This past Tuesday, Illinois Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker has recently penned his name to a piece of legislation issuing an outright ban on the manufacture or owning of dozens of pistols and rapid-fire rifles, .50-caliber guns, and some attachments, that officially went into effect directly after signing.
Pritzker recently autographed the “Protect Illinois Communities Act,” making it law as part of a ceremony that took place at the State Capitol in Springfield just a scant few hours in the wake of House Democrats managing to secure the final passage just under a day after the measure was pushed through by Senate Democrats.
“It’s been quite a past 24 hours,” explained Pritzker, as reported by local media. “Yesterday, I began my second term as governor of the great state of Illinois, and today we made history, becoming the ninth state to institute an assault weapons ban and one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the nation.”
As stated in the bill, the law would require the people of Illinois that already own these types of guns to officially register them with the state government.
Gun makers are now only allowed to sell firearms to suppliers located in other states, and any owners of the recently banned guns in the state can still keep their firearms as long as they do not leave their private properties.
The residents of the state who own firearms that are on the list for the new law but are not registered could be issued a misdemeanor charge for their first offense before escalating up to a felony charge for each additional offense.
Pritzker made sure to highlighted the names of a group of seven citizens that were killed at the Highland Park July 4 parade mass shooting, at which the gunman utilized a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic rifle.
The alleged gunman originally bought the gun entirely legally back in 2020 despite a well-documented history of threatening and suicidal actions from the alleged killer.
Local media outlets issued a report which stated that the governor labeled the mass shooting as a tragedy rooted in the fact that “our state and nation have been held hostage by the NRA and their allies time and time again.”
Before this law was put in place, Illinois has already sported some of the most strict gun laws in the United States, and gun control groups consistently rank the state very high in gun safety reports.