Illinois to join the United States

[BAL]

That has always blown me away. Show me where i can get a legal carrying permit to carry a knife as big as I want, and i will gladly take the safety course or whatever stupid test i need to take to get it done. What's even worse is that in some places where there are length laws, they only cover folders and you can walk around with a 12 inch Bowie strapped to your hip and not get in trouble, but if i carry a Military i'm a criminal.

EXACTLY, one of the things in the world that drives me crazy.
By the way Evil, love the new skull pic there.

[BAL]

That would be me. To this day I'm not sure if I'm the right person to carry a gun. People tell me that this part of me is the part that makes me the right person, since i acknowledge the fact that I fear my own actions, but i dunno. Like you said, if i came into a house and found a guy who had molested a 6 week old baby, i don't think there's any doubt that i wouldn't take justice into my own hands. I'm sure that's easy to say and who knows what i'd really do in person, but it's a lot to face and a big reason that i never pursued law enforcement.

You're exactly the right person, man. You are thinking about your actions, way before even
having a CCW. (If you did enter a house and find something like that going on, I think that
a gun would be in order.)

I think that people get the wrong idea about carrying, meaning that they think if they have
a gun, then they might have to KILL someone. To me it is a protection thing. You can protect
yourself and your loved ones ( or someone else's loved ones). You don't have to shoot to
kill, or even shoot at all.

Just the sight of the gun, or a shot at the ground to make your point. You don't even have to
pull it out, BUT you have it. You take your life into your hands, NOT someone elses.

[BAL]

I'm an LEO in the Chicago area and I'm all for CCW. Being a firearms instructor I'm also sure business will pick up for me :D

Thanks for saying what you did. I love to hear how LEO's feel about CCW laws,
especially in situations such as in Chicago. I am sure that there are officers that
don't like CCW, but I haven't personally talked to any.

[BD583]

Illinois residents - here is your chance. You need to contact your state legislators NOW. You need to push for not just a Concealed Carry Hand Gun Law, but a Concealed Carry Weapons Law. If the former is enacted into law, there will never ever be the political will to change it to the latter. Maybe if you find the right legislator they can change the bill without the others even knowing the difference. If you want to carry that Spyderco Military in your pocket walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago get to work now. Also push for a state preemption clause that would prevent local law from overriding state law for knife and gun laws.

[kbuzbee]

or carry a knife at all. Correct me Ohio citizens but isn't this true for you? If you have a CCW you can carry a firearm but knife carry is Illegal?

Yeah, as T S points out, areas do have length restrictions (and the State law is vague) but the way you phrased it is wrong. Knife carry in Ohio is fine, within whatever guidelines.

But there is some practicality to it as well. If you're just going about your business, I doubt you'd have any issues at all (at least I've not heard of any) Though I tend to not carry Military sized knives, I wouldn't worry about it if I did.

I tend to think of length laws as "add ons" If you get arrested for assault AND you are carrying over the legal length there's a second charge. But I still hate to see these on the books. Especially since they vary from one area to another, you really have to do a lot of research if you want to obey the letter of the law. AND stay current with it all.

Same with CCW. There are so many exceptions as to where you can and can't carry, it's crazy. To me, if I can carry, I can carry. I don't want to get arrested because I walked into a store that says I can't and missed their little sticker. So, like David, I've not applied for my CCW. (we did take the class, good class, by the way)

In general, I'm against laws restricting what I can carry in any way. If I do violence then deal with that. But preemptive laws don't sit well with me. Pretty soon I'll have to have my hands and feet cut off because I might punch or or kick someone....

Ken

[defenestrate]

Jumping through hoops is actually a good thing. The more complicated you make legally carrying, the more dissuaded the people who shouldn't be carried will be, which can't be a bad thing. The people who care and are responsible and mature enough to handle carrying shouldn't mind going the distance to do so. It's just good that you're finally getting to do it legally.

David, don't let the sun set on you in Kentucky after you say something like that in public

[defenestrate]

Since the ban lifted, how many people have been shot with a handgun, purchased legally, from a law abiding citizen?

There, FTFY

</GrammarNazi>

[defenestrate]

FWIW, I am with the pro-2nd Amendmenters here. Find a way to make all guns disappear, or at least the ones gangs get from police evidence storerooms and I will support a total handgun ban, so long as we law-abiders can walk the streets Wyatt Earp -style with breakopen double-barrel 12-guage shotguns. Of course with increasing school mass murders in the past 15 years, shotguns will likely go the way of the Dodo (Spyderpun intended) as they are more a pure "assault rifle" than the AK and AR series clones dejected mass murderers prefer for their public murders.

[defenestrate]

I don't know how it is by you Dave but by me, it's the exact opposite. The more you make it illegal, the easier it is to get. The more you restrict, the greater a market opens up to be taken advantage of.

Anyone who has ever survived a visit to a real big city ghetto would agree with you. You are as likely to bump into gun dealers as drug dealers in gang strongholds like Memphis (where I actually had to flee from Memphis kings on the road so I know what danger means :P).

In Other News, 99% of Drudge Report readers feel that the IL gun laws are approximately as effective as the long-condemned prohibition laws leading to the Great Depression (it is a Drudgebot secret that the economy crashed on mere rumors of the ban on liquor, rather than the actual ban, which made "liberals" like the Kennedy's filthy rich.

In conflict with the above, a recent poll on Huffington Post UK proves that 99% of Americans "don't need guns, why do all those stupid republicrats want them? The second amendment was clearly written strictly for the purpose of fighting King George, a Theocrat whose greatest sin was denying us political representation yet still collecting dues. I mean, everyone else has to pay taxes, why not those bloody Americans? It's not like George was committing genocide all around the world, and even if he had, Americans bleed, too, as they bloody well should! Death to America!"

<Tucking in that chip on my shoulder and crossing my fingers that Mizz TazKristi doesn't ban me forever for my clearly well-adjusted satire - in my world, liars are liars no matter what animal they wear on their stupid blood money lapels>

[Sequimite]

I guess bashing both Drudge and the Kennedys has some kind of balance.

To move from the political to the historical, Prohibition, like Women's Suffrage, public schools and abolition of slavery were given a big boost by the Second Great Awakening. It is wrong IMO, to view this historical shift as conservative or liberal in the political or religious sense. Prohibition, for instance, is still with us with laws against selling liquor still in counties across the Bible belt and my own liberal state of Washington having just ended the prohibition of alcohol sales in private retail stores.

[The Deacon]

On a somewhat lighter note, I do have to wonder whether, if actually given the choice, the majority of US voters would vote Illinois, and more than a few other states I can think of, "off the island".

[Sequimite]

On a somewhat lighter note, I do have to wonder whether, if actually given the choice, the majority of US voters would vote Illinois, and more than a few other states I can think of, "off the island".

I would bet that a majority of states would be voted off, both blue and red.