Gun grabbers from across the nation have taken up residence in the Illinois General Assembly. Tuesday proved a bad day for gun owners in Illinois. In short, we got played and more is coming. First, I'll give you Todd Vandermyde's take, then my remarks.
Todd Vandermyde's take:
So people want to know what happened yesterday.
3 bills moved out of the Senate sub-committee on firearms. The military application bill, states attorneys' carry and dealer licensing.
States Attorney carry is strictly to allow them to carry from their car to the courthouse. That's it.
The two carry bills were called and passed unanimously out of the full committee. Sen. Harmon failed to check his roll call before hand and only in the middle of committee figured out that he didn't have the votes to pass the bill out of committee even with a substitution.
Todd's referring to substituting an anti-gun senator for a pro-gun senator on the committee.
On dealer licensing, we expect them to wait and extend the deadline and substitute one of the pro-gun votes out to get it to the floor or move it to another committee. We will see it again and we will see a floor fight.
But what should be taken note of, was after the full committee voted on the two carry bills, Senator Raoul made an announcement that the full committee had just unanimously passed two concealed carry bills.
I'll add that Senator Kwame Raoul had a big, big grin on his face while he said that. Now, in fairness, Kwame is a genuinely funny guy. He cracks jokes regularly that are laugh out loud humorous. Unfortunately, I can't help but think his laugh at this point was at our expense. Read on…
Stop and think about that. Even Don Harmon voted for a couple of carry bills. Now before you go patting yourself on the back thinking we have won some great feat and persuasion, let me interject a little bit of reality.
They didn't do this out of the kindness of their hearts or because they have seen the light. They did this to give them selves cover. They took the two most innocuous "pro-gun" bills and passed them out so we could no longer say they have been holding everything of ours up and moving on anti-gun bills.
They did it to give some of their vulnerable democrats cover so they can vote for some "carry" bill and then vote for gun control and have it both ways.
They choose two bills that affect the fewest amount of people in this state.
The States Attorney bill wasn't ours. And since Illinois Carry made the military bill a priority, the Senate Dems latched on to that.
The fact is we have been played. And we will hear about these two great pro-gun bills advancing and how even handed the senate is for the rest of session. While at the same time they work to move two major anti-gun bills, dealer licensing and Lethal violence orders to the floor for votes. Their two signature issues in Illinois and one of their new national moves.
Some how I don't see parity in the quality, equality nor significance of the bills being advanced so each side "gets" something.
In the mean time, we'll be playing defense.
We have just learned that Senator Harmon is going to make a move on SB1985 the lead ban bill.
He is pulling rank on the chairman to get it called, gonna be a close vote in committee.
File your witness slips in opposition to Harmon's lead ban bill here.
My take from spending all day Tuesday on the front line in Springfield: It's decidedly unfriendly in Springfield now.
We had the narrowest of margins in the Illinois House and given the current state of affairs, I am not confident we still have a majority of votes. That is, not without gun owners making a serious and concerted effort to pound the phone lines of House Democrats in the Chicagoland area.
Right now, the squishies are getting hammered by the antis. Those jelly-spined legislators are leaning antigun at the moment. Frankly, these national groups are pouring a LOT of resources and energy into Illinois. They are using social media and other tactics we've used over the years to "out lobby" us. It's taking a half-dozen state and national groups to overtake gun owners in Illinois. We're that good here. At the same time, a loss is still a loss for us.
In the Illinois Senate, we had a comfortable two to three vote edge. One of our guys has cancer and he's got it bad. He's been getting treatments and looks a little rough around the edges. I wish him the best and pray for a good outcome, but my prayers for Ruth Bader Ginsberg have been as-yet unanswered as well.
Another, Senator Scott Bennett (Democrat – Champaign/Urbana & Danville) has flipped from an NRA A-rated Democrat to just another anti-gun Democrat vote. Add in a couple of other squishy Democrats from the suburbs getting pounded by the Moms and assorted other gun grabber groups, and we're probably a couple of votes shy there too. Again, this is unless gun owners make a serious and concerted effort to pound the phone lines of Senate Democrats, including Scott Bennett. I don't mean a few dozen calls. I mean shut their offices phone lines down.
Todd alludes to the "grand bargain" of sorts.
Senate Democrat leadership chose these two bills to advance out of Cullerton's Judiciary Committee on voice votes. Why? Because they allow Democrats to tell constituents that they didn't blockade all the "pro-gun" bills. These two bills that impact a thousand people or so at most, instead of passing something more meaningful like allowing carry on public transportation. Removing the prohibition on carrying CCW on public transportation could help as a hundred thousand Illinois residents on a nearly daily basis. …Compared to a few hundred non-resident military members serving temporarily in Illinois getting their CCW.
In a perfect world, having both is a no-brainer. This isn't a perfect world. This is Illinois.
Downstate Democrat senators have felt the heat Guns Save Life has mounted publicly for weeks now. In all fairness, others have mounted the same pressure privately. Specifically, that John "Stonewall" Cullerton is blocking all pro-gun bills from getting to the Senate floor for a free and fair vote.
Again, from Todd:
The fact is we have been played. And we will hear about these two great pro-gun bills advancing and how even handed the senate is for the rest of session. While at the same time they work to move two major anti-gun bills, dealer licensing and Lethal violence orders to the floor for votes. Their two signature issues in Illinois and one of their new national moves.
Some how I don't see parity in the quality, equality nor significance of the bills being advanced so each side "gets" something.
This session lasts through January 2019.
So, they "give" us two bills to get onto the floor. One was a bill to allow States' Attorneys to carry from their car to their courthouse. Guns Save Life is neutral at best to this bill as we don't think Illinois needs another "privileged" class. As much as we support law enforcement and prosecutors, we don't believe their lives any more sacred than those of our loved ones to put it kindly.
If it's good enough for SAs, then it's good enough for anyone else with a CCW. Install weapons lockers or other provisions that any CCW can use, including attorneys, states attorneys, judges and CCW license holders can use. We could support that all day long.
Another bill that GSL does support would allow non-resident military members to apply for and to receive an Illinois CCW license. Mike and Valinda Rowe of Illinois Carry are whipping (promoting) this bill in an effort to get it passed. Kudos to them for their success, but it comes at a high price. Specifically, giving Democrats an out in the 2018 election season. Senate leadership will claim how fair and magnanimous they were with these two bills, while cramming all manner of gun control down our throats.
One thing Illinois Carry does well is track legislation and organize their members and others to file witness slips on legislation. They are relentless in pursuing even the bills that are merely "red meat" bills that will go nowhere, but sound good to constituents.
Personally, I found it curious that the Rowes did not file witness slips against the gun dealer licensing bill, or the lethal violence order of protection bill. (Update: The ILGA website now shows that they did file slips in opposition to all three bills.) But they did submit slips (and Valinda offered testimony) on the military carry bill.
What's more, while the NRA-ILA, Guns Save Life, ISRA, and others were all standing shoulder-to-shoulder providing a united front in opposition at the Lethal Violence Order of Protection bill hearing, Illinois Carry was conspicuously absent at this critical committee meeting. Even ISRA's Richard Pearson was there in person, fresh from spending hours at the emergency room the night before and still in exquisite pain, stuck it out for a long day. Illinois Carry's registered lobbyists Mike and Valinda Rowe? They were nowhere to be found.
Todd is right. We have been played. Democrats are laughing.
Now we have to pick up the pieces and keep fighting.
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