12/27/2023

With only days left before Illinois and their registration time period ends for PICA, we take a look at the compliance data to see where we stand with just a few days left. Is it still mass noncompliance or have people begun to register?


Hey everybody, how's it going? Welcome back to Copper Jacket TV. So, it's time to check back in on Illinois. We're just days away now from the close of the registration period for the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act. Up until this point, it has been mass non-compliant. The number of people who have actually registered and the number of things registered versus the numbers that we think are actually in the state have been absolutely minuscule. It's been really incredible to watch. So, we're going to check back in today, see what the numbers look like again just days away from registration closing. So, let's get to it.

I want to start off today's video by just saying thank you all so much for 10 and a half years of support. We just hit 500,000 subscribers, which is an incredible milestone. Obviously, couldn't have done any of it without you guys supporting 2A news and reviews for this long length of time. It's been an incredible roller coaster, and I love having you guys with me. I do not take this for granted. So again, I just wanted to say thank you all very much for the support.

Okay, so let's go and talk about what's going on here. We'll take a look at the data in just a second, but I have been making videos about this now for the past six or seven weeks, and it has been really impressive to see how many people have just decided to say, "Look, I'm not going to comply. I am not going to follow unconstitutional laws," and have chosen not to register. Now, under the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act, there are several different things that the state of Illinois is requiring people to register before December 31st of 2023—those items include certain firearms, ammunition, accessories, and so forth.

Now, there are over 2.4 million FOID card holders in the state of Illinois (that's your Firearm Owner Identification Card). Given the fact that it's a very broad bill, it's very wide-ranging, and the number of things that need to be registered is so huge, you would expect that a majority of those FOID card holders would have something that would need to be registered. So, the number of people that should have registered by now should at least be in the hundreds of thousands, if not 1 million plus. I mean, if you just consider that only half of the FOID card holders have at least one of these items, you'd be looking at 1.2 million people registering, right?

Well, when I made my first video about this nearly seven weeks ago, I think it was only like 6,000 people. So, what do the numbers look like now today, again just days before the close of registration? Well, just take a look at the data directly from the Illinois state government. So, we could see the numbers right here. It says the "Protect Illinois's Communities Act Statistics Number of individuals completing a disclosure," and that's up until today, December 27th. We have a total of 15,164. Now, that's quite a few people, but in the grand scheme of things, that is virtually nothing. Total disclosures now, like I said before, there are certain things that need to be registered or that the state is requiring people to register. It's not just one thing, so somebody could have multiples, right? So, we have 15,164 people with a total disclosure number of 51,978.

Now, again, that does seem like a much bigger number, but it's still in the grand scheme of things extremely small. So, it breaks it down for us here. We have firearms disclosures at 3,365, accessory disclosures at 18,632, and ammunition disclosures at 281. Okay, so let's just break that down into percentages. Okay, so we have 15,164 people that have gone through the registration process or have completed the process up until this point. Now, if we just say that all 2.4 million FOID card holders have something that needs to be registered, then you're looking at less than 1% of the people who need to register something have actually done it. It's actually 6/10 of 1%, so 0.6% have actually registered.

Now, obviously, that doesn't seem like a very realistic number. So, let's cut that in half. Let's say 1.2 million, right? You're only looking at 1.2% total compliance if we cut that FOID card number completely in half. So again, 1.2 million, 15,164, that is 1.2% compliance, just over 1% compliance, which is incredible to me. Now, let's just cut it down even more. Let's just say for argument's sake that we cut that down another 50% and say that out of the 2.4 million FOID card holders in the state, only 600,000 of those actually have something that needs to be registered. Well, if we cut it down that far, we're still barely over 2%, under 2 and a half%. It comes out to 2.4%. If the number is only 600,000 out of that 2.4 million, so even as we break down the statistics to try and make it work better for them, right, for the state, for the governor, for everybody who wanted this to work, even if we break it down all that far, and we can keep going by 50% and cut it down even further, but just looking at a statistical anomaly of 600,000, which I think the number would actually be higher than that, but if we took a look at 600,000, and we're still only at 2%, which means that mass non-compliance is still happening in the state of Illinois. And again, that's with the clock ticking down. I mean, we are just about at midnight here with just a couple more full days to go.

Now, just based on the text of the Second Amendment alone, without even needing to go into any historical analogues or traditions, we can see that this is unconstitutional. But we haven't gotten any help from the courts. We haven't gotten any help with the district court level, no help at the appellate court level. We didn't get any help at the Supreme Court. I mean, there has been no help for the people of Illinois. So, this law, this PLaw, is set to take effect, and it's going to be in full effect, and registration is going to be closed in just a matter of days. So again, without any help from the court system, I'm not really sure where to go from here, other than a full petition to the entire Supreme Court to try and get this thing overturned. It's going to take full effect. It's the registration is going to be closed. We already know that that's going to happen because the Seventh Circuit basically said that these things are not protected by the Second Amendment. It allowed the state to continue pushing these unconstitutional laws. The only way to override that is going to be the Supreme Court or some type of decision in California or New York or Washington or any of these other states that have lawsuits moving forward as well to combat what is happening in their state that's very similar to what's going on in Illinois.

Now, one thing I could tell you from experience, if you live in Illinois, these 2A rights groups don't just give up because they didn't get a preliminary injunction. They didn't get their injunction. They don't just simply roll over, and that's the end of that. They will take this all the way to the Supreme Court. They will take it to the highest court in the land. We've seen where the court stands on this issue, whether or not they want to take this issue up. That's probably going to be our biggest challenge, especially with multiple lawsuits across the country. There could be one that they prefer over another. But the thing is, this is not over. Okay, so even though it seems all doom and gloom, and it's going to take effect, and there's going to be all these restrictions, constitutional restrictions on your rights, it's not the end. And you have to try and keep your chin up and keep up the fight.

So, I just wanted to give you guys that data, those stats. They kind of make me feel good that people still believe in the rule of law and people are still willing to fight back against unconstitutional tyranny, which is exactly what it is. And people of Illinois are doing that right now. And in my opinion, again, I think that's phenomenal. So anyway, I want to thank you all very much for watching. I really do appreciate it. Please like, subscribe, and you guys have a great day.