Posted 18 February 2015 - 12:19 AM

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Call to Action - Witness Slips Needed





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Call to Action

Witness Slips Needed

Witness Slip Instructions

In our first Call to Action of the 99th General Assembly, we ask our members to voice their opposition to two bills scheduled to be heard in the House Judiciary - Criminal Committee 2/18/2015. To those who have already participated in filing witness slips, these bills will be familiar. We have opposed the intent behind both in prior General Assemblies and continue our opposition for many of the same reasons.



Instructions for completing witness slips can be found here.



Please take a moment to make your feelings known on the following bills today.









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HB148 Lost & Stolen Firearms - OPPONENT





Illinois law has required FOID Card holders, but not persons illegally in possession of firearms, to report lost or stolen firearms since the Gun Safety and Responsibility Act became law effective 8/9/2013. HB148 seeks to deny otherwise law abiding citizens their right to own firearms via FOID revocation and felony conviction.









HB265 Firearm Protect Order - OPPONENT





There are many forms of protection order available to the courts in Illinois, from granting occupancy of the family home to giving custody of the family pet to one spouse or another. Of the tools available to a judge a firearm protection order, as it currently exists in law, is one of the most important when determined necessary by a court of competent jurisdiction.



HB265 proposes to subvert the judicial discretion so necessary to our system of governance by prohibiting the subject of an order of protection from purchasing or transporting a firearm, even when that order is simply in regard to animals, property, and a number of other orders unrelated to a physical threat against the petitioner.



While enough to oppose on its own merits, HB265 also creates a frightening potential synergy when taken in context with HB399 Protection Order Issuance. Though not the subject of the current call to action HB399 proposes to empower the States Attorney, and courts on their own motion, to impose an order of protection on behalf of a petitioner even against the petitioner's wishes. This combination of ill conceived legislation, both bad in their own right, establishes an untenable system of potential rights denial under the most unusual of circumstances.





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UPDATES

HB148 and HB265 have been referred to the Firearm and Firearm Safety Cubcommittee.

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