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Pike County, Illinois Enacts Concealed Carry
TheOutdoorWire.com ^ | 3/23/2012 | TheOutdoorWire.com

Posted on 03/23/2012 5:55:06 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama

PASA Park, Barry, IL -- In the election held Tuesday, March 20, 2012, the voters of Pike County, Illinois, approved a firearms concealed-carry ordinance by a 3,214 to 550 margin. It was one of the largest voter turnouts in county history. The ordinance directly contradicts current Illinois state law. As presented on the ballot, the ordinance took effect upon passage, and applies only to Pike County. The ordinance was placed on the ballot by a citizen initiative petition process that garnered three times the number of signatures required by law.

The new "Constitutional Carry" Pike County initiative was spearheaded by local Second Amendment activist Dr. Dan Mefford of Pittsfield, who drafted the successful ordinance in conjunction with noted outdoor journalist and firearms law expert Dick Metcalf, who is also a resident of Pike County. According to Dr. Mefford, "The people are speaking, and what the people are saying is, 'Trust the people.'"

Historians have stated that this is the first time since 1862 that county voters in any U.S. state have explicitly reversed a state law. The previous example was when the five western counties of Virginal nullified that state's secession from the Union, and themselves seceded from Virginia to form the new state of West Virginia.

It is widely anticipated that other rural and downstate counties will follow Pike County's lead. In 2007, the Pike County Board enacted a resolution stating that further restrictive firearms laws enacted by the Illinois State Legislature would be deemed by Pike County "to be Unconstitutional and beyond lawful Legislative Authority." That resolution was subsequently passed by 89 percent of all Illinois counties.

County and local law enforcement officers in Pike County are obligated by law to enforce country ordinances. State law enforcement officers and agencies are obligated to enforce state law. Legal observers therefore expect the inevitable court battle to be complex, because the new ordinance was enacted by the voters themselves, not by any county or local legislative entity.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: banglist; crime; elections; freedom; govtabuse; guns; liberty; shallnotbeinfringed; tyranny; youwillnotdisarmus
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To: 2nd amendment mama

This will drive that MORON gov of ours Pat 'dumb as a stick' Quinn NUTZ and mayor Rahm may jump off Sears Tower. Or his head just might explode as the word is he has 'anger issues'

Now if we could do this is DuPage County too after more southern counties pass this -- happy days for me :-)

21 posted on 03/23/2012 1:38:31 PM PDT by Condor51 (Yo Hoffa, so you want to 'take out conservatives'. Well okay Jr - I'm your Huckleberry)
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To: muir_redwoods
*** Illinois should secede from Cook (and maybe Lake) County and rejoin the USA. This looks like a good start. ***

Actually, We The People of IL should kick (evict, expel, oust) Cook County, specifically including Chicago, OUT of Illinois.

They mostly have there own laws anyway and only some state laws are relevant in and to Chicago as they are a 'Home Rule' city. Ditto for Cook County like with their own 'kind of secret' Assault Weapon Ban.

Yet us in the other parts of IL, but mostly in the collar counties, have to support all their FAILED SOCIALIST CRAP. From the transit system and pensions even to SCHOOL funding. Plus money for all the ghetto-gangster-rats and other assorted deadbeats on welfare, or simply put, 85% of Chicago's residents.

In any case or way they need to be G-O-N-E.

Cook County with Chicago can become a separate state. It's bigger in population than Rhode Island (or close to it) so why not.

22 posted on 03/23/2012 1:59:34 PM PDT by Condor51 (Yo Hoffa, so you want to 'take out conservatives'. Well okay Jr - I'm your Huckleberry)
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To: Carry_Okie

You’re right. It would net out to two extra GOP Senators per secession. The urban centers would simply retain the Democrats they currently are represented by.


23 posted on 03/23/2012 2:11:54 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: 2nd amendment mama; SPI-Man; TYVets
Pike County, Illinois is across the river near Hannibal, Missouri home of Mark Twain. As a tourist visiting Twain's hometown I would check about places of interest in Pike County and its county seat in Pittsville.

Thanks to an observant member of FR for pointing out my mistake:

The County seat of Pike County is not Pittsville, it is Pittsfield, Illinois.

24 posted on 03/23/2012 2:15:42 PM PDT by TYVets (Pure-Gas.org ..... ethanol free gasoline by state and city)
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To: 1010RD
The urban centers would simply retain the Democrats they currently are represented by.

That's what I'm thinking, and I like it. Representation in flyover country started degrading with the 17th Amendment and was killed with Reynolds v. Sims.

25 posted on 03/23/2012 2:50:36 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (There is no such thing as "renewable" energy.)
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To: Carry_Okie

You’re right on both counts. The hunt for “equality” tends to ruin republics which are by design meant to marginalize the masses and tamper their input into the system while at the same time minimizing abuses from the elites.

I’d not leave out the 16th Amendment in degrading representation in flyover country. We should, knowing history, expect cities to grow and therefore their influence to grow as well.

Giving all this money to the federal government helped rationalize all kinds of programs which were then emulated across all urban locations in America. We don’t have a national government and were never supposed to. We have a federal government and few Americans recognize the critical distinction. Particularly liberals who demand more democracy and a national government - both of which lead to the very tyrannies liberals allegedly despise.

Kick in big government conservatives who over a century ago decided to create government schooling (could you imagine if only Marx or Stalin had suggested it first?) and you’ve got a population slowly indoctrinated in the virtues of big government. How many schoolkids know about the destructiveness of unions in general, teachers unions specifically, educational monopolies (this would include the model of what is and isn’t an education that’s been imposed) and the poor outcomes of the public school system? They never learn a thing about it. That we fell for government schooling is a shame and proof in the unending desire of one mind to rule over another. The fear of the other is real, hence the need for limited government.


26 posted on 03/23/2012 6:27:37 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD

The plan to secularize America was in place before the Revolutionary War. The elitist gambit of using the masses began before the ink was dry on the Constitution. Said ink had serious flaws by which our lenders planned to tie us in knots with international law. But first, they had to create a moneyed elite interested in establishing internationalism by taking corporate regulation out of the hands of the States. In came the money, then we got the robber barony, then the 16th, etc.


27 posted on 03/23/2012 7:12:19 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (There is no such thing as "renewable" energy.)
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To: TYVets
At last one county in Illinois that appears to be firearms owner friendly.

I shoot Sporting Clay, Trap and Skeet. When the only choice is to cross Illinois on my way to a shooting event I usually drive non stop across the state due to the morass of gun laws dictated by Chicagoland.

It's mostly the paved over upper right corner that's not firearms friendly.

It's not a "morass" of different gun laws, except in that same paved over upper right corner.

28 posted on 03/24/2012 6:49:47 PM PDT by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: Carry_Okie

You’ve lost me there. Those enemies would have to be pretty prescient to have set up a plan for a country the likes of which no one on earth had ever seen.


29 posted on 03/24/2012 7:42:42 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD
Those enemies would have to be pretty prescient to have set up a plan for a country the likes of which no one on earth had ever seen.

Before the ink was dry.

30 posted on 03/25/2012 10:20:31 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (There is no such thing as "renewable" energy.)
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To: Graybeard58
What Pike County is going to find out, I suspect officials already knew. County ordinances cannot contradict state law, even when state law is unconstitutional.

Would not anyone prosecuted for so-called "Aggravated Unlawful Use of Weapon" in Pike County have the right to demand a trial with jurors from Pike County? Might the state have some difficulty getting together a jury that would convict someone who was carrying lawfully (albeit contrary to an illegitimate statute)?

31 posted on 03/30/2012 5:57:28 PM PDT by supercat (Renounce Covetousness.)
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