Jan. 19, 2023 - Epoch Times
09:40
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| Right now, as politicians across the entire country are attacking the Second Amendment and slowly but surely taking away our rights to own guns, well, county sheriffs are starting to rebel. | |
| Case in point, let's look at what's happening over in the state of Illinois. | |
| Where? | |
| You have sheriffs in over 90 different counties come out and say that they will not be enforcing a new ban on so-called assault weapons. | |
| And for your reference, Illinois only has 102 counties in total, meaning that about 90% of all the sheriffs in the entire state have said that they just will not comply. | |
| However, in order to explain what's happening there, let me set the stage for you properly. | |
| And I hope that if you appreciate content like this, you do take a quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so this video, as well as this news, can be shared out to ever more people. | |
| Now, last week, the governor of Illinois signed into law a new piece of legislation which now makes it illegal for anyone throughout the entire state to purchase, manufacture, or sell either a semi-automatic rifle and or a high-capacity magazine, meaning that within the borders of the state, it is now illegal to buy or to sell over 170 different types of semi-automatic firearms. | |
| Here's specifically what the law states, quote, A person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons when he knowingly sells, manufactures, purchases, possesses or carries a machine gun or any assault weapon or.50 caliber rifle. | |
| But it doesn't stop there, because under the terms of this new law, even handguns have been deemed to be assault weapons if they happen to have a threaded barrel, a second pistol grip, A flash suppressor or any kind of pistol brace. | |
| Now, for your reference, the bill in question, which has now become law, is officially called House Bill 5471. | |
| And here's what the governor of Illinois, Mr. | |
| J.B. Pritzker, he's a Democrat, here's what he said shortly after signing it. | |
| That's why today I couldn't be prouder to say that we got it done. | |
| Illinois now officially prohibits the sale and distribution of these mass killing machines and rapid fire devices. | |
| Now it is worth mentioning that there is an exception in this law for people who already owned these types of weapons prior to its passage. | |
| And so if you live in Illinois and you happen to already own a semi-automatic rifle, then you now have to go and register your weapon with the Illinois State Police before the end of the year. | |
| And if you fail to properly register your weapon, then you'll be charged with a Class II felony. | |
| That's at least what the law says. | |
| But the sheriffs in over 90 different counties throughout the state, they say something else. | |
| Those sheriffs, they claim that since this law is unconstitutional, and since it infringes on the Second Amendment rights of the citizens within the state, they will not enforce it. | |
| They simply will not put the law into practice. | |
| For instance, here's what Mr. | |
| Clinton Perzi, who is the sheriff of Iroquois County, here's what he said regarding this matter. | |
| The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty, and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people. | |
| I, among many others, believe that House Bill 5471 is a clear violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. | |
| Sheriff Percy then went on to say that he will not be allowing his county jailhouse to be used to detain individuals who exercise their civil rights. | |
| Here's what he added, quote, Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with noncompliance of this act. | |
| Then, likewise, you have Sheriff Jack Campbell, who is from Sangamon County, located sort of in the center west of the state, saying something very similar, that he will not be jailing people who violate this new ban since his oath of office is to the U.S. Constitution rather than to any politician. | |
| Here's specifically what he said in the matter. | |
| Quote, And it just goes on and on, and there's many letters just like this. | |
| In total, according to Mr. | |
| Jim Kachuk, who is the executive director of the Illinois Sheriff's Association, over 90 different sheriffs have released similar statements, which is, quite frankly, an astounding figure, given the fact that, as we mentioned earlier, Illinois only has 102 counties in total, meaning that approximately 9 out of 10 sheriffs in the state have said that they just will not be enforcing this law. | |
| For your reference, here's a map of all the different sheriffs that have come out with statements. | |
| If you'd like, you can actually pause the video here to take a screenshot of the map and use it for reference in the future. | |
| Furthermore, over on a website called Moms at Arms, there's a pretty comprehensive repository of all the letters from all the different sheriffs throughout the state. | |
| And so if you'd like to check those out, I'll throw that website link down into the description box below. | |
| And by the way, just as an aside, this whole movement by these over 90 different sheriffs is only the latest. | |
| In a very, very, very long battle over the Second Amendment within the state of Illinois. | |
| That's because five years ago, all the way back in the year 2018, when Governor Pritzker first began to publicly push for this new gun control legislation as an idea, 70 different counties passed resolutions declaring themselves to be Second Amendment sanctuaries. | |
| And now, well, those resolutions are coming to fruition. | |
| However, as you would imagine, the governor was not too pleased with all these different sheriffs coming out and saying that they won't be enforcing his new law. | |
| And along that line, here was his response to the sheriffs who have come out and made their statements. | |
| Of course, there are people who are trying to politically grandstand, who want to make a name for themselves by claiming they will not comply. | |
| But the reality is that the state police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across the state. | |
| And they will, in fact, do their job, or they won't be in their job. | |
| Although frankly, given the fact that sheriffs, unlike police chiefs, sheriffs are directly elected by the people, and so it's not exactly clear how the governor can go about getting rid of them. | |
| Because you see, sheriffs within the state of Illinois, just like sheriffs throughout the majority of the states in our whole country, are actually constitutional officers who are elected by the voters in the county. | |
| They can be voted out of office, but otherwise the governor can't really do much to them. | |
| Which is something that Governor Pritzker actually appears to acknowledge, given the fact that this is what he added to the end of his statement. | |
| It's our state police and law enforcement across the state that will, in fact, enforce this law. | |
| And these outlier sheriffs will comply, or, frankly, they'll have to answer to the voters. | |
| And just as an aside, I believe it's rather ironic when the governor refers to these sheriffs as being outliers, given the fact that 90% of the sheriffs in the whole state agree on this particular matter. | |
| It kind of reminds me of Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, when he labeled the thousands of truck drivers and the millions of people in the country who were supporting them as a fringe minority. | |
| Regardless of that, though, the Attorney General of Illinois, Mr. | |
| Kwame Raul, who's also a Democrat, he also came out with his own statement, giving a bit of clarification on how the state actually plans to enforce this law, given the fact that so many sheriffs are not on board. | |
| Here's what he said, quote, As far as law enforcement agencies, there are overlapping jurisdictions as well. | |
| So if they don't do their jobs, there are other people available to do the job. | |
| However, even that might be unnecessary, because legal challenges to this new law are guaranteed to be coming within the next week or two. | |
| That's because, already, multiple pro-gun groups, including the Illinois Rifle Association as well as the National Rifle Association, they have banded together to file multiple challenges against the law in federal court. | |
| And so whether or not this new law will even pass legal muster and it will be determined to be constitutional or not is yet to be determined, let alone who's going to actually be enforcing the thing. | |
| If you'd like to go deeper into this particular story, I'll throw all my research notes down into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And also, I would love to know your thoughts on this matter. | |
| Do you think that these sheriffs are correct in what they're doing? | |
| Given the fact that they are elected by the people and they have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, do you think that it's right for them to ignore laws or rather to not enforce laws that they believe violate the Constitution? | |
| Or do you think that they should just enforce any law that gets on the books through the normal legislative process? | |
| I'd love to know your thoughts. | |
| Please leave them in the comments section below. | |
| I'll be reading them later today and throughout the rest of the week. | |
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| And now, let's head on back to the episode. | |
| And then lastly, our awesome researcher, Mr. | |
| Eric Schumacher, who helped pull a lot of the data for today's episode, well, he would like to remind you that if you haven't already, and if you appreciate content like this, well, that you take aim and you smash that like button as well as that subscribe button. | |
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| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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