[kenton6]

The following posts are articles found on similar hunting forums. Please read and take heed especially the next time you think just one little form of gun control will be okay!.
Chicago Anti Gun Enforcement (CAGE) unit. This elite squad, operated jointly by the Illinois State Police, the Chicago Police Department, and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, supposedly exists to identify illegal gunrunners. However, information gained by the ISRA makes it clear that the CAGE unit is targeting law-abiding citizens, not criminal gunrunners.

The Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police have teamed up to make good on Mayor Daley's pledge that, if it were up to him, nobody would have a gun. Daley and his elite "CAGE" unit are apparently taking advantage of gun privacy loopholes to pinpoint certain individuals for inclusion in the confiscation program.

The ISRA is following up on leads in one case that has disturbing implications. An elderly first-generation Chicago resident was recently paid a visit by an Illinois State Police trooper. After asking to come inside the man's home, the trooper asked if the man owned a gun - to which he replied yes. The trooper then directed the individual to surrender the firearm. The man complied with the officer's demand and the trooper left with the gun. And the story gets better...

The gun in question was purchased legally by the man in the 1970s shortly after he became a U.S. citizen. When Chicago's infamous gun registration scheme went into effect in the early 1980s, the man registered the firearm as per the requirement. However, over the years, the fellow apparently forgot to re-register the firearm, and forgot to renew his Illinois FOID Card.

So...what does this all mean?

In the last edition of The Illinois Shooter, we reported on the activities of a shady taskforce known as the Chicago Anti Gun Enforcement (CAGE) unit. This elite squad, operated jointly by the Illinois State Police, the Chicago Police Department, and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, supposedly exists to identify illegal gunrunners. However, information gained by the ISRA makes it clear that the CAGE unit is targeting law-abiding citizens, not criminal gunrunners.

Thanks to a ruling by a liberal federal judge, the CAGE unit now has the name of every single person in the United States who, since 1992, lawfully purchased more than one handgun in the period of a week. The CAGE unit also has all the makes, models and serial numbers of those guns. In essence, the Chicago Police Department is now registering guns and gun owners nationwide.

The ISRA has also learned that the CAGE unit has compiled a list of families where more than one person in that family holds a FOID card. Acting on that information, the CAGE unit is now contacting gun shops where those families have shopped, and is illegally registering all guns purchased by those families.

Now, it appears that the CAGE unit is scrubbing Chicago's gun registration list against the list of FOID card holders. Indications are that folks who have let their registrations and FOIDs lapse will have their guns confiscated. We have to wonder how long it will be until state troopers show up at the doors to confiscate the guns of non-Chicago residents who have let their FOIDs expire.

 

[kenton6]

"Revenge of the Gun Haters

by Dr. Michael S. Brown

Politics and public opinion may have turned against the anti-gun lobby, but their burning hatred for guns and gun owners hasn't cooled. Laws passed during the anti-gun witch hunts of the 1990s provide them with a satisfying way to take punitive action against harmless gun owners.

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, which may be one reason it had more murders than any other American city in 2001. Mayor Richard Daley often unleashes verbal attacks on the gun industry to distract attention from his failure to address the real causes of crime.

The Chicago Anti-Gun Enforcement (CAGE) Task Force was formed under the pretense of interdicting illegal gunrunning to Chicago gangs. The task force has obtained unprecedented access to federal gun purchase records and is compiling a list of gun owners in the region who may be in violation of complicated state gun laws.

CAGE officers have already begun to appear at the homes of honest gun owners, whose papers are not in order, to confiscate their firearms.

Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan has staged questionable sting operations in which ordinary citizens are given false information about gun laws, then enticed into selling guns to undercover agents without completing the proper paperwork. It is no coincidence that Ryan is running for governor.

In Maryland, the state's rabidly anti-gun attorney general issued a creative new interpretation of a 1996 court decision regarding which persons are disqualified from gun ownership. State police are denying permits and confiscating firearms from people with minor convictions that are decades old.

A popular neighborhood activist who received a "Citizen of the Year" award in 2000 was recently denied the gun permit he needed for his job as a private detective and security guard. His only offense was a scuffle with an anti-war fanatic in 1969.

Maryland state policemen appeared at the home of another good citizen to confiscate his guns when it was discovered that he had a minor 1983 conviction for a shoving match over a disputed property line.

In California, gun owners are bewildered by new laws that make certain firearms illegal to own. Unfortunately, officials do not agree on which guns are banned, leaving gun owners fearing arrest under laws that can be selectively enforced.

In each of these cases, it is painfully obvious that real criminals are not affected. Self-serving government officials are targeting ordinary citizens because they are easy targets for action that appeals to the big-city media.

It is much more difficult to prosecute real criminals, and the inner-city nature of most crime makes for politically incorrect arrests. We can also speculate that these efforts are intended to extract a measure of revenge for the rout of the anti-gun lobby.

At the national level the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, known as ATF, controls every one of the nation's licensed firearms dealers and has long been criticized for overzealous enforcement by gun rights activists.

In order to comply with changes in federal gun laws, ATF quietly decided to change the standard gun registration form that has been used for years. Beginning on Feb. 19, 2002, no sales would be approved unless they were recorded on the new forms.

Not only were many dealers unaware of the change, someone "forgot" to send out the forms. Retail gun sales came to a screeching halt across the country. The new forms were eventually provided, but there was no way to replace the retailers' lost revenue or the time lost by thousands of lawful buyers. Folks at the Brady Campaign probably had a good laugh.

None of these situations would have occurred without the laws passed in the emotional anti-gun frenzy of the last decade. These laws now provide mean-spirited anti-gun politicians and bureaucrats with many ways to seek revenge against the gun owners who dared to fight for their rights in recent elections and public opinion battles.

In the long run, these moves will backfire as more people realize how far the absurd reality of gun law enforcement varies from the utopian intent."

 

[kenton6]

Chicago Police Officers Warned About Possible Gun Sweeps
U.S. Newswire
29 Apr 9:33
Chicago Police Officers Warned About Possible Gun Sweeps
To: State Desk
Contact: Richard Pearson of the Illinois State Rifle Association,
815-635-3198; Web Site: http://www.isra.org

CHICAGO, April 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released
today by the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA):

The ISRA is warning employees of the Chicago Police Department
(CPD) that the department's Chicago Anti-Gun Enforcement (CAGE)
unit may soon swoop down on their homes.

The warning comes after the release of CPD Notice 02-18, which
directs CPD employees to dispose of many of their personally owned
firearms by May 1, 2002 or face the consequences.

Firearms subject to the disposal order include a previously
published list of so-called "assault weapons" as well as many of
the rifles typically used to hunt deer and other game in the state.

Issuance of CPD Notice 02-18 comes in the midst of a stepped-up
effort by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to impose his personal gun
control plan on a statewide basis. Earlier this year, Daley
blasted the Illinois General Assembly for twice rejecting his
extremist gun control package - pledging to sidestep the
legislature by using his local political muscle to institute the
package in one village at a time. Daley's first attempt at doing
so failed miserably on April 15th when the Des Plaines (IL) City
Council rejected a gun control ordinance introduced by Daley ally
Alderman Don Smith by a 7-1 margin.

The approaching May 1 gun disposal deadline is especially
ominous in light of questionable tactics being employed by the CAGE
unit. The unit was formed specifically to support Mayor Daley's
efforts to run suburban gun shops out of business and to create an
illegal registration database of law-abiding Illinois gun owners.

After several months of keeping tabs on the CAGE unit, the ISRA
has come into information on tactics that should send a shiver down
the spine of any freedom-loving American. Among such tactics are
attempts to entrap gun shop clerks into making illegal gun sales;
inspecting and copying gun shop sales records for households where
more than one person holds an Illinois FOID card and; visiting the
homes of law-abiding gun owners and demanding to inventory their
firearm collections without benefit of a court order.

In light of the disposal order, Chicago police officers should
be especially concerned about the CAGE unit's tactics. The ISRA is
aware of the case of a Cook County Sheriff's officer who was
questioned by the CAGE unit about a used gun he legally transferred
to a gun shop more than ten years ago. Although the officer made
every attempt to comply with the CAGE unit's inquiry, the
investigations team threatened the officer with the loss of his job
and pension. Despite having complied fully with the CAGE team, he
found himself on suspension.

The ISRA suspects strongly that the CAGE unit has been gathering
information on the gun buying habits of fellow CPD officers and
that, after May 1, officers who may have owned any of the firearms
on the disposal list should expect to undergo questioning by the
CAGE unit.

"My advice to any CPD officer who has ever owned a gun on the
disposal list is to get a lawyer - a good one," commented ISRA
president Richard Pearson. "You may show up for roll call later
this week just to find yourself on indefinite suspension. Or, you
may get a frantic phone call from your wife or kids telling you
that there are a half dozen big burly guys wanting to come in and
look at your gun collection. In any case, Mayor Daley plans to
make you pay for not sharing his views on gun control. I wish you
luck, you're going to need it."

------

The ISRA is the state's leading advocate of safe, lawful and
responsible firearms ownership. For nearly a century, the ISRA has
represented the interests of over 1.5 million law-abiding Illinois
gun owners.

http://www.usnewswire.com