Last week, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed Illinois House Bill 1189 into law. Though the claim was that it was tough on crime, because of the anti-gun ideology behind it, it ends up criminalizing crime victims.
Kurt Hofmann at the Examiner writes:
On Sunday, Governor Pat Quinn signed Illinois House Bill 1189, a law that will, among other things, impose requirements–on pain of criminal charges–on victims of crime. If your gun is stolen, and you fail to promptly notify the police, you are now the criminal.
take our poll - story continues belowCompleting this poll grants you access to DC Clothesline updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.Oh, by the way–confused by the initial description on the Illinois General Assembly website–that the bill “amends the Sex Offender Registration Act”? That’s what the bill would have done, before being amended to reflect Chicago-area Democrats’ view that gun owning crime victims pose a greater danger to the public than sex offenders do.
Wow! Can you say “twisted”?
Now the victims of crime will become criminals if they fail to report the crime to the police. There is a catch here though. The victim has 72 hours from the time of discovery to report it. In other words, the burden of proof of the time frame mentioned would be upon the prosecution, not the victim of theft.
Hofmann adds that there are two more provisions of the law that is of interest.
“Actually, HB 1189 has another curious provision,” he writes. “It requires anyone selling a gun to call the Illinois State Police (an internet check system will supposedly be implemented some day) to check that the prospective buyer’s FOID (Firearm Owner Identification card, required for purchase or possession of guns or ammunition in Illinois) is valid–but failure to do so carries no penalty (which isn’t enough to stop the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence from triumphantly proclaiming “universal background checks”).”
“Oh–there is one more provision of the new law,” Kofmann adds. “An “Only One” who, by virtue of mental health problems would otherwise be denied a FOID card, or have a currently held card revoked, will now have a mechanism not available to the unwashed masses, for restoration of his/her FOID.”
While the bill would have originally required sex offender registration fees be used to combat sex crimes, it has now been altered to make victims of crime potential criminals, provide a “suggestive” style law with no real teeth to it (in terms of reporting guns that have been stolen), and, of course, helps out police officers, with a history of mental illness, to have their gun rights restored a lot faster than you or me.
According to Illinois State Police Director Hiram Grau, this “makes perfect sense.”
I tend to agree with Fuzzy Slippers at Legal Insurrection, who writes, “Isn’t this the sort of thinking that prompted leftists to urge college students to get ‘rape whistles‘ rather than legally-owned guns or training in self-defense? And isn’t this twisted logic that it’s better to be a victim of a violent crime than someone who can legally use whatever force necessary to save oneself behind the laughable notion that women should ’pee themselves‘ in order to discourage rapists?”
“After all, goes the ’thinking,’ it’s best to just arm yourself with some scissors when a gun-wielding maniac starts firing off rounds at a crowd than actually allowing anyone the means to shoot back, so the fact that Illinois is punishing gun owners for the ‘crime’ of being the victim of a crime is really no surprise.”
Tim Brown is the Editor of Freedom Outpost and a regular contributor to The D.C. Clothesline.
