Concealed carry comes to Illinois!
Friday’s are always an interesting day for me. I go over to a neighboring town and get my hair or beard or both trimmed on that day. And then I sometimes go to a local greasy spoon that really isn’t greasy for a noon meal. This particular Friday as I entered the barbershop I noticed an advertisement plastered on the front door in plain sight informing that a class costing eighty dollars that would qualify one for a concealed carry permit would be held in the area on a particular day in August. I asked the barber about it and he simply replied that someone had asked permission to place it on his door.
The barber rarely denies anyone permission to advertise on his door and we have not had a conversation about his views on either guns or concealed carry and we didn’t this particular day.
When I finished at the barber shop I went up the street to the afore mentioned eatery and sat down . After I had ordered and began to eat, three “good ol’ boys” over at the next table were carrying on a conversation about the need and availability of shooting ranges in the area and how they could help facilitate more of them to be established. They even went so far as to postulate that if a certain individual with land adjoining the area’s community college would donate some if it to the school, that the college could also partake of this needed service to the people of its district, all paid for at tax payer expense and out of possible student loans and tuition payments.
It’s good , we suppose that the college is providing for the needs of its constituency in the area that it serves.
Much has been said about concealed carry since the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman incident and subsequent trial and acquittal of the latter on second degree murder charges. One juror in that trial seemed to think that George Zimmerman was a sort of sympathetic figure while another minority person on that jury simply stated that Zimmerman had gotten away with murder due to the instructions that the jurors had been given concerning stand your ground in the state of Florida. The prevailing theme these days on that trial is that the jurors had no choice but to acquit George Zimmerman due to the instructions that they had been given, and, if they did not do so that jury nullification might have taken place. If all juries had this attitude then judges would decide all outcomes and we would have no need for any jury at all. In point of fact, what was first thought by the prosecution to be a possibly sympathetic female jury of six people turned out to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the defense who had started the trial with an attempt at a bad joke as to what it would take to sit on the jury to start with. And then we have some other circulating and percolating thought that Trayvon Martin had as much right to stand his ground as George Zimmerman did.
George Zimmerman’s gun, in the end, made sure that Trayvon Martin had the right to die a quick death even though he had been the one followed and had also been unarmed.
It is interesting to note that we have had a stand your ground law in the state of Illinois since around 1961 and this writer didn’t even know that fact until the last few days because it had apparently never been much publicized. It has also been a fact that guns have not much been in favor in Illinois until the last few weeks but now we have the toxic mix of stand your ground and concealed carry and we are sure that it is only a matter of time before they combust to create something as bad or worse as what went on in Sanford, Florida with Martin and Zimmerman. It has happened in other places and not been noticed and we think that the national argument over stand your ground and concealed carry has probably been settled in favor of those who love guns and are itching to be able to use one in some bastardization of self defense.
We still remember an old, old friend from an eastern state that we see occasionally who has complained about not being able to carry his “piece” in the state where he was born. He will be able to do that now and we still remember what he said in addition to those complains. He has a lifetime grudge against a person who inadvertently helped to cause his brothers death in an accident almost sixty years ago. With concealed carry now allowed in Illinois he mentioned that he could go to this mans house and now settle that grudge. The man in question has to be in his late seventies and it makes us pause and wonder if concealed carry will not make many of us who kill old before our time while it causes others of us to be frozen in a memory much like the pictures we have seen of a Trayvon Martin who will never really ever grow old. Very few of us ever really kill someone, and we have known some who have done so. They separate themselves from the rest by that act and, so often, in their own minds, they can never really ever get past what they did, so often on the spur of the moment, that affects their outlook for the rest of their lives.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
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