Illinois, Concealed-Carry, and the Gun Control Debate

Illinois is the latest (and last) state to enact concealed-carry gun laws, in compliance with a stern Federal appellate court order, which mandated that the constricting gun laws be relaxed in the Log Cabin State.



When I read that Illinois was “last state to enact concealed-carry” laws, I thought that other states would lose the opportunity to enforce the key provisions of the Second Amendment. Then I recognized that the other forty-nine states (including Hawaii – Aloha!) have already empowered citizens to train, test, and tote concealed weapons.



Not surprisingly, Illinois is a supermajority blue state: Democrats control the statehouse and the Governor’s Mansion. The mayor of Chicago (the third largest metropolis in the United States), Rahm Emmanuel, is a virulent liberal, an officious politician who gladly confronts any opposition with force. Yet in even in deep blue, and deeply in debt Illinois, the state legislature will permit residents to carry a concealed weapon.



Governor Pat Quinn (who assumed leadership following the resignation of disgraced Rod “I’m not giving it for f----in’ nothing” Blagojevich) attempted to amendment-veto the legislation, first by deeming that no firearms would be permitted in establishments which serve alcohol, and that carried weapons could not hold more than ten rounds. Democrats and Republicans in the statehouse overrode this veto, and in six months time, police stations throughout Illinois must grant concealed-carry licenses to properly trained applicants.



Not just in Illinois, where the last state to empower residents has caved to the will of the people, and the wisdom of the United States Constitution, but also in Colorado voters are asserting their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, where state senators face recall efforts following their support for gun-control legislation. The rage over gun control has exploded once again, and despite the millions of dollars spent by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to shame federal legislators and statehouses to enact gun control laws, the exact opposite has occurred.



The gun control debate locks a number of fundamental issues into one argument. The matter of human nature, both its origins and manifestations, cannot escape the debate. Are people basically good, just given to crime and consequences in the wrong environment with improvident opportunities and unfortunate upbringing? Or is there a limited, flawed aspect to mankind, in which even in his best intentions, man can succumb to immoral intuitions, whether within himself or his surroundings?



This “nature-nurture” debate cannot be resolved through compromise. Informing the identity and world-view of our citizenry, the propensity for evil in our culture cannot be compromised with diverse legislation. Progressives, liberals, and thus many Democrats, believe that environment and material opportunity even manifest the good or mar the bad in man. Otherwise, in Rousseauian conceit, man is basically good. Yet the attachment to narcissistic, complacent mantra “People are basically good” still perverts the discussion on gun control among left-leaning thinkers in liberal constituencies. Conservatives, and even Democrats in rural, more conservative communities, will not resist the will of their voters or the reality of this fallen world, and thus view with dignified suspicion and government which seeks to curtail their right to keep and bear arms.





The Framers of the Constitution never entertained such ideal constructs of mankind. In Federalist #10, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, asserted that “if men were angels”, there would be no need for laws, for constriction and diffusion of human ambition. The thousands of years of recorded history, in addition to the recent massacres at Newton, Connecticut, as well as Aurora, Colorado, and Santa Monica, California (in addition to Chicago, Illinois, where strict gun laws did not prevent five hundred homicides in 2012) will attest that no matter the heartfelt and emotionally-driven protestations of intellects and politicians, man retains the propensity to do great harm to man. Resigning themselves to the empirical results of reviewing history and remembering the harms which they and their colonial peers had endured, the Framers of the Constitution not only embedded significant measures to frustrate government power, but also added a Bill of Rights, the first two dealing with the authority of the individual to challenge and constrain his government in word and conscience (First Amendment) and if necessary, by force (Second Amendment).



The founding principle of the Second Amendment, regarding state militias and the individual right to bear arms, concerns more than the rights of American citizens to hunt animals, but to protect themselves from immoral government and intolerant leaders. “Good laws and good arms” found all stable societies, as recorded by Machiavelli in his signature political treatise, “The Prince”. No one should ignore, nor disdain this sage advice even today, where human nature remains immutable and yet prone to wrongdoing. Following the rescission of its handgun ban by judicial order, Washington D.C. enjoyed a sharp decline in gun violence. Great Britain, with strict gun laws, endures massive crime waves to this day.





The passage of “concealed-carry” in Illinois should grant relief to those who respect the Constitution (including the Second Amendment. While the gun control debate still rages, the reasonable argument which recognizes the flaws of human nature is winning.