by Al Benson Jr.
Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune for April 17th of this year, the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement just might have gotten a bit of a jump start in Illinois last spring. The article, written by Kathrine Rosenberg-Douglas noted that “It was no accident Effingham County’s resolution to protect the right of gun owners stole an important word from the very people the resolution was intended to provoke, supporters of the country’s sanctuary cities movement. Effingham County State’s Attorney Bryan Kibler last month told a raucous crowd the origin behind the ‘Second Amendment sanctuary county’ movement, which began in Effingham and now includes 64 of the state’s 102 counties, counties in three other states and nine more states in which counties are eyeing similar nonbinding measures. And as state legislators, emboldened by Gov. J. B. Pritzker, look at more gun control measures, counties are looking at more ways to resist them.”
Anyone notice the cultural Marxist bent of some of these legislators? They have not a single problem with sanctuaries in our states for illegal aliens that have no right to even be here, but sanctuaries in our counties for legal citizens who only want to protect their legal right to keep and bear arms are simply beyond the socialist pale and should not be permitted under any circumstances!
I don’t know if some of these legislators have some idea of a different mindset coming down the pike or what, but it seems that 2019 has been a banner year for some of them to try to deprive law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights. I can’t quite believe that this, what shall we call it, coordinated assault on the Second Amendment, is just some isolated attempt here and there by un-coordinated anti-gun groups with no contact with one another. Something in this whole operation just doesn’t smell right. Something is going on here that the public at large hasn’t quite figured out yet, though various groups in different states are beginning to get the message–at least in their respective states.
Effingham’s pro-second amendment resolution “…asserted that at least five pieces of proposed Illinois legislation dealing with gun ownership would be unconstitutional. The resolution targeted proposed laws including those that would raise the minimum age for gun ownership to 21, outlaw various types of weapons, and outlaw bump stocks or body armor. It also demanded ‘the Illinois General Assembly cease further actions restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ and demanded the governor veto any such bills.”
And the article also observed: “When the measure passed in the county of about 35,000 last spring, it may have looked like a publicity stunt or a way to provoke Chicago officials who object to Trump administration immigration policies. But as the movement gained traction, it has also grown in substance. County sheriffs and state’s attorneys have publicly backed the cause, saying they will use their discretion to leave new gun laws unenforced. Close to Chicago, Ogle, Boone and LaSalle counties have passed such resolutions and are among the more than 50% of Illinois counties to do so in the past year.”
I used to live in Northern Illinois, in the suburbs around Chicago. It was a long-standing bone of contention for those of us that hated Chicago’s Marxist (yes, that’s what they were) politics that when Chicago voted for something they had such a population edge that they could, literally, outvote the rest of the state and the poor folks in the rest of the state always seemed to end up having to live with the rotten stuff Chicago voted for. With these Second Amendment Sanctuary counties it won’t work that way. Counties downstate will be able to do what they want in this area and Chicago won’t have, in this instance, the power to outvote other counties to force them to hew Chicago’s line. Most of the rest of the state hates Chicago politics anyway. To only state that Chicago politics are blatantly crooked would be a monumental understatement.
It’s interesting that most political commentators rail about the crookedness of Louisiana politics but quietly omit almost any commentary about crooked politics in Northern cities–which I can assure you, rival anything the South may have to offer! If you want to do a little exercise sometime, check the internet to find out how many Illinois ex-governors are currently in prison.
Any state that has a city like Chicago in its environs really needs a Second Amendment Sanctuary County movement in that state just to be able, in some measure, to overcome the rampant corruption such a big city will seek to foist on the rest of the state. Illinois proclaims, on its license tags, that it is “the land of Lincoln.” It shows!
revisedhistory 