Several Sheriffs across the State of Illinois, with the support of the Sheriffs’ association, have made their voices heard. Under no circumstances will they, or their office, require law abiding residents to register their firearms nor will they arrest anyone solely for noncompliance of the requirements set forth by the new law HB 5471.
The Bill that was signed into law this January by the democratic governor requires that all firearms be registered, that long guns can only have a capacity of ten rounds and handguns can only have fifteen rounds. A new ban on all “assault-style” rifles states that no one can sell, manufacture, own or purchase any of these type weapons was also put into place. The new ban also includes the magazines for the “assault-style” weapons.
Gun rights organizations, including the NRA and the SAF (second amendment foundation) have declared war on the unconstitutional law. Legal battles are already in the works.
To date almost a third of the Illinois county Sheriffs have come out in opposition to the new laws.
The reason behind the opposition is simple. The Sheriffs believe the new law is nothing but an attack on the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners. Their job, first and foremost, is to serve and protect the people in their communities, which includes their Constitutional rights.
ATF got a slap on the wrist when the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the ban on bump-fired stocks, stating that ATF did not have the authority to create a ban, nor does ATF make laws. ATF had stated for ten years that a bump fire stock did not make a firearm a machine gun. A machine gun is defined as a weapon that operates with a single function of the trigger, meaning that the trigger only had to be held down one time for all the ammunition to be dispersed. A semi-automatic weapon is defined as one pull of the trigger fires one bullet (or shell). The bump fire stock still required one pull of the trigger for one bullet to be fired.
Unfortunately, in the TV world every rifle is fully automatic and never runs out of ammunition.
Violent crimes involving machetes have been in the news at a growing rate.
On New Year’s Eve in New York City, three on-duty police officers were attacked in Times Square by a 19-yearold man from Maine. The man, wielding a machete and screaming “Allahu Akbar”, struck two of the officers in the head before being shot in the shoulder. The man had been studying radical Islamic ideology and had planned a trip to the Middle East to join the Taliban. His plan was to be a suicide bomber. He is being federally charged with first-degree attempted murder in the furtherance of an act of terror as well as other crimes. He is facing 80 years in prison if convicted.
On New Year’s Day, a 22-year-old clerk at a Dollar Tree in Ohio was murdered by a man wielding a machete. The woman had just graduated from college and was a newlywed. The man who killed her was located by police sitting in his car in front of the Sheriffs department, where he surrendered.
Are crimes with machetes new? The answer is no. The gang M-13 in California and New York have been charged with killing and dismembering their victims with them. In most cases a machete is a weapon that can be found in most hardware stores and requires no paperwork. In November 2022 the Charlotte area noted multiple machete attacks.
Remember knowledge is power, evil will do evil things if not stopped, and the Constitution is not a “suggestion”.