Concealed carry fires blanks in the Illinois Valley

[DonP]

5. Blanks? Latest numbers from the Illinois State Police

As of last Friday October 16th, there are now 134,061 active CCL's.

(FWIW, LaSalle, Bureau and Putnam are rural farm counties with relatively small populations to begin with.)

As of the end of September 2015, there are 1,918,937 active FOID's, up over 200,000 from a little over 1.7 million same time last year.

But 200,000 new FOID cards in a year means 200,000 new first time gun owners? You don't go through the time, background check, pictures and expense hoops to get an FOID, unless you're serious about getting a gun

We have been assured, repeatedly and desperately by the "world's foremost authority on obscure and pointless surveys", that there are fewer gun owners everywhere. There HAVE to be fewer ... or the whole "guns are fading away" premise is full of shit.

Well, maybe Illinois, a deep blue state, is just an anomaly, right?

We may have almost a quarter million of new first time gun owners in a year, but all the other 49 states are going in the other direction. Yeah, that must be it.