Quote of the Day
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a law banning firearms advertising that officials determine produces a public safety threat or appeals to children, militants or others who might later use the weapons illegally — opening the door for lawsuits against firearms manufacturers or distributors.
Pritzker on Saturday signed the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, making Illinois the eighth state to approve legislation that rolls back legal protections for firearms manufacturers or distributors.
Associated Press
August 14, 2023
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signs law banning firearm advertisements that appeal to children
This law goes much further than the news articles publish. It punishes any
…person, firm, corporation, company, partnership, society, joint stock company, or any other entity or association engaged in the design, manufacture, distribution, importation, marketing, wholesale, or retail sale of firearm-related products, including sales by mail, telephone, or Internet or in-person sales.
who
offers brand name merchandise for minors, including, but not limited to, clothing, toys, games, or stuffed animals, that promotes a firearm industry member or firearm-related product
So… a graphic artist working for Smith & Wesson could go to jail for offering a t-shirt with a Smith & Wesson logo to the 17-year old next door neighbor.
These criminals are trying to step around the PLCCA by infringing upon the First Amendment to infringe upon the Second Amendment.
I hope they enjoy their trials.
Local governments, including but not limited to NYC have long attacked the 2A by infringing on the 4A.
And 8A: In those areas “gun crimes” often carry inordinately heavy sentences, regardless of the severity of the offense.
Stab someone: Aggravated assault — 10 years.
Shoot someone: Aggravated assault — 20 years, after the firearm enhancement.
Mug someone with a claw hammer: Armed robbery — 5 years.
Mug someone with a handgun: Armed robbery — 15 years, after the firearm enhancement.
And the worst:
Punch someone in lawful self-defense: Simple assault — 6 months, assuming it’s not dismissed for being self-defense.
Pull a gun in lawful self-defense (but DON’T shoot them): Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — 10 years, after the firearm enhancement … and zero chance the charges get dismissed for being self-defense.
But somehow the gang-bangers who commit actual drive-by shootings (y’know, attempted and actual pre-meditated murder) never face “gun crime” charges; they get theirs dismissed in plea deals for other crimes and NEVER deal with that “firearm enhancement” bovine excrement.
If you could spend longer in prison for defending yourself with a firearm — no shots fired — than a career criminal who committed pre-meditated murder with a firearm, there’s an 8th Amendment problem.
It’s been pointed out many times: How a person feels about the 2nd Amendment is a pretty reliable litmus test for how they feel about individual freedoms in general.
Put another way: A person who hates the 2nd Amendment often hates the other nine as well.
You hear it all the time: “[Person] doesn’t hate free speech; they hate your free speech.” The reality is, yes, they do hate free speech. Censorship doesn’t affect them; they’re repeating the popular opinion, which is rarely in danger of being censored or restricted and so rarely needs protecting. Historically, it’s the unpopular opinion that benefits most from free speech protections.
They can’t envision that their opinion will ever be unpopular, so they can’t imagine not being allowed to express it. At the same time, they don’t want to hear your opinion, so they’re fine with censorship so they don’t have to.
The shock when they find themselves no longer useful to the controllers and suddenly feel the brunt of the restrictions they’ve always pushed for, will certainly be a surprise to them. It shouldn’t — we warn them that’s exactly what will happen, because that’s how it has always happened — but it will be.
Neil Smith said some of the same things in his essay “why did it have to be guns?” Basically, he proposed gun rights as a litmus test for whether a politician respects liberty and is fit to be elected.
Another variation on the same theme is the observation “what is it they want to do to us that they can’t do to us so long as we retain our arms?”
Don’t worry, though, Pritzker recently signed a law to allow illegal aliens to become police officers, so it’s all good, enforcement will be totally common-sense with uniform application and due respect for civil rights.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/illinois-law-non-citizens-apply-police-officer/
Not really. The law does state that they have to be in the US legally and entitled to work.
This really allows green card holders to join the police. You know, people like me who came to the US legally, did my time under a green card and then became a citizen. If I could join the Army (was already too broken when I came), why not the police or Sheriffs depts?
By misrepresenting the law as it is written, you are doing 2 things. You justify the lefts constant misrepresentation of the state of gun laws, and you also paint 2A supporters in a bad light generally.
In my now home state, I could free own firearms as a green card holder and did. I found the 2A community very welcoming.
So, it says that people on “Deferred action for childhood arrivals”, program are able to be police. If they pass the standard background checks.
You do realize the “Deferred action” program is for people that have an “illegal presence”, in the United States?
The stated legislation is that those people know their community better than a non-immigrant will.
But something you seem to have forgotten is criminals and the left.
Most of the places immigrants come from the cops are bigger thieves than any criminal walking. (their barely any better in this country now.)
So only the ones with sterling character and education are going to want to be police in America?
You don’t think the left wants “illegals” as cops so they can better control everything? Would help them pass the tests and background?
Rolf’s right, it’s just another way of turning our country into a turd-world shithole controlled by a bunch of power-tripping boomers.
Maybe you should take a step back and take a hard look at what’s truly going on here, Earl.
Illegals are being used to destroy this country and it’s people. Giving those same illegals power over others is an extremely bad idea if you want peace and security. (Which those in power don’t.) If you can’t see that……take off the blinders man.
So, we all gett’in the message?
We don’t care about your laws. Only you have to live by them. And they are what we say they are.
We steal any election we want. (Or anything we want), Don’t say anything about it. Or you will be sorry.
And with the latest example in Utah,
We will murder you in your sleep no matter how old and infirmed you might be. (A fine communist joke!)
Oh, Cloward and Piven, let us count the ways.
Borders
Welfare
Money supply
Laws
Voter fraud
Everything I missed.
And a president that can’t talk being run by a lifelong communist. And a cackling puppet in the warm-up pen should this one fail.
Ya, we almost fully cooked.
Rich men north of Richmond indeed!
They seem to be getting control of the courts now as well, and are gaming the jury pool selection in many places. I wouldn’t put any faith in the “justice system”.
“… and are gaming the jury pool selection in many places.”
Absolutely true. When they toss you from jury selection if you have any experience or knowledge of the subject of the case, you can be sure they want a predetermined outcome. The bull crap they spew if you question this is enlightening. It’s supposed to be a jury of your peers, not 12 potato heads.
If you’re entitled to a trial by a jury of your peers, and they give you 12 potato heads, that says a lot about what they think of you, doesn’t it?
>>that rolls back legal protections for firearms manufacturers or distributors.
Just the wording alone is sickening. It makes it sound like said firearms manufacturers NEEDED these precious legal protections, when in reality, “shall not be infringed” is the protection and it already exists. The freaks in government ADDED “legal protections” so that they could “roll them back”. We’re even captured in their language that they use.
The government didn’t ADD “legal protections” for the firearms industry. They simply CODIFIED them into law.
And they did that because the antis were so litigation-happy — and judges were so sympathetic — that some firearms businesses were bankrupted by legal defense fees over claims that would have been immediately dismissed if brought against any other industry.
PLCAA singles out the firearm industry for codified liability protections, but it does so because the firearm industry had been singled out for specious liability litigation and nuisance lawsuits. It’s a reaction and a product of the antis’ “lawfare” against a lawful industry.
For all the antis gripe about it, it’s only there because of them.
The kicker is, “rolling back” the PLCAA doesn’t suddenly make liability claims against gun manufacturers any more valid, any more than repealing the 2nd Amendment suddenly means we don’t have the right to keep and bear arms. If the judges have any sense they’d immediately dismiss nuisance lawsuits just as they do with the PLCAA in place, just as they do if someone tries to sue a car manufacturer when someone drives drunk.
Neither the right to keep and bear arms nor the liability protections in the PLCAA owe their existence to having been codified into law.
“games, or stuffed animals, that promotes a firearm industry member or firearm-related product”
Did they just outlaw first person shooter video games?
Great question.
I think it would only apply if the game was produced or sold by a company or person in the firearms industry.
What if the software company making the game hires a consultant from the firearms industry for help with the in-game guns’ designs, appearances, and functions?
Would that be sufficiently “produced by a person in the firearms industry” to trigger the law?
So many gray areas….
That makes sense. The enemies of freedom like gray areas, because it gives them more ways to persecute honest people.
Ayn Rand’s character Floyd Ferris said it very well.
I don’t know. I just know the law needs to be thrown out, and the politicians responsible should be prosecuted.
Agreed, but for it to be challenged, someone needs to have standing to challenge it.
It would be nice to know who does and who does not have standing ahead of time. 🙂
NOBODY is going to trial over this…except the poor schmucks who are targeted and persecuted under this law. Eventually the SCOTUS might strike this down as the blatant violation of Rights that it is. But in the mean time they WILL use this law to destroy anyone they can. And they will suffer ZERO consequences for doing so.