Concealed carry (courtesy wsiu.org)

“The Illinois House tonight defeated a concealed weapons proposal favored by gun rights advocates [i.e. the NRA], a setback that could spur negotiations toward finding common ground with lawmakers who back gun control,” chicagotribune.com reports, oddly, with extreme bias. “Rep. Brandon Phelps, the legislature’s leading concealed carry advocate, challenged his colleagues to vote for what he viewed as reasonable parameters on where people could carry guns in public, who is allowed to carry, who decides whether a person is eligible and how much training should be required. ‘This could be our last chance,’ Phelps said, saying he had made changes to address numerous concerns of gun control  lawmakers. ‘We keep giving and we keep giving and we keep giving.'” Illinois HB 997 lost by seven votes. The June 9 court-mandated deadline for a CCW deal looms large.

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77 COMMENTS

  1. Right, we really believe that an Illinois Democrat is the leading proponent of allowing concealed carry…

    • Rep. Phelps the guy that introduced the bill has done so for the past several years. he is a down state Dem and solid second amendment guy. There are several Dems on our side. When the Democrats have a super majority in the House we have to have a bunch of Dems to get 64 votes.

      This in Illinois isnt a D vs R thing as it is a Chicago and near suburbs vs the rest of the state thing.

      • I am an Illinois Republican. Phelps is more dependable than most Republicans. It is a regional – not party – issue. Show some respect, people. It is not all party politics, although it may seem like it at a national level.

    • The IL Democrats from downstate IL are very much pro gun, believe or not, it’s the Chicago ones that are anti gun.

      • Phelps is my rep. (Never mind that his office is 40 miles away, while Rep. Bost (a republican) is in the next town over.) The only difference between a (rural) downstate (Downstate being anything south of I-80, and West of I-39) democrat and a Republican is that the Democrat will vote with Chicago on union issues, and should be considered more reliable on gun issues than a Chicago (or “collar” county) Republican

    • Right, we really believe that an Illinois Democrat is the leading proponent of allowing concealed carry…

      Believe it.

    • People are so biased on this site that they can not believe a dem or a liberal would support guns.

    • Unfortunately, the antis are prepared for that with a patchwork of local controls that’ll tie us up in knots. That’s the club the antis still have. The main thing is we’re trying to get statewide control over issue (ISP) to try to keep it from being another political favoritism tool like you see in NY and CA. Of course, the Chicago/Crook County pols, if they’re forced to have CCW, they want their piece of the pie. Nothin gets done in IL unless they get their piece of the pie. But it’s really for the kids!

  3. This version received a lot more votes than the New York style “may issue” version that was voted down yesterday. It may be best to let the clock run out here and let the chip fall where the may.

    Here’s a short interview with Todd V that was just posted at the SunTimes.

    Illustrating Chicago’s Murders, Homicides, Violence and Idiocy at heyjackass.com

  4. I’m not familiar with the specifics of the court deadline. What happens if there is no CCW deal by June 9th?

    • If no deal is reached, my understanding is that all laws prohibiting concealed carry in Illinois go out the window, leaving no restrictions at all. Not a bad deal if you ask me! I would prefer this to happen to all the restrictions that we in the bill they tried to pass today.

      • Only state laws not local laws. Its going to be a patchwork nightmare of towns all over the state where its illegal and punishable by up to 364 days in jail to carry a firearm.

    • Then there is no law on the book preventing it. So if you can own a gun you can Conceal Carry the gun. So unlike most of the times the anti just have to have enough votes to kill a bill in the case they have to have enough votes to pass the bill. Right now in IL that seems to be really hard to get anything passed dealing with guns. So a showdown is a coming.

      Thanks
      Robert

    • It sounds like state level prohibitions on ccw simply cease to be enforceable after June 9 if they don’t pass some “reasonable” method of approving permits before then? Don’t quote me though. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one on TV. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

  5. One day of OK Corral & they live in a free city. I hope my friends get the chance for freedom, Randy

  7. This is going to get interesting. I wonder how long they will have unregulated carry in IL before someone blinks and puts in place some kind of permit system.

    Thanks
    Robert

    • if the legislature runs the clock, IL will probably appeal to SCOTUS if only to gain time – rather than allowing unpermitted carry. I want to see what SCOTUS says on this so i hope they appeal.

      • They’ve only got a few days left to appeal. And SCOTUS will never grant cert. It is a narrow issue that would only apply in Illinois. The Supremes never grant cert in such cases. Plus, we won at the lower court, and the decision to appeal is not ours.

      • They have 30 days from the denial of the en banc appeal per federal appellate rules. I believe time is almost up. Plus, Lisa Madigan won’t do it. She wants to be governor and knows better.

        • I am not so sure that time is going to run out any time soon. The rules apply to final judgments, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is stayed until June. In my view, and there is disagreement on this, there will be no final judgment until the court issues an injunction, and only then will the time to seek cert start to run. An appeal is not from the court’s opinion, but from its ultimate ruling.

          Might the court grant cert? I think it might, because unlike Kachalsky, which raised an issue of the validity of a “may issue” law, twhere there is at least a possibility of carry outside the home, the Illinois law presents a very clear cut question as Illinois does not allow any sort of permit for carry outside the home for the purpose of self-defense.

          One last thought. An injunction by the Court of Appeals will merely bar the enforcement of the law banning carry–which results in “Constitutional carry” ONLY until such time as Illinois decides to finally pass a bill.

        • i am not sure why Madigan wont appeal it. There is nothing to lose. the worst outcome is that they strike the law down, which they already have.

    • It’s an “experiment”. If there’s success, it’ll be time to throw multiple monkey wrenches into the works. The very worst enemy we have is NOT the gun-banners themselves, but their skill in making us believe they’ve lost, and we’ve won.

  8. Very frustrating! A lot of chatter before the vote made it seem like this bill stood a good chance of passing. I was not surprised though, because it seemed too good to be true.

  9. I thought this was supposed to be resolved months ago or the state was going to be forced to adopt it?

  10. Ugh, the court did not mandate a ccw bill, they simply mandated some form of carry. The retarded NRA is the one pushing for concealed carry.

    • Matt,

      the “retarded” NRA as you say is pushing for a CCW bill because a straight open carry bill is not going to happen in Illinois. Are you from here, been involved in this process? Or just bashing the NRA with limited knowledge of the facts on the ground?

      • Not from IL thankfully, however I’ve taken the time to read the court decision as well as many other NRA backed measures here and in other states to know that they would rather have a society of concealed carriers and zero open carry, which is odd because if look at Heller, the court clearly stated that states could restrict concealed carry. So if IL ends up in a may issue situation, similar to NY, there is no legal recourse, as demonstrated by the SCOTUS decision not to hear the case out of New York earlier this week.

        • You have no clue. The 7th circuit barely upheld this decision on an en banc appeal. The NRA and Phelps is the only game in town. And the SCOUTUS decision to deny cert is not that meaningful. They were delaying a tough decision for institutional reasons.

  11. The thing here is they put out a big MAY ISSUE NYC style bill yesterday. they got 34 votes…

    Today’s Shall Issue bill got 64 votes… Typically you need 60 votes in the IL house to pass a bill, but since this is statewide preemption the rules state 3/5th or 71 votes.

    The sponsor bent over backwards the last couple of days. Raised the fee, added money for mental health system stuff, increased training times, increased the number of gun free zones, etc ,etc all to go from 67 votes (our last vote on a bill like this) to the next 4 votes to get 71… what happened? we lost 4 votes.

    The chicago folks are not negotiating in good faith. Time to stop negotiating.

    • Would making mass transit a “gun-free zone” be enough to get the needed votes? It would suck, but so might the alternatives.

      • Hard to tell. The folks on our side gave and gave it seems today with the latest amendment. But word was it would get us the handful of votes we needed.

        No one expected that those changes would result in FEWER votes than last time. Basically not negotiating in good faith.

        They want may issue or the ability for any town, county, etc to be able to create their own concealed carry laws. We might as well go to June 9th.

        You can only bend so much and each time they say “just do this for my vote” then they still dont vote Y. And instead say “now just do this”. Its time to stop and start taking things back, or on June 9 we’ll be open carrying and daring the states attorney to arrest us and risk a 1983.

        • “FEWER votes than last time”

          Oh, I missed that part. This does look like hardball, or changed circumstances and calculations. I wish you luck.

      • It would prevent most people who work in downtown Chicago from carrying. Public transit is a very big deal to Chicago professionals, unless you make enough to be able to pay $300+ per month for parking. And considering that almost all of the mob attacks in Chicago happen down town, it is simply a bad idea to ban it.

  12. If a “may issue” bill failed by a much, much bigger margin than a “shall issue” one, it looks like it’s a matter of letting the clock run and seeing who blinks first. One may still have to split the difference somehow in the end, but it should hopefully be closer to “shall issue” than “may issue” in the end. Or SCOTUS gets involved, which would be a big dive into the unknown.

  13. I was born just outside of Chicago 58 years ago, and have lived 1/2 of my life within 50 miles of that great city. Luckily I get to live in Texas now. It will be tough to get proper concealed carry passed because of the Chicago politicians and the bumbling idiot Governor they have. But if they can get it done, even with some limits, and some good defensive gun uses happen opinion might turn and restrictions pushed back. A lot of the state is conservative, and will take advantage of the opportunity.
    I lived here in Texas when concealed carry came along and it was not unanimously loved here at first (or now for that matter). But as time and events moved along and we did not turn into “the OK Corral” people started accepting it and now mostly embrace it. And over the last 6 months or so it has picked up a lot of speed. Thank our President for that. He spooked a lot of people right off the fence and into CHL classes.

    • and some good defensive gun uses happen opinion might turn and restrictions pushed back

      That will never happen. The Reverends will be up in arms, Ceasefire will organize a protest, the baby’s momma will say her honor student son was just turning his life around before some raycis white person shot him, and the media will crucify the person who committed the DGU.

  14. The state legislature is so incompetent that I think it is very possible they won’t pass a NY style may-issue bill. At that point, concealed carry becomes legal. Will Illinois become the Wild West? Doubtful. Will the legislature then pass a bill making it impossible? You betcha.

    • Not sure if you are aware of this, but that liberal paradise known as chicago IS the wild west. Concealed carry will only help resolve the issue. A few criminals die and the rest will start debating if it is really worth it.

    • That is my feel. When people start walking around with guns because there is no law stopping them something will pass fast and the governor will sign it. Because the one thing gun hater more then knowing people out there have guns is actually seeing said guns.

      Thanks
      Robert

    • The issue is that Chicago, and basically all of Cook County, is controlled by vehemently anti-gun liberals. And it has a huge voting bloc because of its massive population, enough so that in many cases it outweighs the rest of the state. Rahm Immanuel is rabidly anti-gun, because he believes that McDonald was wrongly decided and that gun bans will reduce crime, despite the statistics to the contrary. Just like Bloomberg has in NYC, Rahm wants a carve out allowing Chicago to enact its own local carry law–meaning will issue to aldermen, judges and retired cops and politicians, but not many others. The Governor is from the Chicago area and is controlled by Rahm, so has been “suggesting” that he will not sign a “shall issue” bill. Stalemate, even though the majority favors a carry law.

  17. The dynamic doesn’t favor the good guys, unfortunately.

    The trouble with waiting until June 9th is that for most IL residents, CC will NOT be forthcoming. You see, that state does NOT have state-wide preemption of gun laws. Every Illinois city and county has the authority to enact home rule gun laws which are enforceable-so on June 10th, every anti gun city and county in IL-and there’s a LOT of them-can and WILL enact their own, unique and enforceable carry laws.

    Either the anti’s pass a New Jersey style “No Way in Hell” issue , or June 9 comes and goes with every county inside of 100 miles of Chicago , Springfield, and East St. Louis enacting specific bans on concealed and open carry. Even if your local Illinois county or city issues a CCW permit, it becomes invalid the moment you leave the city limits. It’ll result in no one carrying, because no one will be concretely sure if they’re actually complying with the law. One GPS glitch under this circumstance can mean prison time.

    From what I know of Chicago politics, the anti’s will dig in and take their chances after June 9th. Unless the law in question bans or enacts “No Way In Hell” issue, they’ll reject it. The anti’s don’t care about Downstate IL, as long as law abiding people are denied firearms in THEIR neck of the woods.

    • How can a town or county ban carry if the courts just ruled the state ban was unconstitutional?

      • Im referring to “shall-NOT” issue regulations,combined with the non-recognition of other counties permits.Effingham might issue a CCW permit,but it won’t be valid in Marion county.amAnd you can forget about Chicago recognizing anyone else’s permit.

  18. We need to get rid of the stupid, unique in the US FOID system too.

    Background Check for FOID
    Background Check for CC permit
    Background Check for Firearms purchase

    We ought to be the most law abiding, and thoroughly vetted group in the nation! Hell, they should just give us all Top Secret Clearances!

    But that’s on my future wish list.

    • It could be worse. California’s legislature (and with a 2/3 majority of liberals will likely pass) a bill that will require a permit–with background check–to buy ammo. And it is a permit that will have to be renewed annually. $50 fee for the permit, no telling what the FFLs will charge to process them. And if I recall correctly, the ammo permit requires taking a four hour gun safety class, but I hope I’m wrong on that.

      • We cannot legally purchase, or even possess ammo or firearms without a FOID card. Most dealers will not allow you to handle a those items without a FOID card. Nanny state.

  19. If we go to June 9th with nothing passed, the Fed appeals court decision comes to force and strikes down the Unlawful Use of Weapon law.

    The only law still in effect will be Firearm Owner ID, to buy/own weapons and ammo.

    This does not prevent ~150 cities of Illinois from establishing their own restrictive ordinances on carrying. But such ordinances will need to be enforced at city/state/federal court. This seems like a fast way for cites to really piss off federal district judges and the appeals court and waste a lot of money in the process. I think the vast majority will avoid that ball of trouble.

    If select cities fight all types of carry, will they go all the way to the Fed Court of appeals again? They know the answer from that court. Will they appeal to the Supreme? The attorney general doesn’t seem interested to do that at the state level.

  20. Ok Question: How many cities over 25,000 have gun carry legislation on the books?
    Also I would assume they would need to advertise if there were since obviously there would need to be some way of letting folks know rather than have entrapment.

    • Not many if any have any laws on their books now. But the Chicago city council or any town could rush a simple few page law through, creating a local CCW ban.

  21. or . . . . the NRA marches into the 7th circuit with their proposed bill and the 7th circuit imposes it on IL as an equitable remedy and then enjoins the state or chicago from doing something to weaken it

    • Lincoln was a war criminal who silenced the press who disagreed with him, imprisoned people without cause, and suspended the Bill of Rights. Sounds like the land of Lincoln to me.

  23. Robert, that photo sucks. Get your mind back on the task at hand. Do you imagine the enemy doesn’t know how to derail you with images of cheapo womanflesh?

  24. As a law-abiding Illinois resident, I welcome the arguing among parties and upcoming Constitutional Carry.

  25. One Boston bombing suspect dead (along with the MIT cop they killed) and the other suspect on the loose. MSNBC, like virtually all of the left-of-center mass media which never physically describes suspects identified the suspects as light skinned males.

  27. maybe the Imperial Federal courts will implement Constitutional carry if Illinois cannot come up with something on its own.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  28. The people of Illinois will get conceal carry. They better make sure they elect a republican for Governor instead of Madigan, she will come up with something to screw every one. She is a hard core bitch. She will get together with Emanuel an Obama and figure out how yo kill people here next. I live in Illinois its a pit of corrupt elitists who care about only their pocketbooks.

  29. The Illinois press is misrepresenting what actually happened.

    The legislature killed it because it was modeled after NY’s draconian CCW law that places impermissible conditions on issuing permits.

    IOW, the Chicago miscreants tried their usual nonsense, and the rest of the state said, “Oh, HELL no.”

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