Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
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 Hey Governor Blago: It's hard to run for office when you're in the slammer Tom Shafer, speaking at the
4/7/08 SCRA Meeting.
Tom spoke both here and at the CCRA meeting the next night. The rest of his comments, which he delivered to both meetings are below. May 2008 GunNews I think that clearly Blagojevich is leaving a bitter taste in everyone's mouth from Chicago all the way to Shawnee National Forest. The media despises him, the feds are on his trail, and the Rezko trial is ongoing and is dropping some big names in some big scandals. The corruption exists throughout Illinois government including the Teachers Retirement System which is a forty billion dollar fund for our retired teachers and the Health Facilities Planning Board where you have to get the state's permission from this Board to build your hospital or your outpatient clinic. You have to get permission from this Board which was corrupted. They weren't honest, they weren't fair and that made you wait for medical care because they said no you can't build this outpatient clinic, this cat scan, or this emergency room addition to your hospital because Rezco, Levine and their phony baloney buddies on the Health Facilities Planning Board demanded a kickback, number one and, use their construction company, number two which was giving them kickbacks. So the whole thing stinks to high heaven and that's going to leave Blagojevich out in the cold because his name has come up many times and it was his appointments that you're seeing. Just like our County Chairman's appointments to the Sanitary Board blew up in his face, the governor's appointments to all these boards of tremendously corrupt individuals who are going to be incarcerated in federal prison, has blown up in Blagojevich's face. Now you're going to see Democrats and Republicans come in to fill that void because there is a very distinct possibility that Blagojevich will be not only indicted but convicted and incarcerated. When that happens it's hard to run for office when you're in the slammer. It's tough. It hurts your vote tally tremendously, it hurts your fund raising and everybody kind of flees from you and they don't send you cards. I'm one of the few guys that sends them cards in prison because they get so few. I do know one thing, when you're doing eighty-seven months in federal prison, you read your mail, it means a lot to you. You've got plenty of time! So that was just a tangent that Blagojevich has left a space now that Brady and several other people are going to come forward. One of the gentlemen at the Hilton came forward and pretty much said he's exploring the possibility to running and he said, "I need you gun owners to get on board my campaign early." And it wasn't just hitting us up for money. He realized that a group that could assemble that multitude at IDOLD from throughout the state on a work day, on a school day, definitely that's a political force to be reckoned with! And to get the legislature to adjourn, rather than deal with us, I'm flattered that they did that. It's tremendously a part of our success. My wife's FOID card was late so I called. The guy was courteous, he said it's being processed and that it would be in the mail in a week. He said, "Did you realize Mr. Shafer that the ten year FOID card starts in June?" I said, "Oh, if she had applied a month later she would have gotten a ten year card. No I did not know that." So I said, "While I've got you on the phone here, a lifetime FOID card would be nice. Can you put in for that?" I said, "Yes, its ridiculous when you have 1.2 million law abiding people that have FOID cards to have to re-up them every five years. What a nightmare for the state. No wonder they're behind on their 30-day promise on for your FOID card." They've agreed immediately to the 10-year FOID card to try and stop this backlog where they have to re-up 1.2 million every five years.
Tom Shafer speaking at the SCRA Meeting, 4/7/088 and the GunsSaveLife.com meeting on 4/8/08. I'll start off with IGOLD. Kennedy said victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. Obviously the IGOLD rally was a victory and everybody should be proud of it. Some people spent hours and hours on a bus to get there. It was a successful rally and I don't believe it could have gone better. A Stranger Saves the Day When we left the Hilton Ballroom where we had all assembled I said, "If you don't feel like walking from here to the Capitol we have a bus for anyone who choses not to walk or has a disability." A spectacularly brand new looking motor coach was sitting right outside the Hilton and I said, "Is that our bus?" Three or four people answered yes. So I put forty or fifty disabled people on the bus. Then the bus driver came by and said, "Who are you?" "Who is IGOLD and what are all these people doing on my bus?" We had thousands of people standing in front of the Hilton waiting to get out on the street and start the parade along with the police escort and I just saw the whole thing going right into the tank and my heart just fell right to my feet. But that's part of being practiced up and glib. I just said, "Mam, before you leave will you drop these people off at the Lincoln statue?" She said, "Yes son, I will." The cop standing right next to me, his mouth literally fell open. Not only that I asked but also that she said yes. If I would have had a hundred dollar bill I would have given it to her and a big kiss too because she certainly saved the rally. Most delightful. People are nice even people from Chicago which I'm not going to speak very well of later on in my speech. The real people of Chicago are just like us, they have the same difficulties, the same frailties, the same braveries, the same courage and the same helping out their fellow human beings. We going to do the IGOLD again the same way next year. This is the second year and we've had two spectacular years in a row. This year we added sound and we added the parade. The City of Springfield required a million dollar liability insurance rider to march 5,000 people down the middle of the street, blocking off streets right past the main bus transfer station at 4th and Capitol and all the stuff that's required to give you a police escort. But you saw when the weather cooperated, that march to the Lincoln statue was a really moving deal. It was just delightful. When we reached the 3rd street viaduct I had everybody slow up for a photography opportunity. I looked back because there's a slight rise in the ground and they were turning from 7th Street onto Capitol. You could not see one end of the parade from the other, it was so massive. All those people took a day off in the middle of the week on a school day, on a work day, just dropped everything and paraded for their gun rights. It was a very moving deal. I've been involved in the pro-gun struggle for a very long time, I can work the politics, I can work the lobbying and I can work the cable tv show. It's kind of a one-man band. But I cannot draw 5,000 people to the state to make their point without a word being said.  The Legislature Flees When they saw us coming down the street with all the flags and all the numbers, the state legislature of the State of Illinois immediately adjourned. They all fled, including the Chicago contingent. They all of a sudden found someplace else to be because they knew what was going to happen: all of these people from every county in the state were going to go to their lawmaker and they were going to be assailed with the pro-gun message the entire afternoon. And the anti-gunners in the Illinois legislature said, "I'm not sitting through that, I'm leaving." So they all bailed on us which was just delightful. We filled the gallery with people in IGOLD t-shirts. There were some wonderful speeches not only at the Hilton but at the Lincoln statue which was an outdoor rally. Several pro-gun lawmakers showed up and gave speeches. You always win with raw numbers. Approximately 500 people had to stand outside the Hilton Grand Ballroom because it was filled. The first year was tremendously successful with no planning or organization just because of mass numbers. The second year, a very minimal core group of people that did all the planning and logistics, all the hard work getting things ready and that layed the groundwork for a tremendous second year. We continue to smoochie up to the politicians repugnant as it might be with some of them. If you go into the rotunda with a mass group of people and scream real loud, they can't do their business. They have hard feelings against you because it is successful and it is a wonderful forum for media but it alienates the lawmakers when you do that. I've seen the welfare women come down and beg for money. I've seen the social services people come down from Chicago and beg for money. They fill the rotunda with bullhorns, they chant, scream and holler, they throw bottles and it does not work. We don't beg for money - we just ask for freedom We're one of the few groups, if you want to think about it from this term, that doesn't come down there and beg for money. We didn't ask for a nickel of the state's money, just our rights, just our freedom that doesn't cost the state any money whatsoever. Passing concealed carry could even be a revenue stream for the state. It could make the state money while giving us our freedom, our self defense and our liberty. It's ridiculous that they deny us when it works so well in so many other states. Florida is just tickled to death to send their concealed carry applications all over the country and get people from all over the country to send their money to Florida. They just love it! Florida's concealed carry license which they will mail to your home is a non-resident and works in about thirty states which recognize Florida's license. It's like that funny joke where they say, "If only we could tax all foreigners living abroad." That would be nice if you could just get everybody else in the world to just send your state money. Daley Decides to Stick Close to Home They just had a big anti-gun rally in Chicago. Daley has kind of given up coming down to Springfield at the start of every session because he's been so unsuccessful. All of his laws and his proposed legislation fails miserably in committee. He doesn't even come down anymore. He stays and does it on Daley Plaza in Chicago where he can get some kind of friendly Chicago media. That is a huge victory for us even though the media will never claim it. The Chicago media is still whipping this dead horse of gun control. They actually believed that this stuff would pass many years ago, that was it just like they called it, common sense. We've just absolutely whipped them down into a turn. They just despised us first, name called us second, grudgingly respect third, and now they're almost declaring defeat. That's number four. They haven't gotten there yet. The guys like Steinberg at the Sun Times and a couple of other guys at the Trib are still holding out, but they're not even close. When I look back on it they weren't really even that worthy of an opponent. Some name calling and stuff like that, getting ugly a few times, that doesn't really scare guys like me or guys like Butler. Actually it was just a laugh at how inept they were. Some of their guys that I recall as their anti-gun lobbyists have all moved on. They've all moved far away from the anti-gun issue because they were so much of a failure, so ridiculed, so lacking in success. That's again another big victory. 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