With hours to go before the end of the lame duck session, the Illinois House put its stamp of approval on House Bill 4144 late yesterday evening. Yes, another dead of night legislating maneuver done by our radical Democrat controlled General Assembly.
You probably don’t recognize HB-4144. We didn’t either. It was a water supply (specifically fire hydrants) shell bill that was “gut and replaced” with language that effectively mandated that anyone served with an emergency order of protection or a Red Flag order would have their homes searched. Police would then confiscate all firearms, firearm parts, ammunition and so forth as part of serving the order.
Hope they’ve got storage space and plenty of manpower for those gun owners who have more than a .22 rifle in the corner of the closet.
Anyway, the Senate passed the gut and replace language on Monday. The House passed the concurrence vote yesterday. Gov. Pritzker’s signature is a certainty, and no doubt will be timed and publicized to maximize publicity to the low-information voters who don’t really understand how they could find themselves on the wrong side of this bill.
One person called me last night and said, “Well, isn’t this for people who shouldn’t really have guns?”
Well perhaps. After they’ve had due process protections and an opportunity to confront their accusers in a court of law.
However, the abuse of orders of protection in Illinois family courts runs rampant. One family court judge told me four or five years ago that fully a third of the OP applications were utterly baseless and merely an effort by one side or another in a divorce proceeding to leverage negotiations for child custody or property settlements. What’s more, another third were dubious at best. Only about a third really merited serious study and decision-making by the court in his opinion. At the same time, he admitted that no judge wants to reject an emergency OP only to have the accused party then go on to hurt or kill the petitioner.
What else can go wrong? If the police get a blanket warrant to search your entire home, anything they find can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you have old narcotics from a deceased family member? With guns, that qualifies as “Armed Violence” under Illinois law with a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years I believe.
Do you have recreational pharmaceuticals? Do your teen kids have any you don’t know about?
Amongst your stuff, do you have any .50 caliber ammunition – even just curio cabinet pieces? That’s good for a felony as well if they aren’t registered.
And speaking of registered guns… have any regulated guns that were supposed to be registered? Depending on circumstances, those might be good for a felony.
Do you have any unserialized 80% guns (raw or completed?)? Those are good for felonies as well.
Do you have any regulated parts, like an extra flash suppressor? That’s a felony.
The list goes on and on.
AND FOR THOSE who get served the order and at the formal hearing the emergency order is later vacated after a finding by the judge (at your expense, by the way), the bill says you’re to get your stuff back within 14 days. EXCEPT there’s no language that mandates the Illinois State Police restore your FOID (and CCW as appropriate) in the same 14 days. And you can’t get your stuff without a FOID card if you’re an Illinois resident. (Read that sentence again…) In our experience, the ISP usually slow walks FOID and CCW restoration to the tune of months, not days or weeks. It might be six months or a year before you’re back in the good graces of the ISP.
Yes, this law, once the governor signs it into law, will cost cops and gun owners their lives. I guarantee you that someone who doesn’t feel they have a lot to live for will opt to shoot a cop in the face over having their guns seized. Of course, cops will shoot them back, but that does precious good for anyone. Under current law, that same person might have simply had a friend or relative keep the guns for a period of time. Not any more.
JB Pritzker and the radical Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly don’t give a damn about all that. This is nothing but symbolism over substance. And gun owners get to pay the price since the Democrats know they don’t have 90% of the gun owner vote, nor are they likely to get it anytime soon. They would rather import new future voters in illegal aliens than try to win over law-abiding American citizens to their party.
gun control *******, proceed @ your own risk
Have they changed who can request red flag orders? Last I recall it was close family, police and doctors.
HB 4144, pages 20 and 21, speak to the “title” of a firearm. How, where or why does one “title” a firearm or does that apply to firearms and accessories covered by PICA and/or NFA, of which neither are mentioned?
OK; John is there going to be any effort to challenge this in court ?
If it denies Due Process its a Constitutional Violation.