PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Despite the warnings, Illinois' gun law is working well :: 11/29/2016
If facts matter, the debate over the pros and cons of concealed carry in Illinois should be over.
The News-Gazette recently published a remarkable collection of statistics related to the state's 3-year-old concealed-carry law.
Many people, of course, just don't like the idea of the concealed carry, no matter what the legal requirements or its effects. But for those who have an open mind on the issue, it's hard to argue with facts showing that, for the most part, implementation has been a non-event.
Indeed, the results of this experiment are striking for the absence of all the negative results opponents predicted.
While illegal gun ownership continues to cause tremendous problems in Illinois, and elsewhere, legal gun ownership as a consequence of concealed carry is certainly no negative for society. It's a definite positive for those who have chosen to avail themselves of this new right.
It's important to note that, because concealed carry is a relatively new concept in Illinois, its effects are still being measured. But concealed carry is old news in the rest of the country. Illinois was the last of 50 states to pass the legislation.
People in other states have realized for a long time that concealed-carry laws – ones that require proper training and sound background checks for applicants – are not the social evil critics claimed.
It's likely that Illinois still would not have a concealed-carry law if the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago had not found the state's ban on it unconstitutional. Chicago legislators, who dominate the General Assembly, frequently cited the commonplace gun violence in their city as a sound reason to oppose concealed carry.
It didn't matter that they were comparing illegal gun possession to legal gun possession – they were opposed. The court ruling required Illinois to pass a law that complied with constitutional requirements, meaning that reasonable regulation was acceptable but that an outright ban was not.
Champaign County ranks No. 13 of the state's 102 counties in terms of concealed-carry permits, a statistic that covers nearly 3,000 people. They represent just 2 percent of the 21-and-over population.
About the same percentages exist statewide – 2.4 percent. Vermilion and Macon counties' numbers are 3.5 and 3.4 percent, respectively.
Nearly one in five of those who carry a concealed weapon in Champaign, Piatt, Vermilion, Ford and Douglas counties are women.
Why are they packing heat? It seems clear that some law-abiding people carry a gun for personal protection. That may come across as extreme to many. But, under the law, adults have the right to decide for themselves whether to apply for a permit and meet the requirements necessary to be granted one.
What's clear, at least so far, is that those who have received a concealed-carry permit have demonstrated that they are exercising their rights in a responsible way. They have posed no threat to anyone except those who might try to do them harm.
Those who predicted a return to the Wild West complete with shootouts in the streets and bars were, thankfully, wrong.
