Reis Cites George Washington in Battle Over Gun Owners' Rights

One local legislator says Chicago Democrats are the opposition in the battle over gun owners' rights.

State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) defended gun owners’ rights on the House floor this week during the debate.  “Every law-abiding citizen has the right to own a gun and the clip needed to use that firearm.  Chicago Democrats who oppose honest, upstanding citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms are attempting to legislate in direct violation and disregard of the United States Constitution.”

“The Second Amendment was put in the constitution by our founding fathers to protect themselves from their own government.  Look at the countless stories over the last 100 years where they’ve taken the guns away from people, piled them up and took a picture of it,” said Reis.  “Then the citizens had no way to protect themselves from their own government.”

Reis continued, “George Washington said free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”

“If you don’t have multi-round guns, it would not take government too long to overtake you,” said Rep. Reis.  “That was the reason for the Second Amendment.  Banning large magazine clips is unconstitutional.   It flies in the face of our founding fathers’ fight for freedom.”

The measure would ban the possession of large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, defined as (1) a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted, to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition; or (2) can be assembled.  The proposed measure would not have grandfathered in current owners of magazines.

The amendment to ban large-capacity magazines failed in the House.  In all, over fifty amendments to restrict gun owner rights have been introduced in the House.