Ivory law: criminals for their collections

Ivory law: criminals for their collections

If passed, Illinois Senate Bill 1858, the Ivory Ban Act, will make it "unlawful for any person to import, sell, offer for sale, purchase, barter, or possess with intent to sell any ivory, ivory product, rhinoceros horn or rhinoceros horn product."

Ivory is defined as "any tooth or tusk composed of ivory from any animal, including, but not limited to, elephant, hippopotamus, mammoth, narwhal, walrus or whale or any piece thereof, whether raw ivory or worked ivory, or made into, or part of an ivory product."

There is no exemption for antiques. Note: mammoths have been extinct for approximately 10,000 years.

Almost word-for-word, this proposed law is the same as ivory ban laws working through other states. That means the sponsors of SB 1858, Linda Holmes, Melinda Bush, Julie Morrison, and Ira Silverstein didn't write the bill. Some nameless member of an out-of-state special interest group wrote it. That group, not the people we elected, is attempting to author laws in Illinois. Domestic terrorism comes in many forms.

Preventing the poaching of elephants and rhinoceroses is the job of the federal government. It controls Customs, the State Department and the Armed Forces. And it can put pressure on NGOs operating in elephant-and-rhinoceros-populated countries. It's the responsibility of the federal government to deal with problems in foreign countries. The state of Illinois has enough problems of its own without getting into the elephant and rhino business.

Among other things, if an ivory ban law is passed, it will make criminals of honest antiques collectors, rendering their collections worthless. It also renders worthless family heirlooms containing ivory. The citizens of the state of Illinois don't need another layer of government control or the added expense of enforcing an unnecessary law.

Tom L. Conley

Huntley