A Police State!!??
I can own all the semi auto weapons I want.
I can own all the normal capacity magazines I want.
I can buy as many guns in a month as I want.
I can buy all the ammunition I want.
The "Police". as a general rule, are quite friendly to the gun owning population, at least here downstate they are.
I may not like, condone, or appreciate the extra money the state squanders away from the additional taxation it imposes by making us have a FOID card on our person but it hardly makes this a "Police State".
Agreed. It's massively annoying, and inconvenient, and I do think that it infringes on our 2nd amendment rights, however...we don't live in a police state.
The FOID card was created in 1968, after Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr got shot and killed. I think it was fear mongering at it's worst, and basically a tax on gun ownership...I have referred to it as "gun registration light." You need a card to do anything with firearms, but they don't require you to register guns or anything else.
Elcaminoariba, state's rights dictate that our FOID is not illegal, because the state imposed it on us by law. Is it unconstitutional? Well that's a court battle that someone should probably pursue, maybe someone already is. I don't know.
All I know is one thing: My FOID must be valid if I own firearms. I am a C&R FFL. My FOID expires in October. I'm sending in my renewal now, which will be good for 10 years. Why so early? Because I'm a responsible gun owner and I want to abide by the law as proscribed by the state that I live in. And I know from everyone else that I know that the FOID renewal process takes like 2 months, not 30 days as the law supposedly dictates.
I obey the laws, even the ones that I don't agree with, because they're the law.
You folks tell me - how many of you could just up and leave the state you live in, leave your job, move your family, find a new job that pays the same, buy a new house or get a new apartment, pay all the moving costs...just for a $10 card that takes minutes to apply for, and is good for 10 years?
I am far more upset about the fact that the state of Illinois infringes upon my constitutional right to keep AND BEAR arms. By not allowing both open carry and concealed carry, it is my opinion that the second part of that constitutional right is being denied to all gun owners of Illinois. I want to see that resolved before my $1/year tax on gun ownership gets resolved.