This one goes out to all the liberals who were whinging about "due process" a month or so back.
"So, what do gun owners have against training, insurance, licensing and registration of firearms? They seem like common sense approaches to dealilgn with 'gun violence'".
If you've been involved in Second Amendment advocacy, you're familir with the (for lack of a better term) argument - and, in the even it seems like a good faith question, you already know the answer.
Even in the event that government doesn't interfere with the supply of those requirements - like New York state did, when state regulators barred the companies that wrote the \ liability policies for law-abiding gun owners - you then are faced with the likelihood that (blue) governments will just ignore the paperwork for which you jumped through all the hoops in the first place.
Which is what's happening in Chicago right now.
In Illinois, a law-abiding gun owner needs to have not only a carry permit, but another, separate permit - a "Firearm Owners ID", or FOID - to own a firearm. The state makes the wanna-be law-abiding gun owner sit up and beg like good doggies to get the FOID.
And then ignores all of it when it suits them - for example, for those accused of Carrying While Black.
Chicago's CBS affiliate is covering a number of such cases. Here's one - Louis McWilliams, owner of a cheesecake shop, and a citizen demonstrably enough law-abiding that he qualified for all of Illinois' absurd paperwork.
Fat lot of good it did him:
Louis McWilliams was recently arrested and charged by Chicago police with felony firearm possession despite having a valid FOID & CCL + the case has since been dismissed 👮🏾👨🏾⚖️🔫• Via: @cbschicago 📲 pic.twitter.com/4vvoBJqi6Z
— The Chicago Wave (@TheChicagoWave) October 21, 2025
The reward for being a law-abiding gun owner in Chicago is being treated like a criminal if the cops don't feel espcially law-abiding themselves:
One of the cases cited in the story is that of Louis McWilliams, the 46-year-old owner of a cheesecake bakery. On his way to a business meeting, police pulled him over for a missing front license plate (while the reason isn't mentioned in the story, license plate thefts are an ongoing problem in Illinois). According to CBS News, "police body camera video shows that after the police stopped him, the first thing he did was tell the officers he had a gun in the car." He also presented his Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card and a concealed carry license (CCL), which CBS News confirmed as valid.
But Chicago police claimed they couldn't find his CCL in the Illinois State Police-run LEADS database. This shouldn't be surprising to anybody who has ever dealt with government records systems and their inevitable unreliability. That may be why "a spokesperson with the state police would not comment on specific cases but said if an officer is unable to check the status of a FOID or CCL in LEADS, 'the officer should not take any law enforcement actions as it relates to a potential FOID/CCL violation.'"
But Chicago police ignored the valid FOID, the valid CCL, and the guidance to respect the documents and ignore the database's shortcomings. McWilliams was arrested, held in jail for a day, and charged with a felony. Charges were eventually dismissed, but his business suffered because of the missed meeting and his absences while he fought bogus charges. He still awaits the return of his gun.
They dropped the charges, not that McWililams is going to get reimbursed for his time and trauma. Up until that, he may as well have bought the gun from a crack addict outside a strip club for all the good his punctiliousness did him.
If the enforcers of the law don't respect the law, why would the people?
