The case for making McHenry County a sanctuary for ARs
By PETER SUFFIELDGuest Writer
01/20/2023
The Illinois Democratic Party is pushing this agenda as part of their campaign to eliminate the 2nd amendment of the Constitution. They can’t do this head on, so they focus on one segment of the issue at a time, while intending to chip away at the right to bear arms until it no longer exists.
The eradication of firearm ownership is contrary to what the founding fathers envisioned when they created the Constitution. In addition...
• This law will Not make us safer. More gun control will not prevent the type of crime that took place at either Highland Park, nor the 2008 shooting at the NIU campus. And, the law is unenforceable.
• It makes law-abiding gun owners into criminals; the vast majority of gun owners will not submit to register their weapons.
• It will lead to the closure of gun shops not just here in McHenry County, but statewide as the very weapons listed include more than 170 different styles of guns, ammunition magazines, and ammunition. Adding workers in those stores to the unemployment rolls will harm to a local economy already struggling with store closures due to the pandemic.
• 95 elected Illinois County Sheriffs, including some who are pledged Democrats, have come out against the Protect Illinois Communities Act HB5471 and have publicly stated that they will not enforce it.
• Around the state, many states attorneys have come out against HB5471 Protect Illinois Communities Act while calling it unconstitutional.
State Representative Bob Morgan, Nancy Rotering (Mayor of Highland Park), who pushed HB5455 which became HB5471, and Governor JB Pritzker are all Illinois licensed attorneys. As licensed attorneys, they all took an oath as officers of the court to uphold, defend and support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Illinois (705 ILCS 205/4-Illinois General Assembly).
By crafting legislation that is clearly unconstitutional and an attack upon the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment as well, they are failing to live up to those oaths. Additionally, the ultra-leftism of the Democratic Party held a super majority in both legislative chambers and has a 4-3 majority on the state supreme court prior to 2021.
To ensure their hold on the state government, Illinois Democrats redrew state legislative maps, and also redrew the state supreme court districts for the first time in 60 years. The result is that, after the 2021 midterms, the Democrats increased their majority on the State Supreme Court to 5-2.
Illinois Democrats have chosen justices who will resist any challenge to the state government’s overreach. HB5471 is ridiculous, unconstitutional and antagonistic to our rights under the Constitution. I call upon the McHenry County Board to assist us in telling the Illinois General Assembly that this Bill should not go into effect, and that it will have far bigger consequences than anyone may realize.
The message is clear: we need to make McHenry County an AR sanctuary County, and join other counties in standing up to one-party governmental overreach.