Our Quad Cities reports that Illinois Democrats are set to ban AR-15 marketing that “appeals to children” or which they believe could entice others to use the firearms illegally.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) has already pledged to sign the marketing ban when it reaches his desk.
Illinois Democrat Attorney General Kwame Raoul made clear he is going after the firearm industry in the same manner that others went after the tobacco industry during the Clinton Administration: “We’ve gone after the marketing that has historically driven up the consumption by minors for those products that are harmful to them. The firearms industry shouldn’t be immune to the standards that we put on other industries.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) sees two infringements in Illinois’ action, one against the Second Amendment and another against the First.
NSSF’s Mark Oliver said, “They’re infringing on your Second Amendment rights by taking away your First Amendment rights.”
Illinois recently enacted an “assault weapons” ban, which includes a ban on “high capacity” magazines. The state also has a 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases, a red flag law, and a licensing requirement for legal gun ownership. Cook County, where Chicago is located, has its own “assault weapons” ban, as does Naperville. Yet Breitbart News points out that Chicago saw at least 25 shooting victims Friday through Sunday afternoon alone.
Six of those shooting victims succumbed to their wounds.
California has all the same gun controls Illinois has, including the ban on firearm advertising allegedly aimed at children. And California has even more gun controls on top of that, yet they were the number one state for “active shooter incidents” in 2021.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
