According to the Illinois State Police, in 2002 there were approximately 1.2 million valid FOID cardholders in the State of Illinois, and approximately 210,000-220,000 applications are processed annually by the Firearms Services Bureau. That is quite a few FOID Card holders, but it only covers those who choose to get a FOID card, there are a lot of folks who do not renew their cards or do not apply at all, so how many Gun owners are there in Illinois?
But for the sake of this argument I will only include those ISP numbers, 1.2 million. If we use National averages, in theory, Illinois should have approx. 4.5 million firearms with a little over a 1/3 being Rifles. So lets say 1.8 million Rifles in the State of Illinois
That 1.2 million is about 10% of the States population, not great by any means, but again, we are just using ISP numbers.
How many Rifleman are there in the State of Illinois??? 15? Maybe 16?
How many of those 1.2 million FOID Card holders have attended an Appleseed?
Well that is hard to tell. We have had 193 shooters sign up for 5 shoots, add a couple of walk-ins, subtract a few out of state shooters, and repeats...... oh heck, I'll just stick with 192. That is only .016% of the 1.2 million FOID Card Holders!
Could you imagine 1%? 120,000 Attendees, and using our current attendee to Rifleman ratio, 10,000 Rifleman! Lil' Ritchie Daley would be covered head to toe in hives over that one!
You all have heard the sinking ship reference many times. You have also heard that wasting time naming the iceberg(s) that this Nation has hit is not the method to stop the sinking! We need to start bailing!
Now of course some parts of the ship need more bailing than the others. That's plain common sense. Take a look at Illinois' "gun rights" and Chicago's wonderful history of corruption, not to mention the amount of Illinois Governors who have actually been convicted or indicted! I'm sorry folk's, I don't need to name the iceberg I can see it through the hull!!!
You have heard the old saying of "Divide and Conquer" have you not? Well look at this Country! The left coast has water pouring in as does most of the East coast, then you have us, and to a lesser extent our neighbor Wisconsin, dead center of the Nation and taking water on fast!! Our fracture in the hull could be the most important of all to fix.
Because our States politics are actually a source for the water pouring in, we have to bail that much harder. If Illinois could gain ground against the corruption and the sheeple of Chicago, could you imagine the spirits uplifted? Could you imagine the boost that freedom and the Second Amendment would receive across the Nation!
We have 1.2 million buckets, yet only a handful of them are being used. It would be nice to be able to use every single one of them, but too many of those buckets are in disrepair, missing handles, full of holes, or hiding in fear like the vast majority of Illinois gun owners.
But you are here, and you are here for a reason, Appleseed! That means you probably already have a bucket or you're in the process of fixing up your old one to handle the task.
But you're in Illinois, and that single bucket is not enough, you need to get a second. Of course you may have never bailed a sinking ship out before, and those flabby couch potato arms of yours might not be able to handle bigger buckets. But that is OK for now, it is better that you start out with two small buckets and work your way up. That first bucket is you, on your path to Rifleman, and the second is you introducing new people to Appleseed. This isn't the 1970's and 80's when the only preaching a gun owner did was to the choir. This is 2008, and you need to talk it up with everyone you meet. Put those AS bumper stickers on your car, hand out flyers, and get the word out!
Heck after a while your muscles will wake up and you may even be able to handle one of The Guy's buckets, I doubt it, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!
P.S. You may be wondering how big Fred's buckets are. Fred hasn't been bailing with buckets for years; he prefers a blown and injected Hemi-powered bilge pump. If you have one of those in the corner, feel free to dust it off and fire it up!
Dan, What are the chances these statistics could be paired down and shared with the folks a the GS. Or, is the stark reality of these facts only shocking to someone who has been awakened? SD
Hi Sheepdog, thanks for the idea, I have trimmed it down a bit and added some contact info so that it can be printed as a hand out at Illinois Gunshows. I will modify it for Natuional use as well as soon as I get a chance.
Here is a pdf of the handout, let me know what you think.
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That looks good make that outstanding. I'll talk to soon I hope. Going to Evansville? I saw your name on the list, but not confirmed. CU
Mike
Garand69,
I am going to print that up and hand it out at our gun shows to the folks that make it over the border!
Why don't you make another version with your IL@applessedinfo.org e-mail and maybe a phone number on it for contact info?
Hawkhavn