By John Boch
On Tuesday, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is going to try employ a seldom-used legislative procedure called the “Weekly Order of Business” to suspend normal Illinois House business and, in this case, bring a carry bill to the floor for consideration, skipping the normal processes. It would seem that the closed-door legislative meeting of House Democrats put the fear of God into Prairie State gun control advocates and they believe they need to act sooner rather than later to keep Illinoisans from carrying their fully-loaded Glocks into the Statehouse come June 9th, 2013 . . .
That’s the date when the stay expires suspending the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ Moore v Madigan decision striking down Illinois’ prohibition on carry outside of the home expires. Speaker Madigan plans to consider House Bill 1155 and amendments as the House’s sole order of business beginning Tuesday.
We’ll save you time looking up HB1155. It’s a shell at this point to which they can attach pretty much whatever they like. One of those bills that can be introduced at the last minute – hopefully not at 3:00a.m. as was the case with the gun control bills passed in New Jersey in the last couple of days.
The NRA-ILA fired a warning flare with this announcement:
House Speaker Madigan Orders House to Consider Firearm Legislation Next Tuesday
Contact your state Representative IMMEDIATELY and tell him or her to only support NRA-Backed House Bill 997!
NRA-ILA has just learned that beginning at noon next Tuesday, February 26 , the Illinois House will be considering various gun control proposals and other firearm-related legislation. It is not yet clear what measures will be considered. At this moment, there is a strong possibility that among the various extreme anti-gun measures, a deeply flawed concealed carry bill will be heard.
You must contact your state Representative IMMEDIATELY. Tell them to oppose any and all gun control schemes that do nothing other than penalize law-abiding citizens and take away their means to self-defense. It is imperative that legislators do NOT vote in favor of any flawed concealed carry legislation, but instead support NRA-Backed House Bill 997.
Your NRA-ILA will continue to keep you updated as details become available. Contact information for your state legislators can be [found] here.
John Boch is president of Guns Save Life. A version of this post originally appeared at gunssavelife.com.
Looks like this t**d’s hair is hanging ten.
Shocked by this no.. Sad yes…
They are trying to come up with something, anything to stop what the court ordered them to do.
Will this ever end or are we going to have to fight and re-fight the 2nd Amendment forever?
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. –Thomas Jefferson.
There are always people trying to roll back or take away the freedom of the American people. The only reason they’ve been so successful over the past ~50 years is most of us haven’t been paying attention.
As long as their are liberals and lawyers it will be a constant fight.
watch it. some of us lawyers care about civil rights and believe in the constitution. literally.
As Chris so aptly quotes, “the price of freedom is constant vigilance” but forever is a long time. As I’ve said, the next case before the Supremes should knock the grabbers back for awhile since I’m sure all registration and mere possession laws will be shredded and some version off carry prevail. They’ll probably be busy running around trying to get around them for awhile but after eventually getting hit by fines and contempt-of-court jail time looming they’ll see the light. Let’s remember that much smaller minorities than we have secured their rights through these methods. They have their rights – fine – but we have our rights too! Apply the pain to these would be tyrants and Keep Up the Fire!
If the gun grabbers can’t get it done on the national level they will try at the state and local level. Thats why as RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS we need to pay attention. Not just for the 2nd Amendment, but for the city trying to rezone your neighborhood, increasing property tax etc….
Get involved. Join local organizations and show up like they have been in local meetings and defeat soundly any attempt to take away your rights. Know personally your local representatives and let them know you are paying attention. Let your Represenatitive and Senators know if they allow any BS to pass at 3am (doesn’t matter what it is), they will be held accountable come election day.
Yo can win this keep calling and emailing your Reps and Senators in Springfield IL!!!!
We should have known that IL wouldn’t let a legal mandate get in the way of their agenda.
I think everyone is overlooking something that is monumentally important for Illinois.
All other states that were considering “shall issue” concealed carry legislation were coming from a situation where they had either “no issue” or “may issue”. If the legislatures failed to pass any legislation, then those states continued to be “no issue” or “may issue” which was bad. Thus detractors had huge leverage and those in favor of gun rights had to compromise on a lot of facets of their legislation.
Illinois is coming from the opposite direction. If they fail to pass concealed carry legislation, they go to constitutional carry and no restrictions whatsoever. That is the ideal outcome for gun rights advocates as far as I can see. So why is there any incentive for pro-gun legislators to compromise?
After posting my comment above, I thought of one reason to pass something with minimal restrictions (versus constitutional carry with no restrictions) in the next couple months. At some unknown time in the future, the Illinois legislature could have a sizable majority of citizen disarmament legislators. Such a group could pass concealed carry legislation with pages of horrendous restrictions, outrageous fees, millions of hoops to satisfy, and extremely long processing times (by design) to discourage as many people as possible from getting a concealed carry license.
However, something passed now with some restrictions but not ridiculously onerous, would also be difficult to repeal in the future. It’s a gamble I guess.
Repeal is one thing, amendment is another. But either takes only a majority vote and a willing governor.
It’s also harder to take freedom away from people once they have it. The honest GOPers need to just say “GFY” and stand firm.
It pisses me off when ever a political group has to rely on procedural shenanigans to force through bills the people do not want. Prostituting our government to get what they want for their purposes only creates chaos and further erodes any confidence the public has in the elected class.
I always thought that Due Process of Law applied to legislative action–due deliberation, committee hearings to develop an evidentiary record, the usual. And with the standard set of at least intermediate if not strict scrutiny, the lack of evidence establishing the governmental interest should be–should be–fatal to any such hurried legislative action. Is anything else any less than political corruption? Let it be a fair fight
AS I understand it, last year the legislature was just two voteshy of passing a “may issue” ccw bill. Hopefully there will be enough votes to block Madigan (who, for those unfamiliar, is the father of the Illinois Attorney General whose name graces the recent decison of the 7th Circuit.
I always thought that Due Process of Law applied to legislative action–due deliberation, committee hearings to develop an evidentiary record, the usual. And with the standard set of at least intermediate if not strict scrutiny, the lack of evidence establishing the governmental interest should be–should be–fatal to any such hurried legislative action. Is anything else any less than political corruption? Let it be a fair fight.
As I understand it, last year the legislature was just two votes shy of passing a “may issue” ccw bill. Hopefully there will be enough votes to block Madigan (who, for those unfamiliar, is the father of the Illinois Attorney General whose name graces the recent decison of the 7th Circuit.
Confidence in Liberal occupied IL….. ROFL!!! Now THAT is funny……
I’ve yet to see anyone “elected” in IL that isnt a crook/own agenda type of person…
They just need to annex $hitcago, and be done with it… Think the county as a whole would be better off IMHO….
How can you say that after all that Chicago has given to the country? sar/
I like Chicago style pizza. They can have the rest.
Ya know, I just had a really comical (to me) vision of a state capitol chamber where people could bring in all the DiFI no-nos. Can you imagine an elected official looking into the “peanut gallery” and seeing just the tips of a few RPGs, some Ma deuces set up by the people who were there early, grenade launchers, a few Barretts, not to mention a hundred or so scarey black guns of various caliber with their shoulder things flapping all over? Think they would be as inclined to to try their monkey shines then? But then again that’s what gun control is all about.
They will play untill it gets too costly, Randy
correction: they will play until it gets too costly FOR THEM! Until a judge whacks these bastards in their personal pocketbook, they will spend someone else’s $$$ to fight for their personal agenda.
Just when exactly did this country become home to a bunch of politically correct whiners?
A sham law risks insulting the Federal Courts. Judges and Supreme Court Justices tend to frown on that kind of disrespect. It is a sure ticket to constitutional carry for Illinois. This is nothing more than the Orvil Faubus-style attempt to negate a court ordered action. It means that the state isn’t going to appeal to SCOTUS out of fear a 5-4 decision tossing out almost every restrictive gun law. It won’t get Illinois occupied by Federal troops but it will end up with either open or concealed carry for the people of Illinois.
So far it hasn’t hurt Chicago. The litigation is still going on about the laws they passed the day before McDonald (Ezell v. City of Chicago). Every time the case seems to be at issue, Chicago changes its law in an attempt to try to moot the complaint and/or avoid injuctive relief from being issued. After Moore v. Madigan, though, I think a fire may be building under the trial court judge–it is clear that the 7th is fed up with the City’s shenanigans.It has become possible to legally own a handgun in Chicago (after McDonald the City enacted an excruciatingly offensive and difficult registration process that required training before issuance of a handgun permit (separate and apart from Illinois’ FOID card)–but banned shooting ranges so all training had to take place outside city limits.)
From Todd Vandermyde (NRA), via illinoiscarry.com
Posted Today, 08:11 PM
There are going to be a series of amendments on HB-1155.
It looks like HB-997 will be stuck in committee and we will be given a chance to amend HB-1155. Our job is to shut down bad amendments and have an amendment that turns HB-1155 into HB997 for final passage.
That’s whay the message started with we will not take a BAD BILL.
Now we want to kill any bad amendment and only have our supporters vote for our amendment, thus gutting the antis’ efforts.
Todd
tell your reps to support any amendment to 1155 that is endorsed by the NRA
HB 997 is dead, Madigan won’t let it out of committee.
Todd Vandermyde, the NRA lobbyist for Illinois, is urging everyone to contact their Illinois State Tep and urge them to vote only for the NRA sponsored amendment to HB 1155 and to vote against any amendment to HB 1155 that is not NRA sponsored and approved
This is typical Illinois politics at its worse. Firearm ownership is ‘subject to the police power’ as it states in the Illinois constitution.
When I worked at a gun store for 3 1/2 years, folk from IL would come in for a visit as we were a very large store. I use to tease them and ask to see their passport. In a shocked look, they would ask why? I said well, your country doesn’t fully believe in the 2nd Amendment like the rest of our country does so I assume you are of another country. That would then lead to their conversation to their displeasure with the state laws of IL concerning firearms. We’d get a good laugh. My hopes are for the good people of IL. Stand together or you will all fall to the corruption separately!!!
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