| Illinois Set to Ramp Up Extreme Gun Banning Law January 2, 2013 | -By Warner Todd Huston  Illinois is the only state in the Union that does not allow some sort of concealed carry statute for its law-abiding citizens. Illinois is also home to the city with the highest murder rate in the country. And yet, the Land of Lincoln is set to ring in the New Year with a new gun banning law that is more extreme than any yet instituted. Illinois State Senate President John Cullerton (D, Chicago) is going to try and push through a new "assault weapons" ban in the Illinois legislature's upcoming lame duck session that is so extreme that even some antique guns will be banned. The Illinois State Rifle Association reports that Cullerton's bill will ban pump action shotguns, semiautomatic pistols and rifles, and even antiques rifles like the M-1 Garand, the rifle used by U.S. troops in World War One. (The M-1 Garand has only an 8-round, clip-fed ammunition system.) According to the source, the bill would not include any grandfathering and would require Illinois gun owners to turn in their guns to the Illinois State Police where they will be destroyed. "If [Cullerton] is successful at doing so," the ISRA says, "nearly every gun you currently own will be banned and will be subject to confiscation by the Illinois State Police."
This bill would be in contravention to both the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald decisions as well as a recent decision by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that warned the state legislature to correct its illegal ban of concealed carry permits already on the books. In early December, the Seventh Circuit said that the ban on concealed carry was unconstitutional. "We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home. The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside," the judges ruled. In the wake of the Sandy Hook crimes, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn renewed his call for an "assault weapons" ban. Senate President Cullerton seems poised to help the Governor with that effort. The few remaining gun manufacturing businesses in Illinois are considering a move to other states and if that happens hundreds more jobs will be lost to Illinois, a state already in the top ten of states with the highest unemployment in the country. One such company has already left the state for Iowa taking 24 jobs with it. | 
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