When you leave the house, the brisk morning air tantalizes your face.  There is little question that Fall is upon us.  If winter continues to be as wet as the Fall weather has been, it may be time to tune up the snow blower.  Seriously, it is time to winterize your car, SUV or whatever you drive as well as put emergency gear in your vehicle just in case something goes wrong.  Flashlights with new batteries, extra warm clothes, a blanket or two and ice scrapers are a start.  A few years ago, I picked up four college students off I-55 on a cold subzero night.  They only had light jackets on because they thought their car would be warm.  The car is warm until it isn’t.  Another tip is never let your gas tank get below half full.

Henry Repeating Arms is one of my favorite companies.  One of the reasons is the work they do helping out less fortunate citizens.  In Maryland, there is a young lady, Sami Bernadzikowski, age 11, who suffers from a terrible congenital defect known as heterotaxy syndrome.  The short explanation of the condition is that her internal organs are both malformed and not completely formed.  Sometimes they are even in the wrong place.  Henry Repeating Arms and Baron Engraving have donated 65 custom rifles which will be sold or auctioned off to help this little lady.  This is part of Henry’s Funds for Great Causes campaign.  These rifles are the “Support 4 Sami” editions.  Visit henryusa.com/support4sami/.  The offer ends November 4.

The Cook County Ammunition Tax has been struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court in a 6-0 decision.  Guns Save Life sued Cook County and won.  Good job.  It is possible that the tax could come back if the law is written differently. 

As for the ammo tax, I do not see why law-abiding gun owners have to pay for the crimes that street gangs and Chicago drug lords commit.  If the county wants to tax someone, tax them; they have all the money.  Law-abiding gun owners should not have to pay for the absolute lack of enforcement, lack of sentencing and lack of punishing those responsible.  What we have is institutionalized incompetence and corruption in Cook County and Chicago.

The November 2022 elections will be a little more than a year away.  The National elections will put every Congressional seat on the ballot and about one third of the Senate seats.  Adding to the dynamics of this election is the reapportionment and new maps in states like Illinois.  Illinois will lose one Congressional seat, Texas will add two, and several other states in the southern part of the country will add one more congressional seat.  This is due to the exodus of people from high tax and liberal states
to more conservative states.  This could bode well for the Second Amendment supporters in Congress.  It is possible that Nancy Pelosi could lose the Speakership in the House of Representatives.

In the U.S. Senate, the majority of the seats that are on the block belong to Republicans Senators.  Those races are a little bit trickier.  The biggest danger there is that if Chuck Schumer and liberal Democrats gain the majority, there is a chance the Supreme Court of the United States would be in danger of being “packed”.  Right now, the Supreme Court is not a political body which gives that body credibility, not that there isn’t some politics in everything in Washington D.C.  If it should ever be packed, it would just be a rubber stamp for Congress, an extraordinarily bad idea.

On the state level, the new maps that reapportionment has caused will be looming large in Illinois elections particularly in the Illinois House of Representatives.  No one that I know has seen the new map yet but trust me someone has seen it.  I believe Republicans will lose about seven seats in the House. The Illinois House is already rough for gun owners but it could get tougher.  We will just have to wait and see.

Second Veto Session is just ending.  Normally we would get a look at the Spring 2022 Legislative Calendar after the end of veto session and should know more when we look at the calendar.

Reminder: October 30 & 31, 2021, Defensive Training International (DTI) Defensive Handgun Course - John Farnam, Instructor, will be at our Range.  To register for this 2-day course, please use this link to register.

Tidbits:
October 28, 1858 - The first store opens in Colorado Territory, established to serve local miners.  A promoter by the name of William Larimar from Kansas decided to establish a town which he called Denver.  The Territorial Governor was James W. Denver so Larimar named the town after him to curry favor.  When the Transcontinental Railroad came through, it bypassed Denver.  Denver was barely hanging on for a while.  Mining could not sustain the town but ranching and farming quickly developed broad in the economic base.  In 1870, the railroad come through and Denver became an economic and cultural center in the West.

October 31, 1517 - Martin Luther, a Catholic Priest, nails 95 theses to the door of the Castle Catholic Church door at Whittenburg, Germany.  The Catholic Church was raising money to renovate St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  One of the ways they raised money was to sell “indulgences” to wealthy people.  This was essentially a pardon for all their sins.  Martin Luther was to have none of it.  He was tired of the corruption and bribery in the Catholic Church.  The 95 theses exposed the corruption.  Martin Luther refused to recant his writings and Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.  In 1521, Emperor Charles V Issued the Edict of Worms, giving permission to any anyone to kill Martin Luther (Worms is a city in Germany; the term “worms” means a watery area).  Martin Luther fell under the protection of Prince Fredrick III, also known as Fredrick the Wise.  Martin Luther began to translate the Bible from Latin to German.  That project took him 10 years.  A number of small German states supported Martin Luther and broke away from the Roman Catholic Church because they felt the Catholic Church could not be reformed.  Modern day Germany was originally made up of 258 feudal states.  There were princes, princesses, barons, baronesses, dukes, and kings littering the countryside.  This moment became known as the Protestant Reformation.  The word Protestant was used as a general term for those protesting the Roman Catholic Orthodoxy.  Protesting sects soon developed.  There was Lutheranism, Puritans, Huguenots, and the Presbyterians to name a few.  The Puritans, Huguenots and Presbyterians played prominent rolls in the settlements, beliefs, and values found in Colonial America and led to the founding of the United States of America.  They came to the new world seeking religious freedom.  Emperor Charles V did not get his way.  Martin Luther died of natural causes in 1546 at the age of 63.

November 1, 1800 - John Adams becomes the first President to occupy the White House.

November 2, 1777 - John Paul Jones sets sail on the U.S.S. Ranger for Brest, France.  There he resupplied and began raiding the coast of Great Britain much to King George and the Parliament’s chagrin. 

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Upcoming Events: ISRA Calendar
For more information, visit www.isra.org

Saturday, October 30, 2021
The Well Armed Woman
DTI Defensive Handgun Course

Sunday, October 31, 2021
DTI Defensive Handgun Course
Glock Fall League

Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Air Rifle Range Opens

Saturday, November 6, 2021
Range Work Day

Sunday, November 7, 2021
ISRA Combat Pistol/3 Gun League
ISRA Black Powder League (Bonfield Muzzle Loaders)

Gun & Trade Shows

Peoria Gun & Knife Show – Peoria, IL
Exposition Gardens
Dates: October 30 & 31, 2021
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
             Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: $6.00

Sauk Trail Gun Show – Princeton, IL
Bureau County Fairgrounds
Dates: October 30 & 31, 2021
Hours: Saturday: 8:00-4:00
             Sunday: 8:00-3:00
Admission: $2.00

Bloomington Gun & Knife Show – Bloomington, IL
Interstate Center
Dates: November 6 & 7, 2021
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
             Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: $6.00

Kankakee Gun & Sportsman’s Show – Kankakee, IL
Kankakee County Fairgrounds
Dates: November 6 & 7, 2021
Hours: Saturday: 8:00-3:00
             Sunday: 8:00-2:00
Admission: $6.00

Crown Point Gun Show – Crown Point, IN
Lake County Fairgrounds
Dates: November 13 & 14, 2021
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
             Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: $5.00

Kane County Sportsman’s Show – St Charles, IL
Kane County Fairgrounds
Date: November 14, 2021
Hours: Sunday: 7:30-1:30
Admission: $7.00

McHenry County Gun Show – Woodstock, IL
McHenry County Fairgrounds
Date: November 21, 2021
Hours: Sunday: 8:00-1:00
Admission: $5.00