Starting in 2024, the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA) requires residents of Illinois who own a variety of so-called ‘assault rifles’ to register these guns with the state police.
The bad news is that, so far, courts below SCOTUS have either been upholding the law or refusing to hear challenges to it.
The good news is that there has been little or no compliance with this law. Well under 1% of gun owners have complied, which means that well under 1% of the guns that are probably out there have been registered.
(Because they haven’t been registered, we don’t really know who has which guns. Which is the whole point of disallowing gun registries, right?)
But there’s even better news. With a couple of exceptions (you can guess which ones), the chief law enforcement officers of the various counties in the state — elected County Sheriffs — have openly stated that they will be completely ignoring the law, as it so clearly conflicts with the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
Here’s what the Courthouse News Service (CNS) had to say about this:
This mass non-compliance presents a major political challenge for Illinois’ ruling Democrats. It doesn’t mean much that the party spent 2023 fighting for PICA in the courts, if those charged with enforcing the law decide they don’t care what the courts say.
Exactly.
And that’s the first step towards getting things back on track: For those who enforce the law to decide that the Constitution means what it says, and not what a bunch of pretend potentates say it means, and that they should be guided by the former, not the latter.
Here’s the second step: For those who are supposed to obey laws like PICA to come to the same conclusion. A lot of gun owners have apparently taken that step. Let’s hope they’re soon joined by people whose other rights are being trampled.
