richp

And Clarence Thomas has been saying that for a long time.

One would hope that the extreme liberal overreach we have seen in recent years will soon prompt a retreat to more moderate and sensible policies, accompanied by the election of a different type of political leader. But as I look at it, here in Illinois that hope is really faint.

Yes Tim, that helps a lawful carrier to be compliant. But dealing with a national patchwork of restricted areas such as parks, transportation, school areas, pot dispensaries, urgent care centers, and who knows what else constitutes a burden on our right that national reciprocity still doesn't resolve. And because the Supreme Court (I believe it was in Heller) left sensitive places open for regulation, anti-2A politicians are always going to be trying to clamp down that way.

This has a lot of appeal, for sure. But cold reality injects itself. There inevitably will be a patchwork of restricted areas in every jurisdiction. That fact is going to make it even harder to carry usefully -- think about the considerations that arise carrying in just one state like Illinois. So if this were to pass you can cue a battalion of lawyers that will fight out each and every restriction in non Second Amendment friendly states and cities.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't intend to fuss over this. But a common sense reading of the information posted on the IROCC site and the enabling Illinois legislation suggests you may be dancing a fine line if you don't go through the IROCC program.

Yup, and insofar as I know, in Illinois the recognized certification for retirees is issued in the form of the IROCC card, after following their process. We all know how twitchy the firearms issue is here in Illinois, particularly in Chicago. If you ever have the unfortunate occasion to be stopped by an officer and have to produce proof of your LEOSA status, they would be looking for your FOID card and IROCC card. Anything else might take you down a troublesome path; the reaction of the average street cop to a non-IROCC-compliant situation would be hard to predict. I'm not being critical of your thinking here. Maybe you're carving out new territory that provides more flexibility, in which case if you succeed, bravo!

The state requires Illinois retired LE to use the IROCC process to qualify to carry under LEOSA. They have set up a system to do that on approved ranges, with approved personnel, and with issuance of official credentials. In my experience it works reasonably well -- or at least it has for the 10 years or so I've been using it. Like a lot of other things here, we sometimes have to adjust, and put up with stuff that we don't like or agree with. My gripe comes into focus when I write that check each year for $100, and realize that retirees in virtually every other state are free from this burden.

I have qualified under the IROCC process ever since it was instituted. After qualification at one of their shoots (set up as I described earlier), the crew there sends your paperwork in to Springfield, and shortly thereafter you get a laminated card from the IROCC office indicating your status. There is an annual cost of $75 to qualify on one weapon type, and $100 for both revolver and autoloader. You have to requalify every year to maintain your status. As I understand it, few, if any states have this kind of bureaucracy attached to this law. But I will say that in my many contacts with them over the years, the IROCC folks have been friendly, responsive, and competent. If there is an alternative process involving independent instructors for individual qualification, I have never heard of it. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But if it did, sitting around the range with other folks year after year waiting to be called to the line, you'd think someone would have mentioned it. FWIW.

To my knowledge, you can't go to an individual instructor for IROCC qualification. You have to pre-register with them and then they send you a list of dates and locations where a qualification shoot will be conducted. You then sign up in advance with the IROCC folks in Springfield for one that works for you.

I would assign near zero probability to that.

I hear what you are saying, but we're talking apples and oranges, folks. Its not what constitutional principle might or might not be involved. If you concede that enforcement of one law is discretionary, regardless of the reason, you provide an argument for discretionary enforcement in other areas. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully in favor of restoring the full range of constitutional rights under the Second Amendment. But in developing a strategy, you have to recognize that there could be collateral impact in the legal arena, which might not be agreeable when thinking about other aspects of governance.

The problem here is that if you approve of sanctuary for this, then you provide collateral justification for sanctuary for illegals.

There was a report this evening that one of the victims also was shot in the hand in an apparent self-defense gesture, suggesting that at least that person was alive at the time they were killed.

After the huge July donation reports, it seems they don't have a real need for JB's money.

With the new Democrat theme of youth, versus Trump as the old guy, they are not going to run Hillary again at her age.

The Jewish angle is worth considering, but I suspect it's the fact Illinois' electoral votes are solidly blue already that will frustrate his ambitions. I've actually never put a lot of stock in that business of the candidate's home state being important. Some people do, but in this situation I don't think it will be a big factor.

She previously retired from the Secret Service and then was reinstated. There most likely are different rules for re-employed annuitants who then retire again. While I don't know for sure, she was pretty high up when she retired the first time. My guess is her original annuity was quite a bit higher than $55,000. So consequently whatever annuity she has going forward would be more then that.

Isn't it funny how we leap to all these various speculative conclusions, when it could be as simple as them starting by going to his home and asking his father about weapons in the house, and him going to check and see if they are all there.

Yeti, if only we had confidence that Congress would act in such a rational way, then of course you would be right. But I think crafting the laws in such a detailed way to adequately cover the territory that agencies do when they promulgate their regulations would be an impossible task for any group of legislators -- even if they had the appropriate to detailed knowledge available to them and were largely philosophically aligned the same way, which will never be the case.

Chevron created problems because of agency overreach, not because there wasn't the need for interpretation and interpolation of statutory language. If you think things wend their way through the courts slowly now, just wait until things get clogged up with the massive batch of litigation that will result from agencies no longer being able to fill in the operational gaps left when Congress writes laws.

Yeah, but Thomas was sending a message about the way he's going to be trying to orchestrate decisions on anything gun related that comes before them in the future.

Biden can say anything he wants right now. If the conviction is still on the books, he will pardon his son before he goes out of office one way or the other. Politically, he has very little if anything to lose here. His base will not desert him because a father is taking care of his son. He might even pick up some independents on a compassionate basis. And those who identify as Republicans are not going to vote for him anyway, so he won't lose anything with them. What is more interesting, is the tax charges that have yet to go to trial.

Federal sentencing guidelines will play into this -- establishing a sentencing range for the judge to consider that is based on offense severity, offender criminal history, and other such factors. You can expect the defense to argue for the lower end of the range, and the prosecution for the higher end of the range.

On appeal, should he be convicted, they will dig into whether or not there were any laws in the US restricting drug users from owning firearms two centuries ago. That's the essence of the Bruen case. If there were no such laws, then the argument will be you can't charge him for not truthfully complying with an illegal requirement. It will be interesting to see whether the final outcome of this case has any far-reaching effect for us

Focus people, focus... Our common goal here is to focus on full restoration and reactivation of our Second Amendment rights.