Senate bill 50 has a hearing in the Senate Criminal Law Committee this Wednesday, January 25th. 

SB-50 is our suppressor bill, and it also allows for the revocation of FOID cards for those charged with terrorism. 

The gun control groups have sounded a clarion call for their supporters to file witness slips in opposition to the bill.  They will also surely be present Wednesday in their opposition to the bill.  Sadly, they are so rabid in their opposition to highly-regulated suppressor legalization for hunting and target practice that they are willing to support putting guns in the hands of people charged with terrorism.

Here's their release sent via email:

 

John,

Next Wednesday at 9am the Illinois Senate Criminal Law Committee is considering legislation that would legalize the possession of silencers for all guns in Illinois.

Despite over 700 gun deaths in Chicago in 2016 – the Senate is NOT taking up legislation to save lives – instead standing with the pro-gun lobby.  This dangerous legislation will NOT save lives of Illinois residents – it will only silence the sound of the gunfire plaguing our communities.

Make your voice heard TODAY ! please call and email your State Senator and tell them to vote NO on SB 50 then file and witness slip expressing your opposition to the bill (see instructions below).

Thank you in advance for taking action.  Please share this request with all your networks.

To find your state Senator, please click: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx

To call your state Senator, click: http://www.ilga.gov/senate/

I hate to say it, but "See, I told you so!".  They make no mention of the provisions in the bill to revoke the gun rights of persons charged with making a terrorist threat or soliciting or providing material support for terrorism.

Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the Illinois Police Training Act. Provides the annual training of police chiefs must include at least one course on the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act, the Firearm Concealed Carry Act, and firearms investigations. Amends the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act. Permits the State Police to notify the FBI if a person on the Terrorist Watchlist applies for a FOID card. Requires the State Police to provide notice and reason for the disqualification of a firearm purchase or a FOID card revocation to all law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction to assist with the seizure of the person's FOID card. Adds as grounds to deny an application for or to revoke or seize the person's FOID card that the person is charged with making a terrorist threat or soliciting or providing material support for terrorism. Makes other changes. Amends the Firearm Concealed Carry Act. Provides that a person may not carry a concealed handgun equipped with a silencer. Amends the Wildlife Code. Removes the prohibition on using a silencer to mute the sound resulting from firing a gun. Amends the Criminal Code of 2012. Provides that the offense of unlawful use of weapons includes knowingly: using, or possessing with the intent to use, a silencer on a handgun, except at a shooting range; or possessing any silencer for firearms, other than handguns, not in compliance with the National Firearms Act. Provides that the offense of unlawful sale or delivery of firearms includes knowingly transferring a silencer to a person not authorized to possess the silencer under federal law. Effective immediately.

What are the sorts of people charged with providing material support for terrorism?  Let's query the US Department of Justice:

Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIL

A Bolingbrook, Illinois, man pleaded guilty today to a federal charge that he attempted to travel overseas to join a designated foreign terrorist organization in Syria.

The guilty plea was announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon of the Northern District of Illinois and Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Anderson of the FBI’s Chicago Division.

Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, identified in a written plea agreement as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Khan, a U.S. citizen from southwest suburban Bolingbrook, faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.  U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. of the Northern District of Illinois did not immediately schedule a sentencing hearing.  A status hearing was set for Dec. 3, 2015, at 12:30 p.m. EST.

Khan has been detained in federal custody since he was arrested on Oct. 4, 2014, at O’Hare International Airport by members of the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force. 

According to his plea agreement, beginning no later than approximately February 2014, Khan used the Internet to obtain introductions to ISIL members in Syria and to assist him with traveling there to join the terrorist group.  Khan spoke with ISIL members to coordinate the logistics of his admission into ISIL-controlled territory, the plea agreement states.

Khan also admitted in the plea agreement that he knew ISIL had been designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.  Upon arriving in Syria, according to the plea agreement, Khan intended to work under the direction and control of ISIL, and be required to take any assignment ISIL gave him.

The case was investigated the FBI and the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) and the Illinois State Police also provided significant assistance in the investigation.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matt Hiller, Angel Krull and Sean Driscoll of the Northern District of Illinois, and Trial Attorney Michael Dittoe of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

Or this case:

Chicago Man Charged with Providing Material Support to Al Qaeda by Attempting to Send Funds Overseas

CHICAGO — A Chicago man who claims to be acquainted with an alleged terrorist leader in Pakistan was arrested today on federal charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization for allegedly attempting to provide funds overseas to al Qaeda, federal law enforcement officials announced. Although the defendant, Raja Lahrasib Khan, a Chicago taxi driver and native of Pakistan who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1988, allegedly discussed attacking a stadium in the United States this summer, there was no imminent domestic danger, officials said.

The investigation leading to Khan’s arrest is unrelated to a separate investigation that resulted in federal terrorism charges against Chicagoans Tahawwur Hussain Rana and David Coleman Headley in connection with the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai and a plot to attack targets in Denmark, the officials added.

Khan, 56, of the city’s north side, was charged with two counts of providing material support to terrorism in a criminal complaint that was filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Chicago and unsealed today following his arrest, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The investigation is continuing, they said.

Khan was arrested this morning while working in downtown Chicago without incident by the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. He was scheduled to appear at 3:30 p.m. today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown in Federal Court in Chicago.

But wait, there's more!  From ABC7 Chicago:

Police in downstate Madison County said they may have prevented a terrorist attack.

Keaun Cook, 18, is accused of conspiring with several other people to carry out that attack.

Police arrested the southern Illinois man who they allege communicated with an unspecified terrorist group to plan an attack on at least one location. He was arrested Wednesday on preliminary charges of providing material support for terrorism and making a terrorist threat.

"In terms of making a terrorist threat, he expressed his intention that such a terrorist act would occur, but we stopped an event that could've caused a very, very serious situation," said Tom Gibbons, Madison County State's Attorney.

And this from the Chicago Tribune:

Four men, including a former Chicago-area resident and a former University of Illinois student, were working together to send money and other assistance to a known al Qaida leader before he was killed in a drone strike, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.

The money, federal prosecutors said, was intended to support efforts to carry out violence against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The two pairs of brothers worked to raise money through fraudulent credit card charges and deliver it to the al Qaida leader over about seven years beginning in 2005, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Ohio.

One of the suspects traveled to Yemen in 2009 and gave $22,000 to an associate of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Al Qaida leader, the indictment said.

U.S. officials considered al-Awlaki, who was killed by an unmanned U.S. drone in Yemen in 2011, to be an inspirational leader of al-Qaida, and linked him to the planning and execution of several attacks targeting American and Western interests, including the 2009 Christmas Day attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner.

All four men were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

According to the indictment, they are:

— Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 37, an Indian citizen who was at Ohio State from 2002-04. He has lived in the United Arab Emirates since 2004. He also was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

— Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad, 36, an Indian citizen who was at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign from 2001-05. He has lived in Toledo since 2006. He also was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

— Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, a U.S. citizen who was at Ohio State from 2000-05. He lived in Overland Park, Kansas, from 2007-2011 before moving to the United Arab Emirates.

— Sultane Room Salim, 40, a U.S. citizen who lived in the Chicago-area from 2006-12 until moving to the Columbus area.

So the Gun Violence Prevention PAC, People for a Safer Society, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, and St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church, Peace & Justice Committee are just a few anti-gun organizations and groups lined up to tie the hands of the Illinois State Police from having another tool in their toolbox to keep guns away from people who are actively supporting terror.

Support the suppressor bill, and support the Illinois State Police in their efforts to help keep guns out of the hands of terrorists.