That’s the top half of an email blast from the Springfield Armory railing against Illinois Senate Bill 1657, which only passed with the help of the gunmaker’s own highly-paid lobbyist. In their second mea culpa, Springfield denied knowledge of their lobbyist Jay Keller’s carve-out and promised to “fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the NRA, National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Illinois State Rifle Association and others to see it defeated as the unnecessary and harmful overreach.” So Springfield’s team effort to defeat the bill they enabled is not entirely unexpected. Here’s the rest of the text:
SB 1657 would create onerous mandatory regulations, fees potentially in the thousands of dollars and excessive amounts of red tape that would almost assuredly force the closure of many firearm dealers, and prevent prospective owners from opening new ones. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) already licenses and closely monitors all federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) and strictly enforces any violation of federal law.
SB 1657 goes far beyond federal law and is designed to shut down as many FFLs as possible.
Again, please click the “Take Action” button above to contact your state Representative and urge them to strongly oppose SB 1657! Stay tuned to www.nraila.org for further updates on this bill.
Note that the email talks about “the closure of many firearms dealers.” The carefully chosen wording glosses over the fact that Illinois’ big box stores also negotiated a carve-out from the Illinois licensing scheme. (Naming names tomorrow.) I wonder if they didn’t know what their lobbyist was doing, or whether the giant retailers also made campaign contributions to anti-gun rights politicians.
Speaking of which, I’m still waiting for Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms to offer an explanation for channeling tens of thousands of dollars through their IFMA lobby group to anti-gun rights Illinois politicians, over more than four years. Do Springfield and Rock River execs seriously expect us to believe they didn’t know about those payments, either? Does anyone believe that?