In the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, several Republicans in the Senate got all wobbly-kneed and agreed to a Democratic ‘gun control’ bill. Among other things, it provides financial incentives for states without a so-called ‘red flag’ law to pass one.

Well, the solidly Democratic state of Illinois had a red flag law, and guess what? It didn’t stop alleged Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo III^[1]Some people hold that publishing photos and the names of accused serial killers somehow encourages other potential serial killers. Personally, I cannot see how such an obviously incel-looking man … Continue reading from obtaining a firearm:

Highland Park suspect’s father sponsored gun permit application, police say

By Reis Thebault and Timothy Bella | Wednesday, July 6, 2022 | 10:18 AM EDT

The Illinois State Police confirmed on Tuesday that the father of the Highland Park parade shooting suspect sponsored his son’s application for a gun permit months after relatives reported that Robert E. Crimo III had threatened to “kill everyone,” and that authorities had “insufficient basis” to deny the application.

The revelation that Crimo, 21, had at least two previous encounters with law enforcement has raised new questions about how he was able to legally purchase his guns and whether more could have been done to prevent the massacre that killed seven people and injured more than 30.

In September 2019, a family member told Highland Park police that Crimo had threatened to “kill everyone,” said Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. Officers visited Crimo’s home and confiscated 16 knives, a dagger and a sword, but made no arrest, Covelli said on Tuesday, because they lacked probable cause. However, they notified Illinois State Police, he said.

Months later, in December, Crimo applied for a firearm owner’s identification card, the document required to possess a gun in Illinois. Because Crimo was under 21 at the time, state law required him to have the consent of a parent or guardian before he could own a firearm or ammunition. According to state police, which issues the cards, Crimo’s father sponsored the permit application.

There’s more at the original, but it sounds like Robert Crimo, Jr, is being set up to be responsible, in some way, for his son’s (alleged) killings.

The Washington Post article continues to tell us that the state police had received a “clear and present danger” report on the younger Mr Crimo, but because there was no current request for a Firearms Owner’s Identification Card, there was no action the agency could take. Then, when he did apply for a FOID, the agency could not disapprove it because he had a sponsor.

“The subject was under 21 and the application was sponsored by the subject’s father,” Illinois State Police said in a statement. “Therefore, at the time of FOID application review in January of 2020, there was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger and deny the FOID application.”

So, what does this mean? It means that instates which are incentivized to establish ‘red flag’ laws, the pressure will be to make them more stringent, to suspend people’s Second Amendment rights for longer, possibly much longer.

I think back to the case of Nikolas Cruz, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter. Young Mr Cruz had many interactions with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, all for mostly petty crimes, but the deputies kept giving him free passes, kept letting him off with admonishments to be a good boy. After Mr Cruz committed an in-school assault, the Broward County schools, which had greatly reduced references to law enforcement, because they wanted to stop the “school to prison pipeline,” following a January, 2017, in-school assault. Had Mr Cruz been charged with that assault, he could not have legally purchased the weapons he used in the attack.

A FOID card is required under Illinois law to possess guns. The cards issued by the Illinois State Police require “any qualified applicant” to meet at least 15 requirements listed on the agency’s website.

At a news conference announcing the initial criminal charges against Crimo, Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said Illinois’s red-flag law, which allows loved ones to ask a court to temporarily remove guns from those deemed violent or threatening, is “very powerful.” Yet the law is rarely used.

“We must vastly increase awareness and education about this red-flag law,” Rinehart said.

In the days following the shooting, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) has vowed to strengthen state laws in an effort to prevent another tragedy like the one in Highland Park.

Translation: Illinois ‘red flag’ law did not work, so that Democrat-ruled state is going to make it stronger, restricting the rights of law-abiding Americans even further, because the state failed to act under the laws it had in place.

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) said, “(I)n the state of New York, we’re now requiring social media networks to monitor and report hateful conduct on their platforms.” As Hannah Bleau noted on Breitbart:

It is a rather controversial move, given the varying interpretations of what constitutes “hate speech” in a world where far-left radicals consider “misgendering” someone an intrinsically “hateful” act.

In other words, because my site, The First Street Journal, states in the Stylebook,

Those who claim to be transgender will be referred to with the honorific and pronouns appropriate to the sex of their birth; the site owner does not agree with the cockamamie notion that anyone can simply ‘identify’ with a sex which is not his own, nor that any medical ‘treatment’ or surgery can change a person’s natural sex; all that it can do is physically mutilate a person.

I would be denied a firearms permit in the state of New York because my sincerely-held belief that girls can’t be boys and boys can’t be girls. I have no criminal record, and have never even been accused of assaulting anyone. But because my beliefs closely adhere to Roman Catholic teachings on ‘transgenderism,’ the state of New York — where I do not live, but many Catholics do — would deny my Second Amendment rights over First Amendment right of free exercise of religion. Had I kept my beliefs entirely to myself, not exercised another of my First Amendment rights, freedom of speech and of the press, I guess I could get that permit.

There has been plenty of evidence that if law enforcement had acted on the laws already passed, some of these mass shootings could have been prevented, or at least made more difficult for the perpetrators; we could have prevented some of these cretins from obtaining firearms legally, but it seems that nothing can prevent a determined person from obtaining a firearm illegally. Instead, when existing laws have failed, due to bureaucratic mistakes and individual bungling, the response of the states is to further restrict the rights of people who have done nothing wrong. And now New York is attempting to remove people’s rights to keep and bear arms due to people’s religious and political beliefs.