Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Champaign) thinks there are other reasons legislative leaders canceled the Illinois General Assembly's fall session. | Photo Courtesy of SenChapinRose.com
Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Champaign) thinks there are other reasons legislative leaders canceled the Illinois General Assembly's fall session. | Photo Courtesy of SenChapinRose.com
State Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Champaign) has had enough of all the abuse he sees being heaped on legal gun owners.
"The FOID process is a completely redundant situation,” Rose said in a video posted to YouTube. “But what is real is the fact that every day people who aren’t allowed to have guns in this state are shooting people. I’ve posted story after story of previously convicted felons shooting someone. I posted a story about of a felon out on bond on a gun crime who was arrested on a gun crime.”
Rose said he’s still convinced that a bill he introduced three years ago that would have enacted a law of no bond for anyone accused of shooting someone would have offered some solutions to all the loose weapons now flooding the streets.
“Instead of doing that, we’re going to take away rights from honest, law-abiding citizens in defense of a FOID system that is completely redundant because it already happens at the retail sale when you go and buy a gun,” he added. There is no law we can make to force someone to do something unnatural. If someone swings at you, you duck and swing back. If someone comes after your family, you protect your family.
Rose isn’t the only Republican lawmaker now screaming foul.
State Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer recently blasted the system amid reports new FOID applications are now taking months to process.
“They’ve been going on for a long time; they got incredibly worse during COVID-19,” he said during a recent news conference on the issue. “I Googled the other day ‘how long does it take to get a FOID card?’ and it came up 127 days.”
Davidsmeyer said he hears nearly every day from frustrated citizens who are unable to get a response one way or the other from government officials regarding their applications for legal gun ownership.
“I have constituents that I've helped get a FOID card that have been waiting for 13 months,” he added. “It is absolutely crazy. Here is the crazy part: My wife's from Ohio; she moved to Illinois when we got married. She pays taxes here, she works here, she does all the things she's asked to do. She does not have a FOID card and if I say ‘hey can you run and pick me up some ammo,’ shotgun shells, whatever if I'm shooting sporting clays or something of that sort, she cannot do it, but if my mother-in-law from Ohio comes to visit she can go do it.”
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