I found this story in our local paper pretty amusing :
Analysis: Thousands in Illinois may have guns without permit
Tens of thousands of Illinois residents whose gun licenses have been revoked could still be in possession of firearms, according to an analysis of state records by the Chicago Tribune.
The failure of the system was underscored in February when a man killed five former colleagues and wounded five police officers in Aurora, Illinois, using a gun he kept despite the revocation of his Firearm Owner’s Identification card in 2014.
Local police departments are supposed to ensure that those whose licenses have been revoked surrender their permits within 48 hours and fill out a form stating their guns have been passed to a legal gun owner or the police.
But since 2015, nearly 27,000 Illinois residents whose FOID cards have been revoked haven’t updated authorities on what they have done with their firearms, the Tribune reported . That means authorities do not know whether 78% of those revoked cardholders still own guns.
Lol.
So it seems that cops in Illinois are supposed to “ensure” that people who have had their firearms licensing revoked have given up their guns within 48 hours. Unfortunately, cops in Illinois have more pressing issues like dealing with actual crime. Besides, who wants to send their officers out to someone who probably has a gun to try to take that gun away from them?
Local police departments are informed by state police when a card has been rescinded, but most don’t prioritize checking on the status of remaining weapons due to a lack of resources, officers or background information.
Cops love walking in blind to hassle someone that they are pretty sure is armed and tracking these people down and forcing them to give up their license and any guns is probably very time consuming. Meanwhile cars are being stolen, women are raped, murders are committed, people are assaulted. Given the limited resources of cops, they are not going to have the time to go knock on tens of thousands of doors within 48 hours of notice.
That issue is just dealing with people who are already in the legal system and have had their licenses revoked. Now imagine that same situation but people who are legally clean. There are almost 13 million people in Illinois, with over 9 million in the Chicago area which means almost 4 million scattered in the rest of the state. According to the USCCA the state of Illinois already has issued over 300,000 concealed carry permits not to mention the likely millions of non-concealed carry lawful gun owners in the state and the huge number of firearms either illegally obtained in Chicago or that are owned by gun owners who elect to not tell the state about it. I would never move to Illinois but if I did I wouldn’t report or license my firearms and I am guessing there are lots and lots of people like me who do live in Illinois and refuse to comply.
Now stretch that out across the entire country. If deep blue, gun hostile Illinois can’t even deal with tens of thousands of people who have lost their firearms licenses due to criminal behavior, how does the nation as a whole suddenly start confiscating tens or hundreds of millions of firearms? I would conservatively guess that half or three-quarters of local law enforcement would simply refuse to carry out confiscation. At the local level, many law enforcement personnel are pro-2nd Amendment. I am not sure about my local sheriff’s position but I am guessing he is not keen on sending his deputies to knock on doors to try to seize firearms from law abiding citizens who will refuse to give them up. Doing so is a great way to fill a lot of body-bags. There are millions of civilians in this country that are former military or law enforcement. How many bag-pipe and flag draped coffin funerals are cops interested in seeing when police are getting killed in shoot-outs trying to seize firearms from people who have committed no crime? Imagine tens of thousands of Waco’s and Ruby Ridge’s across the country. Cops just aren’t going to do it and they don’t have the time anyway.
Gun confiscation is only going to impact law abiding citizens. People with illegal guns are not going to stop having illegal guns because it is more illegal to possess them. That is why we call them “criminals”. The Left also knows full well that people are not going to just turn in their guns. Many will, tens of millions won’t. So either you pass toothless laws that people ignore or you deputize hundreds of thousands of people to kick down doors and start a bloodbath. That seems to be contrary to the spirit of reducing gun violence but then again this has never been about that. Gun control leading to confiscation has always been about disarming the private citizens who will object to some of the evil that the Left wants to enact. People publicly express dissenting thought in this country because they refuse to be quiet, and they refuse to be quiet because they are armed. It is hard to round people up for the trains when they are shooting back. If you think that is hysterical or hyperbole, it isn’t. The Marxists have been open about eliminating dissenting thought by force for a long time and they aren’t less committed to that today. Once you give up your guns, there is nothing to stop them from putting you in a camp. Due process? The First Amendment? Give me a break, those are only as strong as the 2nd Amendment.
If you let them disarm you, you stop being a citizen and become a subject and the rulers can do whatever they want to subjects.