By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
An Illinois lawmaker wants gun manufacturers to pay for “a portion” of the costs of “gun violence” whenever one of their firearms is involved in a violent crime, but a major gun rights organization quickly criticized the idea, saying it penalizes manufacturers instead of criminals.
The Chicago Sun-Times said gun-related violent crime annually costs Illinois taxpayers about $20 billion, based on estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If lawmakers in Springfield pass The Responsibility in Firearms Legislation Act (RIFL), proponents estimate it will save nearly $300 million during the first year, as reported by WBEZ News.
But the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms takes issue with this.
“Backers of this stupid proposal claim Illinois will ‘save’ $300 million annually,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “What they’re really saying is that they expect to get that amount from the gun industry during the first year. How much would the state actually save by simply locking up repeat offenders for a very long time, sending a message to other miscreants to change their behavior? How many lives might be saved by keeping violent criminals behind bars for years? How much would be saved by hiring more police to patrol certain neighborhoods in force?
“By locking up criminals, we make the neighborhoods safer,” he said. “There’s a value in that.”
The proposed law is getting support from some emergency room physicians at UChicago Medicine, according to WLS news. They joined state lawmakers for a presser Tuesday.
The RIFL Act is coming before the Illinois General Assembly shortly. It would require firearm manufacturers to pay a percentage of the medical costs associated with injuries or deaths linked to their products, WLS explained.
CCRKBA’S Gottlieb isn’t convinced.
“Instead of putting criminals behind bars and keeping them off the streets,” he said, “the ‘Responsibility in Firearms Legislation Act’ holds gun manufacturers financially responsible for crimes often committed by people who can’t legally own guns because of prior criminal history. Why are these people on the street in the first place?
“By introducing this legislation,” Gottlieb continued, “lawmakers in Springfield and their anti-gun allies are tacitly admitting that all of their current gun laws are not working, they haven’t worked in the past and they won’t work in the future. It’s just easier to blame the firearms industry, which would have to pass such costs onto law-abiding consumers, than it would be to hold hoodlums, gang bangers and crazy people responsible for crimes they commit.
“This proposed law is just a rebranding of past failed gun control schemes to financially penalize lawful gun makers and their honest customers for the crimes of others,” he observed. “In essence, Illinois lawmakers are once again trying to make manufacturers and law-abiding citizens their collective whipping boy rather than take the truly courageous and necessary steps against actual criminal perpetrators.
“Bad actors who are kept in jails and prisons aren’t out on the streets and in the neighborhoods shooting at each other with guns they illegally obtained, and harming innocent bystanders in the process,” Gottlieb said.
