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SEIFFE:  Vote Against Senate Bill 16

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

By Ralf Seiffe

Here's the text of the letter I sent to State Senator Schoenberg:

Dear Senator Schoenberg:

Please vote against Senate Bill 16 for these reasons:

1.  It is unnecessary.  If you want to stop criminal use of firearms (and who doesn't) make use, not possession, a crime that is enforced against criminals.  The best way to do that might be to massively enhance the penalty for use of the weapon by those who do not have an FOID card.  It seems to me that law-abiders do abide by the rules while crooks do not.  An FOID is something crooks usually do not have.

2.  It will massively expand the arbitrary police power and that is not a good idea.  For proof, I need look no further than my neighbor Hale Demar, who protected his family with a semi-automatic pistol on the second night a burglar had broken into his house.  The state did not charge this shooting nor even for the lack of a FOID card.  Instead, the village started a vendetta against the homeowner for possession of the gun.  This lack of prosecutorial judgment tells me all I need to know about the temperament of government over guns. 

3.  There is no definition of what constitutes a banned semi-automatic.  I checked the GA's web site and found only the title under the "Full Text" tab.  How can we trifle with the Second Amendment in this cavalier way? 

4.  The anti-gun folks have promoted this as a ban on "machine guns" which have been illegal since the time of John Dillinger.  This is intellectually dishonest but I certainly understand that it takes courage to resist.  But, if this group gets away with their lie, what's to keep others, on different subjects, from noticing and using the same technique?  Legislating on a lie is the absolute hallmark of a totalitarian state. 

5.  I recommend a trip to Colonial Williamsburg for a powerful demonstration of why the Founders insisted on the Second Amendment.  In the vestibule of the Governor's Palace is a display of perhaps a hundred "Brown Bess" rifles arranged in a huge rosette on a massive wall designed for the purpose.  The objective of that display was to strike fear of King's power into the colonists' hearts and minds.  When we overthrew that tyranny, our Founders explicitly wanted to reverse that advantage, hence, the Second Amendment.  It  was created to ensure that individuals had power, not the government.  When you vote to ban firearms, especially military weapons like those ancient Brown Bess', you are acting to take the King's position and against the people.  The result will be the same--fear of the state.  Is that what you want to do? 

6.  I also recommend some reading on the history of gun control.  It is a racist strain of legislation originally designed to keep freedmen from defending their new status.  Gun control was designed to protect night riders from being shot by their formers slaves.  This was a tactic with which the Democratic Party agreed and supported.  So too, today.  This is an exquisite form of racial discrimination which one again confirms the Democrats sorry history.  Don't believe it?  Then ask yourself this question--why is this law required?  Is it because the folks in Wilmette, Barrington or Hinsdale are shooting each other up with TEC 9's?  Or is it on the flimsy evidence that the folks in the inner city are killing each other with AR-15s?  If you believe that suburban folks are responsible--and they are--but that conditions in the inner city are so bad that we must deny everyone, haven't you made a decision that the people in the inner city are somehow less capable?  This is exactly the wrong path to take towards a color-blind society. If the legislature finds that just a few districts are the cause of some violent scourge, is that finding much different than the old Reconstruction gun laws that specifically targeted freedmen?   Better to treat everyone equally by punishing criminals who misuse guns. 

There are already so many gun laws that the debate is no longer about crime control.  The police have any number of statutes at their disposal.  It's now a matter of philosophy and our concept of what government should be.  Gun control is one of those issues where we find out about ourselves.  Are we on the side of the people and want government to be the servant or do we take every opportunity to make our government our master?  There is no better indicator than one's opinion on gun control, especially on assault weapons.  A vote for SB16 is a vote for a different America than the vision of the Founders.  A vote against it recognizes the limits of government and confirms the great concept behind the American experience. 

While I nearly always disagree with your positions, I do believe you are thoughtful and capable of understanding what's at stake here.  Think about this one before voting the party line. 

Sincerely,

© 2007 Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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