Considering that state Rep. TIM BUTLER, R-Springfield, is unopposed for re-election in the 87th House District, the fact that he’s hosting a $1,000-per-person golf outing at Illini Country Club is at least interesting.

Butler has a quick explanation — for more than a year, he’s been chairman of the House Republican Organization, which helps elects Republicans to the chamber from across the state.

…

And let the "guilt by association" to Guns Save Life commence!

Meanwhile, Butler was featured in the May edition of GunNews, a free newspaper put out by Guns Save Life (GSL). That organization is the one that, in addition to advocating for Second Amendment Rights, has had sequential signs (a la Burma Shave) advocating gun rights along Illinois interstates for years.

Butler attended a monthly meeting of the organization at Scheels in Springfield.

“He noted how contacts were running about 25 to 1 in support of the Second Amendment on all the gun bills currently under consideration,” GunNews reported of Butler’s visit. Butler also told the group that the House would “serve as the firewall” to stop the “Democrat-led campaign” to override Gov. BRUCE RAUNER’s veto of a gun retailer licensing bill, the paper reported.

The Senate sponsor of that bill didn’t even try for an override because the House votes weren’t there.

All of this were true.  Yeah, the House votes weren't there.  In fact, with 2,000 plus gun owners in the Capitol complex on the last day to over-ride, the votes weren't there in the Senate either.  Squishy works both ways, after all.

“Butler also noted that he joined GSL tonight, to great applause from the audience,” the article said.

Butler told me later that GSL is the ISRA — Illinois State Rifle Association. When I said I thought they were separate entities, he said he was “pretty sure” they were the same.

Either way, he said, “the Second Amendment’s a big issue for my folks.”

And Rep. Butler isn't just giving lip service to protecting our right to self-defense.  Unlike some, like Senator Chris Nybo who gets all bent out of shape when some gun rights folks hold him to account for his signing on as a "Chief Co-Sponsor" of a bill to allow municipalities to regulate (that's "ban" in plain English) long guns they don't like the looks of.

JOHN BOCH of Bloomington is executive director of GSL, which he said is separate from the ISRA and spun off from that group 20 or 25 years ago as “we didn’t like some of the things the ISRA was doing.”

He did say the ISRA is the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association, and the GSL is also affiliated with the NRA in “the loosest of manners.” He said that affiliation is like when “you buy a magazine.”

“We’re not quite as big as the ISRA, but … we’re a little more aggressive and in-your-face about Second Amendment advocacy,” Boch said.

Boch said he was at the April meeting where Butler spoke, and Butler paid $30 to join.

GunNews does list, on its front page, affiliations with the NRA and ISRA, among others. The publication also sets a strong tone. The page 1 headline in the May edition is “They Want Our Guns!” And a story inside expresses the group’s pleasure at the defeat in the March primary of state Sen. IRA SILVERSTEIN, D-Chicago, after the legislative inspector general found his actions were “unbecoming of a legislator” in sending hundreds of Facebook messages — some suggestive — to a victims’ rights advocate who claimed she was harassed. The inspector general found the back-and-forth messages didn’t amount to sexual harassment on the part of Silverstein.

“GSL-hater Ira Silverstein loses primary,” says the headline, with a subhead adding: “Constituents decide ‘sleazeball’ not a resume enhancement.”

If we follow the #METOO rules, shouldn't Silverstein should have resigned right away?  Do we really need a picture of him doing this before ol' Ira does the right thing and simply quits? 

Or is there a different standard when it's liberals who abuse women?  Talk about the war on women!

The article recalled that in 2011, Silverstein appeared in a Chicago Sun-Times article, objecting that GunNews had used a yellow Jewish star — like the kind Nazis made Jews wear in Europe — to illustrate GSL’s objection to a proposal to make public data about holders of Firearm Owners ID Cards.

“When we replied ‘hell no!’ to his demand for an apology, he carved out a special place in his miserable heart for us,” the recent GunNews article stated.

Separate from the Sun-Times, I also wrote about the use of the star on the GunNews, saying gun issues are emotional, but “mixing in religion and genocide might be adding unnecessary fuel to the fire.”

Asked about the tone of GSL’s GunNews, Butler — who has two shotguns and has been a hunter — noted that groups “on both sides” sometimes have issues with tone. “But I was happy to go speak to the group.”