear did what Florida is doing under the Republican leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis with a permit-less-conceal carry for average citizens such as all those working in the bank that day. Another valid point Second Amendment supporters argue is the problem is not the guns but the mental health of the mass shooter. They point out that out of all of the millions of gun owners and guns in America, these incidents are less frequent than fatal car accidents. Yet, nobody is advocating for the banning of any form of transportation.

“Since the federal assault weapons ban sunset in 2004, there have been 34 instances in which an assault weapon was used in a mass shooting,” the Brady Campaign said in a news release.

However, Haine pointed out that while every firearm-related fatality is tragic, deaths by semi-automatic rifles pale in comparison to even deaths caused by hands and feet.

“There’s [sic] more homicides committed in the United States of America in 2019, with almost twice as many with hands and feet than with these assault rifles,” Haine said. “So these are not the kinds of rifles that are the choice of criminals, typically.”

The state’s attorneys from 33 of Illinois’ 102 counties are Brown, Calhoun, Carrol, Clark, Clinton, Edwards, Effingham, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hancock, Henderson, Henry, Jasper, Jefferson, Jersey, Jo Daviess, Johnson, Macon, Madison, Marion, Mercer, Monroe, Ogle, Perry, Pulaski, Randolph, Schuyler, Union, Vermillion, Warren, Washington, Wayne, and White counties.

The state-level Supreme Court case is to tentatively be heard in mid-May, separate from the federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Illinois set to be heard in East St. Louis on Wednesday, April 12.

There are a lot of things in motion in Illinois and it does, indeed, get confusing.

Four plaintiff groups have sued in federal court. All the cases challenging the ban on Second Amendment grounds were consolidated. The plaintiff groups filed their responses to the state’s position that the law would stand constitutional muster. The separate filings were the Barnett case, the Caleb case, the Langley case, and the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois case.

The thing that is so frustrating to gun owners and lovers of weapons as simple tools is the lack of concern and logic by the liberal Democrats of the left.

One thing we all agree on as Americans are taking the innocent life of somebody just because you can is wrong. It shows cowardice and a lack of consciousness as well as a lack of logic. This is why it is so critical to get into the mind of somebody caught contemplating doing such a criminal act, like the FBI’s recent takedown of the transvestite preparing to do a copycat shooting of the Nashville shooting out in Colorado.

It is critical to get into this person’s mind to determine what went wrong in his mind as well as what society could do better in the future in both recognizing the warning signs of such an individual and getting them professional help.

Another important thing to undertake is to determine whether they are doing this as part of “an agenda”. Some gun owners feel that these mass shootings are being orchestrated from some higher-ups. They feel that in no instance should the shooter’s name or likeness be used in press coverage after the fact, as it seemingly glorifies their actions and makes them famous when they should not be.

Copyright © 2023 by Mark S. Schwendau

Mark S. Schwendau is a retired technology professor who has always had a sideline in news-editorial writing where his byline has been, “Bringing little known news to people who simply want to know the truth.”  He classifies himself as a Christian conservative who God cast to be a realist.  His personal website is www.IDrawIWrite.Tech.