False claims about proposed gun laws

Open Letter to the Illinois State Rifle Association:

In late November, state Sen. Don Harmon and state Rep. Kathy Willis held a town hall meeting in Bensenville. Kathy and Don are sponsors of Illinois SB 1657 - Gun Dealer Licensing.

This bill would implement common sense procedures for gun dealers in Illinois such as implementing video surveillance of the gun shop and gun sales, background checks and training for employees including how to spot a straw purchaser, recording the purchasers information, and so on. It would cost dealers no more than $200 per year. Gun dealers would have five years to comply. Many of the Illinois gun dealers are already practicing these good business practices. But the ISRA is totally against any new laws relating to guns. So it sent out an email prior to the town hall meeting encouraging members to attend because, "The authors and chief sponsors of bills designed to shut down lawful gun shops and ban and confiscate most of your guns ..."

SB-1657 is not intended to shut down Illinois gun dealers nor is it intended to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners. The unfortunate part of this is that we have a group of people in the ISRA with many members who they can rely on to call state lawmakers to express their disapproval of any new gun legislation even when the request is based on false information. This is truly unfortunate.

If we are ever to get our gun problem under control, we need honest dialogue. The group "Moms Demand Action" supports the Second Amendment and sensible gun laws with facts and honest dialogue.

ISRA, please let's talk facts only.

Jim McGrath

Barrington