Has it occurred to you why the Illinois State Police is all bark and no bite on the new gun ban passed into law on January 10th? There’s a really significant reason that we’ll get to momentarily, but first some background.
There are some outstanding people working at the Illinois State Police. A majority of their front-line staff, including road troopers and investigators are good and decent people. They put their pants on just like you and me.
At the same time, the leadership of ISP serves at the pleasure of Governor JB Pritzker. As such, they toe the line and tell their senior staff to do the same. Think of the ISP Director as Prizker’s mouthpiece. Know that the public announcements and press releases are carefully worded and probably approved by people in Pritzker’s administration.
But when it comes to arresting gun shops for receiving banned guns and magazines, the ISP have conspicuously chosen not to make any arrests or taken any other enforcement actions. What’s more, they haven’t really hassled any purchasers, let alone made any arrests.
Why is that? Simple, really.
On March 3rd, a court in Macon County, IL adjudicated the gun ban unconstitutional.
No cop in Illinois in his or her right mind will throw their qualified immunity into the shredder by making an arrest for an offense tied to a law that’s been adjudicated null and void by a court of law with proper jurisdiction.
When push comes to shove, I do not believe for one minute that these ‘cops’ wouldn’t violate the Constitution and go door to door confiscating guns, hiding behind unconstitutional ‘law’ to do so. What they aren’t going to jeopardize are their retirements and high-paying jobs to stand on a principle. When they are ordered to act like thugs, they vast majority will do just that.
Wait until they have compiled their database of ‘illegal’ guns, and observe what they do. Right now, harassing FFLs and gun owners is trivial by comparison.
You may be right? However, that knock at the door will be very expensive. People on both sides of the door will die. When police officers and ISP wives or significant others catch wind of this, it will stop very quickly. Even if it means finding another profession.
Great analysis. I wondered why the BIG GUY hasn’t made an example or three to scare more fair weather gun owners away from buying these.
These are serious issues we should all be aware of. It remains to be seen if individual officers will follow the words in the press releases from ISP. Don’t exceed the speed limit and do not do anything stupid. I fear this may not end well.
I believe most of these enforcers would gladly “Waco” your ass if so ordered.
The higher ups at the ISP are bootlicking stooges that work for JB the blob. They don’t care about anything but making their king happy. If the ISP rank and file go along with the Gestapo tactics they can kiss goodbye the generally very pro police support they get from gun owners. Like any good dictatorship JB and his stooges are first going to go with scare tactics. Hopefully this all gets slapped down in court before things get stupid.