August 22 2012 CCW Sweeping IL County-by-Count PR

Contact: Shaun Kranish
ICarry.org Executive Director                                                                                                 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
815-986-8385
Email: sak@icarry.org
August 22, 2012

CONCEALED CARRY SWEEPS ILLINOIS, COUNTY-BY-COUNTY

More Opportunities for Winnebago County Leadership in Concealed Carry

MyFoxChicago.com reported August 20^th that Edwards County State’s Attorney Mike Valentine is openly and publicly refusing to prosecute law-abiding citizens for carrying concealed firearms for personal protection.  WJBC.com reported the same August 21^st for McLean County.  The Second Amendment to the US Constitution and Article I Section 22 of the Illinois Constitution guarantee the individual citizen’s right to carry loaded firearms.  County-by-county initiatives have been ongoing this year with petitions circulating, ordinances being enacted, and state’s attorneys respecting the rights of lawful gun owners.

“Chicago politicians have thumbed their noses at this right by refusing to pass a concealed carry law in Illinois.  Illinois remains the only state to completely ban carrying a loaded firearm, and such a blanket ban is indisputably unconstitutional,” said Shaun Kranish of ICarry.org

ICarry.org, a Rockford-based statewide group promoting sensible right to carry laws, has been working with the Rockford Tea Party to promote concealed carry locally.  On behalf of over 11,000 signatories in Winnebago County , the two groups are urging the county board and State’s Attorney Joe Bruscato to immediately recognize the right to bear arms.

“Joe Bruscato must uphold his oath to the US and Illinois Constitution by admitting that these statutes are unconstitutional and must be revised by the legislature,” said David Hale of the Rockford Tea Party.

“The citizens of Winnebago County will not tolerate their constitutionally-protected rights being completely ignored due to politics.  A statewide shall-issue concealed carry law needs to be passed immediately, but in the meantime Winnebago County must not violate the rights of honest citizens to carry,” Hale continued.

Kranish warns that, “Winnebago County could face serious civil rights lawsuits and legal expenses for arresting, prosecuting, or otherwise violating the rights of lawful gun owners.”

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For more information, and to view this release online, visit KeepAndBear.org, the Winnebago County Concealed Carry Initiative website.  Shaun Kranish can be reached at sak@icarry.org or 815-986-8385 and David Hale can be reached at rockfordteaparty@gmail.com or 779-348-5427.

References: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/19325546/-exclusive and http://wjbc.com/sa-dozier-relaxing-rules-to-enact-concealed-carry/

Here it is – we have a State’s Attorney who is upholding his oath to the Constitution by refusing to prosecute people under Illinois “law” which is blatantly unconstitutional.  Illinois statutes that completely blanket-ban the right to bear arms should not be enforced against law-abiding citizens.  Here’s one state’s attorney so far, how many more will we have???

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/19325546/-exclusive

Chicago News and Weather | FOX Chicago News

CHICAGO (FOX Chicago News) -

A prosecutor in Southern Illinois won’t enforce the state’s ban on carrying loaded, concealed handguns and other state’s attorneys may soon announce the same policy.

State’s Attorney Mike Valentine said he believes it’s unconstitutional for Illinois to prohibit people from carrying loaded firearms in public. If you’re otherwise law-abiding, he told Political Editor Mike Flannery by telephone, you won’t face charges for packing heat in Edwards County.

Valentine said that, since he took office in 2008, no one’s been prosecuted for peacefully carrying loaded firearms around Edwards County, population 6,000.

But Bloomington’s McLean County, population 170,000, may soon announce a similar policy.

State’s Attorney Ronald Dozier told us he’s already sent a legal memo to other Illinois prosecutors explaining his belief that it’s unconstitutional to ban the carrying of loaded firearms in public. Some are outraged.

“What if somebody walks into a soccer game and they have a Tek-9 pistol? Are they gonna do something or are they gonna say there’s basically nothing they can do about it?” Senator Dan Kotowski asked.

“Higher law enforcement officials should look into it. I think the attorney general should look into this.”

But a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said, “We are not the boss of state’s attorneys. They’re independently elected. And they have discretion over the charges they prosecute.”

For State Representative La Shawn Ford, this latest gun-law dispute underscores a need for quick action in Springfield.

He’s proposed a trade-off: enact a ban on so-called assault weapons, while granting each county the power to make its own decision about carrying concealed handguns.

“I think that each county, because of the differences, should decide on their own. Yes.”

The upcoming election is a big reason the legalizing of concealed carry is in the spotlight now. Democratic State’s Attorney Mike Valentine faces a tough re-election contest in Edwards County–which is closer to Nashville, TN, than to Chicago–in more ways than one.

In McLean County, on the other hand, Republican Ron Dozier chose not to run. He’ll soon step down as state’s attorney and sees this as a sort of legacy.

An essay by Marko Kloos originally found here

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Original Story from Local ABC 4 Salt Lake City
Reported by: Don Hudson

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – A citizen with a gun stopped a knife wielding man as he began stabbing people Thursday evening at the downtown Salt Lake City Smith’s store.

Police say the suspect purchased a knife inside the store and then turned it into a weapon. Smith’s employee Dorothy Espinoza says, “He pulled it out and stood outside the Smiths in the foyer. And just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people.”

Espinoza says, the knife wielding man seriously injured two people. “There is blood all over. One got stabbed in the stomach and got stabbed in the head and held his hands and got stabbed all over the arms.”

Then, before the suspect could find another victim – a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. “A guy pulled gun on him and told him to drop his weapon or he would shoot him. So, he dropped his weapon and the people from Smith’s grabbed him.”

By the time officers arrived the suspect had been subdued by employees and shoppers. Police had high praise for gun carrying man who ended the hysteria. Lt. Brian Purvis said, “This was a volatile situation that could have gotten worse. We can only assume from what we saw it could have gotten worse. He was definitely in the right place at the right time.”

Dozens of other shoppers, who too could have become victims, are also thankful for the gun carrying man. And many, like Danylle Julian, are still in shock from the experience. “Scary actually. Really scary. Five minutes before I walk out to my car. It could have been me.”

Police say right now they have no idea what caused the suspect to go on the dangerous rampage. (We will update as soon as we learn new information.)

So far, police have not released the names of the suspect, the victims or the man who pulled the gun.