(Guns Save Life.com) – Guns Save Life is encouraging gun owners throughout Illinois to buckle up a fanny pack on their waist each morning before leaving the house to get more Illinoisans used to seeing people with fanny packs – and to get more Illinoisan gun owners used to carrying guns on their person each day to potentially thwart violent attacks and keep criminals guessing who might be armed.
Not just any fanny packs, of course, but ones made specifically to transport handguns.
Illinois law provides for transportation of unloaded, encased firearms by individuals holding a FOID card. So long as the ammunition is not in the gun itself (or magazine in the magazine well of a semi-auto pistol), an encased firearm is perfectly legal to transport on your person.
Yes, it’s a lot like Barney Fife minus the bullet, but it’s the cards the Illinois legislature dealt us many years ago.
Chicago politicians (and Naomi Jakobsson) have seen fit to block current legislation to establish right-to-carry in Illinois.
Forty-nine other states have right-to-carry, but not Illinois.
Those Illinois residents who wish to carry the means to protect themselves are left with fanny pack carry or similar means of transporting unloaded guns that are completely enclosed in a case or other container.
We recommend carrying a copy of the Illinois State Police / Illinois Department of Natural Resources, “Transport your firearm legally” brochure in your fanny pack’s outside pocket. The brochure can be downloaded from the IL DNR website or the State Police website. (Or here or right here.
Don’t want to risk drama? No problem. Put your wallet or a camera inside your fanny pack. Or maybe a squirt gun.
Loaded magazines and speed loaders may be in the same compartment or container as the firearm.