Posted: 10/3/2013 8:07:28 PM EDT
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While I am sure it has been posted before: SECTION 22. RIGHT TO ARMS Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (Source: Illinois Constitution.)  |
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While I am sure it has been posted before: SECTION22. RIGHT TO ARMS Subject only to the police power, the rightof the individualcitizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (Source:Illinois Constitution.) http://crow202.org/2009/bears_repeating.jpg I think you should use your google-fu to look up "police power". |
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I think you should use your google-fu to look up "police power". <----This. "Police power" pretty much covers every regulating and enforcement function of government. This is pretty much like saying "you can keep your guns as long as your masters say it's OK." Almost like it's a joke. |
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http://markmccoy.com/analysis-of-the-article-right-to-arms-with-annotations/ STATE CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION
"Subject only to the police power, the right of the Individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Section 22, Article I of the Illinois Bill of Rights.* *The Sixth Illinois Constitutional Conventions Committee on Bill of Rights in their official commentary interpreted this provision in 1970 as a guarantee that "a citizen has the right to possess and make reasonable use of arms that law-abiding citizens commonly employ for purposes of recreation of protection of person and property." Any use of the police power, the Committee said, that "attempted to ban all possession or use of such arms, or laws that subjected possession or use of such arms to regulations or taxes so onerous that ail possession or use was effectively banned, would be invalid." |
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as we all know, intent matters very little. what is actually written is what matters.
in any case once you use the word "reasonable" you are completely outside the realm of what we would ordinarily think a right is, and the state courts have correctly interpreted it that way. I don't like it, but if you say the right is only subject to the whims of the legislature (and that is what it says), that is what you get and that is what we got. |
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Quoted:
http://markmccoy.com/analysis-of-the-article-right-to-arms-with-annotations/ STATE CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION
"Subject only to the police power, the right of the Individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Section 22, Article I of the Illinois Bill of Rights.* *The Sixth Illinois Constitutional Conventions Committee on Bill of Rights in their official commentary interpreted this provision in 1970 as a guarantee that "a citizen has the right to possess and make reasonable use of arms that law-abiding citizens commonly employ for purposes of recreation of protection of person and property." Any use of the police power, the Committee said, that "attempted to ban all possession or use of such arms, or laws that subjected possession or use of such arms to regulations or taxes so onerous that ail possession or use was effectively banned, would be invalid." Thanks. 
ETA - interestingly enough, I found the following within John Garvey's paper on the ConCon: Section 22 extends the U.S. Constitution's affirmation of the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms -- the justification being the need for communal security -- by stating that the "individual citizen" may keep and bear arms "subject only to the police power". Sadly, I also found this: Kaladimos v. Morton Grove, 470 N.E.2d 266 "The section does not mirror the second amendment to the Federal Constitution (U.S. Const., amend. II); rather it adds the words "[s]ubject only to the police power," omits prefatory language concerning the importance of a militia, and substitutes "the individual citizen" for "the people." The majority report of the Bill of Rights Committee of the constitutional convention, which framed the provision, makes clear that the latter two changes were intended to broaden the scope of the right to arms from a collective one applicable only to weapons traditionally used by a regulated militia (see United States v. Miller (1939), 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206, to an individual right covering a wider variety of arms. Report of the Bill of Rights Committee on the Preamble and Bill of Rights (hereinafter cited as Committee Report), 6 Record of Proceedings, Sixth Illinois Constitutional Convention (hereinafter cited as Proceedings) 87 (1970). Equally distinctive, however, is the explicit recognition of "the police power" as a limitation on the liberty the provision affords. The Bill of Rights Committee explained in its report that "[b]ecause arms pose an extraordinary threat to the safety and good order of society, the possession and use of arms is subject to an extraordinary degree of control under the police power." (Committee Report, 6 Proceedings 88.) The committee report described, with specific citations, five types of regulatory measures that had been approved in other States as not infringing an individual right to arms, including a complete ban on "certain deadly weapons not commonly and peacefully used by individuals, such as machine guns, firearms equipped with silencing devices, gas-ejecting devices, blackjacks, artillery weapons, bombs, etc." (Committee Report, 6 Proceedings 89) and a total prohibition of "the sale of some weapons in some circumstances" (Committee Report, 6 Proceedings 90, citing Biffer v. City of Chicago (1917), 278 Ill. 562, 116 **270 N.E. 182, and a Texas case, Caswell & Smith v. State (Tex.Civ.App.1912), 148 S.W. 1159, which approved a confiscatory tax on all sales of pistols)." Too bad in some ways we couldn't have gotten the Lawlor Amendment: "The right of the individual to firearms or other means necessary for defense of his person or safeguarding of his property shall not be denied or infringed. The use of deadly weapons for hunting or other sports shall be subject to regulations established by law." Although in the post Heller and McDonald era, I think our side stands a better chance than it did back when Kalamidos was heard, as back then the same type of IL SC gave us Smith. |