The Second Amendment Sisters/CORE/Illinois
Carry booth was pulling no punches with this
poster courtesy of Jews for the Preservation of
Firearms Ownership (You didn't think all Jewish
people were anti-gun political liberals, did
you?)
For more photos and images, be sure to check the slide show at the bottom of this article!
"You know you're wrong for that poster, right?" The lady asked, eyeing Representative Bobby Rush's face under the prominent words "I Sold Out to White Politicians . . . ." It didn't surprise Illinois Carry representative "Dr. G" that she took offense; the poster is obviously meant to be too provocative to ignore. What's surprising, he says, is the number of people at a Chicago event who made a point of signing his petition for concealed carry reform. He wasn't at a gun show or a gun-rights rally, after all. For only the second year, Illinois gun rights groups including the ISRA, Illinois Carry, and the Second Amendment Sisters, joined by civil rights group CORE Chicago, had purchased space at the Black Women's Expo in Chicago.
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The four pro-gun groups, spread across two information booths, displayed artwork from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and posters created by Oleg Volk, played the JPFO's documentary "No Guns for Negroes" and passed out FOID card applications to passersby. But what did the crowd at a non-gun-related gathering in Chicago think of all this?
Sean Horton, The Militant Marksman, estmated that " . . . .the vast majority, 95% support CCW." Horton says he only encountered one person who expressed anti-gun sentiment all weekend: a man who said he was a police officer from Ohio asked whether the ISRA wanted to "put more guns on the street." But even he felt compelled to admit that Ohio, which passed its own CCW statute in 2004, hasn't experienced the "problems" he predicted at the time.
Anti-gun activists consider Chicago a stronghold. It's supposed to be their base of operations, the place where they can raise money, agitate the public to demand their anti-gun agenda, and rely on ignorance to keep everyone in line while they do it. "Dr. G" noted the effect a few key pieces of information could have: "Many people (maybe 50%) were shocked to find out that the police are not responsible for their individual safety, and that Illinois and Wisconsin were the only two states in the country without concealed carry laws in place." To pro-gun activists reading this article, that might sound like two trite soundbites everyone has heard a million times, but in Chicago, that's not the case. By bringing this information to people who would never have thought of attending a gun show or an IGOLD rally, these volunteers are putting down grass roots through Chicago pavement.
- Pro-Gun Activism at the Black Women's Expo
- Watch No Guns For Negroes, the new documentary from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
- Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea has a link to a survey of Chicago-area lawyers from 50 years ago that you'll have to read for yourself to believe: "Legal ignorance of Second Amendment not new"
Comments
In the summer of 1965 Black men began walking the streets with guns on the south side of Chicago after several incidents of police brutality.
Those guns were purchased through the mail without background checks or 4473 forms.
The FOID card was passed as a way to stop the sale and transfer of firearms to Blacks in the city because of the fear of race riots and future violence
White liberals played the race card perfectly.
The police were telling gun owners opposed to the FOID card law to shut up because Daley needed the law to keep the blacks from burning down Chicago
In 1972 I heard the same story while setting in a barber’s chair. I’ve hated the FOID card ever since.
Madashell, your story comports with what I've always believed, but I've been told to shut up (by an Illinois State Police legal expert) and that I didn't know what I was talking about. Interesting that you were told the same story in 1972, six years before I was born.
Must be another one of those crazy rumors, since we all know Chicago was remarkably free of racial tension in those days.
The FOID fits perfectly into the mosaic of racist gun laws--require a permit, require some paperwork, require a reference if you can. Then the guns are still available to the majority, who will either jump through the hoops or not, and officer discretion can keep the law from being applied to people of the right color.
Missouri's permit to purchase a handgun is another example of the same thinking, and concealed carry works the same way in Illinois--many law enforcement officers allow de facto concealed carry by "the right kind."
What does the Right always say about guns and gun laws? "Keep guns out the hands of 'bad people.'"
And who are these "bad people?" Single mothers? Black men? Those with minor criminal offenses?
If the Second Amendment, as the Right contends, truly guarantees a universal individual right to gun ownership, then even "bad people" or the "wrong types" are just as entitled to keep and own (and yes, carry) guns as anyone else.
Don, you ROCK!
Mrgoodbar, I'm not sure whether you're commenting ironically or saying exactly what you mean, so I'm just going to react to your words at face value here.
First, yes, for a lot of people out there, black folks, especially young black men, are the "wrong people." No question there. I once sat in a courtroom at Cook County Courthouse while a young black man named Roderick Pritchett fought felony charges of Unlawful Use of a Weapon. He'd been pulled over in Chicago with a pistol unloaded in a case. The magazine of the pistol was under his seat, according to the prosecutor. That's textbook compliance with Illinois law, but you'd have thought she had just beaten Matlock when she got him to say that the magazine had ammunition in it. (Again--not illegal in Illinois.)
The cops had changed their story twice--first the mag under the seat, then the gun was loaded, and at trial they went back to the first story. I cannot doubt he got a different deal than a white guy the same age (like me
With McDonald VS Chicago going before the Supreme Court all Illinoians need to realize the 2nd Amendment applies to ALL of us. I urge those who haven't connected somewhere and learned about your rights to do so. 48 states have some sort of CCW law and in fact Wi argueably has open carry. Search out and speak up before these rights are lost. All Americans need to know their rights are being tampered with each day. If we don't stand up and be counted one day their will be no rights left. I was refered to a site at a local gun shop and found it very friendly and informative. illinoiscarry. com check it out along with Illinois State Rifle Association and the NRA.
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