Fair disclosure: I’m envious of Richard Pearson’s weekly email to members. His Executive Director’s Updates are usually well done. We could probably do something like that here if we had someone who could administer such a broad, email communication routine to members.
Yes, Rich Pearson and I share differences in priorities and how best to achieve those, but we’re usually pointed in the same direction. Usually.
This past Thursday, December 28th – three whole days before the end of the gun registration scheme’s window of opportunity – Rich, on behalf of ISRA, laid out the options for gun owners.
The ISRA has received hundreds of telephone calls and emails asking us to make a recommendation regarding the firearm registry requirement in the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
As the Protect Illinois Communities Act is written currently, you have four options:
1. Comply and register the firearms while our lawsuit makes its way through the court system.
2. Sell or transfer the firearms, for example thru an FFL, to someone out of state or to someone who can legally possess them in Illinois.
3. Move the firearms out of state on the assumption SCOTUS will strike down the law and you can then bring them home. Note that if SCOTUS does not strike down the law, you can never legally bring those firearms back into Illinois.
4. Keep the firearms and do not register. This option is also based on the assumption that SCOTUS will strike down the law. As a consequence of this option, firearm owners could face prosecution and imprisonment.
As an individual gun owner, you must choose the best option for you.
Hundreds of phone calls and emails? Yeah, I’ve gotten close to a hundred all by myself. But why are they (/ is he) waiting until three days before the end of the registration window to share strategies for owners of these banned guns? Especially given all the questions received. Why didn’t he publicly include this back in September or October? Anyways…
My phone and email have really blown up since my Thursday appearance with Greg Bishop on his Bishop On Air podcast/livestream/show. As in I was getting calls while on the phone with others.
Today, while on our way down to SCHEELS for some family time, my wife told me she saw something on Facebook from the NRA saying that they’ve received a gazillion calls about the gun ban and registration scheme. They’re taking the position that if you’re not a member, we’re not helping you. I can understand that. At the same time, if I have availability, I’ll try to help anyone for a minute or three.
Among those calls these last few days, I had a (non-member) guy from Chicago who called and texted repeatedly. He thought that medical providers and the ISP were in a joint conspiracy against him, seeking ultimately to kill him. Literally. He made all manner of allegations but never provided a single shred of evidence to support any his claims. Not a single one. Finally, I recommended that he might consider checking himself into a mental health facility as it sounded and read like he was genuinely having a mental health crisis. That didn’t go over well.
Just callin’ it like I saw it. Ultimately I blocked him as I just don’t have time to give away to chase geese for someone who can’t back up their claims.
One other point in the ISRA Thursday notes caught my eye:
The ISRA and its Board of Directors will continue to fight this unjust and unconstitutional law with all the resources at its disposal. We are currently preparing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and believe it will rule in our favor.
Is Rich writing about an appeal to the US Supreme Court over the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals deciding against an en banc review of a panel decision against a preliminary injunction, then I suspect that ISRA is writing that to solicit legal fund donations.
If so, I have a crisp $100 bill for anyone what wants to wager their own against me that any appeals to SCOTUS of that panel decision affirming Judge Frank Easterbrook’s emergency stay of District Judge Steve McGlynn’s preliminary injunction will be denied. Assuming it hasn’t already.
SCOTUS and Justice Amy Coney Barrett have had multiple opportunities (and still have one pending in the Caulkins case) to take preliminary injunctive relief and have refused each and every time.
Why is that? I’ve learned that SCOTUS almost never gets involved in preliminary motions. They don’t like “interlocutory” interventions. They almost always accept only cases that have not only been decided on merits, but have gone through the normal appeals channel in the Appeals Courts. “Almost never” as in the last time I’m aware that SCOTUS has done one of these was about four years ago during COVID when they interceded to block New York State from prohibiting in-person church services as part of their China Flu craziness.
The good news, for all of the people salty over this registration Bravo Sierra (and I know there are a lot of you / us out there): Judge McGlynn has promised an expedited briefing schedule.
We’ll keep you informed right there.
Until next time… stay safe. And strapped.
The Illinois State Police should eat shit.
Until this mess gets ironed out in the courts I’m not taking any chances, I’m way too pretty for prison. My son and I both bought gun safes and found and shared a storage locker just across the state line at a remote location with gated access in Missouri. We liked this storage unit because it supplied electricity and had a security system. Electricity was important so we could hook up our safe dehumidifiers , plus we installed an Orbi internet connection to work with our own security system that gives us immediate feedback if anyone enters, plus take hi quality photos of whoever enters. I can also activate the live view camera just to satisfy my curiosity.
NICE!
ISRA has always been about a Money grab for ages. They must think the NRA’s fundraising mailers are a great template for making money for doing nothing. Nothing except negotiating our rights away to have a seat at the table with people who hate us and our rights.
This dangerous old man last sent them my hard earned cash long years ago yet I still get their shitty Shooter and fundraising mailings several times every year. Hell, I think I got 3 since Tgiving.
John. I am not an attorney, have read and think I understand our U S Constitution for the most part but am not a “scholar”, so to say, but I am wondering if possibly there needs to be/have a litigant who has had their civil/Constitutional Rights violated by the “PIICA” ‘LAW’ before the SCOTUS can/will take up the unconstitutional issue of the whole process; aka: the “ramming through” of the bill in a “lame-duck” session of the legislature in the dark of night, and signing into law without possible public input, as well as the “registration” of “commonly used” firearms used for self-defense for close to a century.
Sorry about the “run-on” sentence/paragraph for readers.
I have been an NRA and GSL member for many years, was an ISRA member for a short time but got discouraged with them, was a GOA member for a short time but am now on limited fixed income so have to watch my expenses and budget very close, but I strongly believe in our Constitutionally protected Rights to keep and bear arms since the mid-1970s.
May God Bless America, again, and help us overcome/destroy the anti-Constitutionalists trying to control America’s citizens through their Marxist agenda and intimidation!
ps. A big THANK YOU, John, for your passion and hard work keeping us informed with this forum and your work in GSL as Executive Director, May God watch over you as you expose the anti-Constitutionalists especially those in elected office who try to hide the truth about crime and criminals in our society.
Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
ISRA has been a limp dick sell out organization for years. They want to “sit at the table” and negotiate with the gun grabbing scum. Then they go along with losing something as long as the gun grabbers let us have some crumbs for now. Let the politicians know that the diaper wearing crusty old bastards at ISRA don’t represent all gun owners. If you see ISRA set up at a gun show tell them to go fuck themselves and to stop bending over for the commie filth.
John, I get it that we’re all in this together and that the ISRA may have some good communication cycles, but even still, you give Rich Pearson way too much credit. I’ve given up on the Illinois State Rifle (Fudd) Association loooong ago. They sold us out years ago and I can never forgive that. Even today, their advice and training is about a decade behind the times. I went to a shooting class sponsored/hosted/managed by one of their big shots last year and got repeated old, outdated advice like, after being involved in a self defense shooting, be sure to administer first aid to your assailant. That will help you in the eyes of the court! Absolutely no thought or warnings were given to oh, I don’t know, approaching someone, being within inches of someone or touching someone who just tried to cause you death or great bodily harm just so you can put a nice band aid on their boo-boo. Nor the highly likely possibility that a prosecutor will torch your a$$ for showing obvious signs of remorse for what you had just done! Prehistoric Pearson and his Alley-Oop gang have no business advising or schooling today’s gun owners on anything. It’s like they’re stuck in Groundhog Day in the 50s or 60s. I feel bad for those who rely primarily on the ISRA for critical Illinois 2A information. Also, sorry that you’re inundated with calls and texts, but it’s better that people are getting their info from you and GSL rather than the cadavers and dotards at the ISRA.
The USSC rarely, as in DOES NOT, issue injunctive relief in interlocutory cases!!!!!! Again, and again, and again…. Judge McGlynn refusing to issue injunctive release last week and announcing he is moving forward on the merits was the best news this year! After the 7th Appeals tells McGlynn he is wrong when he rules PICA unconstitutional on the merits it will be a wait to see who gets to the USSC first; Maryland, California, or Illinois? I put my money on Maryland. The ISRA is about as useful as the NRA, like a tick on your ass.