WriteAPrisoner.com Now Has a Special Illinois Edition?

That's mighty thoughtful of them to include a link just for Illinois residents so we don't have to
 go searching through the profiles to find the prisoner most of us want to write a letter to.

Jan Schakowsky: Just because she's out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid.

Jan Schakowsky . . . there's a name you haven't heard for awhile, huh?  If you're not from Illinois, maybe you've never heard of Congresswoman Schakowsky before, but she's politician-famous in Chicagoland. She has a long history of advocating for, as she puts it in this video, "pushing as hard as we can and as far as we can" to ban guns or, failing that, to harass citizens who want to use them.

This is the part where I sarcastically remind you that nobody wants to ban your guns and, by the way, you are clearly paranoid. Also that Jason Mattera is an unfair meanie.

One thing all this high-profile attention on guns and rights has done is to bring in a lot of people who really weren't paying any attention to the issue until a couple of months ago, on both sides.  Nothing wrong with that, but one effect of that influx of n00bs is that we now have an awful lot of people running around who are pretty sure they've got a simple solution and have no idea why the idiots who've been paying attention for the last decade or three haven't simply solved the problem already. In short, they don't know what they don't know. One of the things they're very sure of is that nobody wants to ban anybody's guns, and anyone who talks about gun bans is a stooge for the massive weapon cartels who pull the strings at the NRA. A good friend gave me a hell of a lecture recently; she'd put out the statement on Facebook that "nobody is going to ban your guns.  Get over it." I pointed out several times that this was not the issue; "I knew my attack on you wasn't going to work, so it's OK" is not an acceptable excuse. The point is that there are people who certainly would ban guns and confiscate my property if they had their way, and the only reason they don't have their way is that people like me prevent it by dint of hard work. 

• I don't have to let you crash my car because it's got seatbelts and airbags, and
• I don't have to let you torch my house because I have fire extinguishers, and
• I sure as hell don't have to shut up while knowledge-free debates over whether to infringe my rights and confiscate my property are carried out by my betters.

A "major victory" for gun control in Illinois? Let's think that one through.

SecondCityCop has a link to the Chicago Sun-Times' giddy piece on yesterday's defeat of concealed carry in Illinois, "Conceal-Carry bill fails in House," in which the Sun-Times' Springfield Bureau Chief, Dave McKinney, calls the vote a "major win" for gun control advocates.

SCC made several great points about the article, but those are their points and I'll let you read them over there. What interested me about the article was the assertion of "a big win." I don't see it.

Let's think about where gun control advocates in Illinois used to be and where they are today. I remember a very different situation until recently. Years ago, Mayor Daley's staff would write an annual package of 10-12 severe gun control bills--one-gun-a-month, state permits for gun shops to be granted or withheld on a whim, bans on everything from "assault weapons" to .50 caliber rifles to shotguns, bans on manufacturing "assault weapons" that would have prohibited Armalite and Les Baer from even manufacturing AR-15 rifles for the military or police . . . and would have made it a felony for a police officer or a serviceman to possess his issued M4 or M16 rifle in Illinois, even on duty (that law did allow for an "affirmative defense," at least.) Gun rights advocates spent every spring and fall scrambling to defend against all these bills and often 20-30 "minor" bills. Victories for gun rights consisted of language cleverly slipped into ostensibly anti-gun bills.

Then came a different spirit. The NRA and the ISRA and Guns Save Life and the Second Amendment Sisters and CORE and the new kid, Illinoiscarry.com, began to work together and coordinate their efforts more and more. There were turf battles and misunderstandings, but people were beginning to see results, too. The annual "lobby day" was rechristened "IGOLD" and exploded, growing into an annual event in which thousands of Illinois gun owners flood into the capitol building in Springfield and lobby for their rights en masse. Then came Heller v. D.C., and too quickly to be believed, McDonald v. Chicago. It's hard for a lot of people, I think, to really call up memories of what it was like in those not-so-long-ago days, but I remember it. It was depressing. We celebrated when we had years where we didn't lose any rights; keeping the status quo was a major win for us.

Now, let's look at 2011. What has changed in the past few years? Well, we're no longer playing defense. Our side is the one demanding change now; a year in which we have to settle for the status quo is "a big win" for gun control. If we don't engineer an overwhelming victory against long odds, creating a supermajority in both the House and the Senate and then overriding a veto, it's perceived as a loss. The expectations have changed massively; people now expect David to dominate Goliath and make him like it. And what does it look like from their point of view? Luckily, I've made a list:

• First, the roles are reversed: the anti-gun side has been reduced to playing defense, and they're giddy about stopping right-to-carry legislation they used to laugh off without thinking much of it.
• Second, have you noticed what you're not hearing out of Illinois this year? No assault weapons bans, no magazine bans? They were running all those bills this year, too . . . . but they came too close to losing on RTC and decided to let them all go by the wayside so that they could spend all their time stopping RTC.
• Third . . . what did it take to make that "big win" happen? It doesn't seem like Governor Quinn's threat of a veto actually did very much, despite the hype. Legislators are talking instead about personal phone calls from Mayor Daley, who frankly still has the power to "lobby" legislators by threatening the state jobs, city jobs, county jobs, patronage and other perks they hold so dear. Of course, Daley has 10 days left as Mayor of Chicago, so unless Rahm is just as powerful from the start as Daley is after 22 years as Mayor, that's the last time they can play that particular trump.
• Fourth and finally, when the dust settles, they may very well have stopped the bill from becoming law. But we won everything but the big prize: we changed the status quo, showed that RTC is a real issue in Illinois and that it's closer to passage than anyone believed, and we're going to end up with a list of every legislator who didn't vote for the bill, along with video footage of quite a few standing up on the floor of the House telling lies in the floor debate. They're like desperate criminals who've managed to retreat into the bank vault they were trying to cut open. We can't get them immediately, but they have nowhere to go, no idea what to do, and they left their tools out here for us to use. It's a matter of time.

On the one hand, excuses don't pay the bills, and it's true that we failed to win the war yesterday. On the other hand, we've won a lot of battles this year that not everyone recognizes, and it cost the other side dearly to get that "big win" in this one battle. Governor Quinn and Speaker Madigan have thrown away whatever good will they had remaining from downstate Democrat legislators after dragging them along on civil unions, the end of the death penalty in Illinois, and a massive income tax increase (full disclosure: I'm personally all for gay marriage and taking the power of life and death out of the hands of Illinois courts, but those issues are going to be poison pills forced down the throats of those Democrat legislators from downstate districts.) Several members of the Black Caucus, especially Rep. Monique Davis, have thrown away a chance to show that they're not completely in thrall to the Democratic leadership, and some very good organizers on Chicago's south side have taken notice. They held on, but they're in big trouble.

Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan: (217-782-5350) CALL NOW! LINES ARE OPEN!

If you want to see Illinois become a shall-issue, right-to-carry state this year, it's time to call your Representative in the Illinois House. If you're not sure who that is, you can type your address in here and find out who's your Representative and what his/her phone numbers are. Might as well call the Springfield offices; they should be back in town.

Done with that? Good. Now I'm going to ask you to do something that might seem odd: Call Mike Madigan and tell him you expect a fair vote on HB148 and you hope he'll vote for it.
Now, you might be scratching your head right now at the idea that Mike Madigan, Speaker of the House since 1983, leader of Illinois Democrats, father of Lisa Madigan, halfway-adopted-brother of Dick Daley, should be urged to vote for a right-to-carry bill. But please do it anyway. Remember that we don't actually need Madigan to vote for the bill (though that would help, Mike, if you're reading this) but we do need to show him that there's a true grassroots movement after this bill that will remember if he at least makes sure we get a fair floor vote, up or down.
If you aren't done with that because you're not sure of Mike Madigan's phone number, check the title again.

Got that done, too? Congratulations, you are now a hardcore grassroots activist willing to do more than 90% of gun owners can be bothered to do. Wanna buck for the top percentile? Call Glenn Poshard at Southern Illinois University and tell him to quit trying to kill right-to-carry in Illinois over his turf battle. Poshard is currently leading a group of college administrators lobbying to have the entire bill scuttled unless it makes it a felony to possess a firearm anywhere on campus; if you've ever taken a drive through Carbondale or Champaign, you know we're not just talking about the quad here. I know you'll all be polite and cheerful, but firm. Some of you may decide to mention that if Mr. Poshard doesn't call off the dogs, then even when we win right-to-carry, the fight won't be over for him, because I for one would become a near-full-time "Campus Carry" advocate in that event.

When you're trying to kill the carry bill that Chicago police unions want to see passed, you're so far out of touch that you might be out of sight.

Linky: If the Cook County State's Attorney Pokes Her Head Out Today, Spring Is On the Way

More on today's anti-gun Chicago press conference from John Boch at The Truth About Guns.

Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez Press Conference: A Defining Moment?

All the major control organizations gun are gathering tomorrow (Tuesday) in Illinois. They’ll meet-up with gun violence victims and local gun control advocates like Father ”Snuffy” Pfleger—who earned his nickname by calling for the “snuffing out” of the owner of a Chicago-area gun shop. They’ll head over to the office of Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez. The subsequent press conference will have one collective goal: to prevent Land of Lincoln legislators from enacting a law that would give citizens the right to carry a concealed firearm . . . . The Violence Policy Center, The Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns—the entire gun control movement know that this could well be do-or-die for their cause. Alvarez’s press conference reveals their desperate rush into the breach, hoping to keep concealed carry from passing one more time. At least until the next time . . . .

Interestingly, the time and place of the conference were finally released Monday, at least to invitees:

We have a confirmed location for the Press Conference against HB 148 which would allow the concealed carrying of handguns. The Violence Policy Center will be releasing National data regarding crimes committed by Concealed Carry Permit
holders and we will be calling for lawmakers to oppose this legislation.

The press conference is scheduled for Tuesday, March 28th at 10:00 AM at the Blue Room of the James R. Thomspon Center, 100 W. Randolph.

Please let me know if you are able to attend this important press conference.
Thanks.

Perhaps more interestingly, members of Illinois Carry who contacted Alvarez's office were told that SA Alvarez is not scheduled to appear at any press events today at all. Of course, there was no public information on the press conference itself at all until Monday morning, so we'll all have to wait and see how accurate that is; but it's always possible that Alvarez never intended to appear. It's also entirely possible that either she or the organizers decided that it wasn't ideal for either to have her take a leading role, since she's so far out of the mainstream. None of the groups involved, with the possible exception of the Violence Policy Center, ever willingly admit that they do or have work to "ban guns," after all, and SA Alvarez has not always been as indirect as that:



(As we all marvel at SA Alvarez's honesty in the moment, we should all take a moment to thank Kurt Hofmann, St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, for uploading that video to Youtube and ensuring that we can always remind people of exactly what we're facing.)

Sigh. Illinois legislature, convicted felon, you know the drill.

http://www.illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?articlesource=3961
So it turns out Illinois State Rep. Robert Rita (veteran of five terms in the Illinois legislature) was convicted of a felony in Nevada not all that long before he ran for the General Assembly, and won . . . and won . . . and won . . . and won . . . and won.

Yes, smartasses, that's against the law in Illinois.

Yes, even in Cook County!

We just don't check.

Because if you can't trust a politician, who can you trust?

There's Still Time to Jump on the Right-to-Carry Bandwagon in Illinois

. . . . but maybe not, you know, a LOT of time. Consider the following:

• Yesterday, HB0148, the Family and Personal Protection Act, passed out of the Illinois House Agriculture and Conservation Committee onto the floor. This was expected; that's why pro-gun bills go to the A&C and anti-gun bills go to Judicial, to ensure that they all have a fair chance to make it to the floor. Usually.
• There were some surprises, though. The biggest one, which I saw in only one mainstream media report (and which I've now lost, somehow) is that Illinois law enforcement organizations are now overwhelmingly in favor of right-to-carry:
• Several papers reported that two sheriffs testified in favor of the bill; almost no one mentioned that the Illinois Sheriffs Association went on record in favor, or that the sheriffs who testified noted that the vote at their meeting was nearly unanimous, with only Chicago's Cook County Sheriff voting no.
• Almost no one mentioned that Chief Eric Smith (of Sherman, IL) was in attendance not just for himself but to represent the Illinois Chiefs of Police. That's right, even the politically-appointed chiefs of police across Illinois voted this week to endorse HB0148.
• Although the Chicago Police Department is, of course, officially opposed, their rank-and-file supports HB0148 so much that the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association went on record in favor. This is a HUGE step in Illinois.

Nor are those the only hopeful signs. As you may have seen in this space before, Illinois actually has fairly pro-gun majorities in both its state House and Senate. The only reason they haven't passed right-to-carry legislation in the past few years has been that the legislative leaders have chosen to use parliamentary maneuvers to prevent floor votes in the Senate and to require supermajority votes in the House. This, combined with the certainty that all the Governors involved would veto any RTC bill, has kept any undecided legislators from seeing a reason to stick their necks out and be among the last few votes to create a supermajority or override a veto.

Yesterday, though, Andy Brownfield at the Springfield State Journal-Register asked Governor Quinn's spokeswoman whether he would follow through with his promise of a veto, and she would say only that the Governor would "give a concealed-carry bill the same consideration he gives any other bill." That's no promise, certainly, but it does have a certain open-door quality about it. It would have been easy to say, "Yes, the Governor promised the people of Illinois to veto this dangerous legislation and he will." But they didn't. Does that mean Quinn is open to a deal? Your guess is as good as mine, but it clearly doesn't say that his mind is made up.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm seeing a lot of commentary that Quinn would "never" do this and Cullerton and Madigan would "never" do that. These people are ignoring the changing times. Illinois downstate Democrats (and some upstate, too) come from conservative districts that only vote Democrat because they're full of farmers and union workers. It's an uneasy relationship at the best of times because of their other relationship--the one with "those Chicago Democrats." Now Governor Quinn has spent a huge amount of their political capital, and his, on borrowing billions of dollars and raising taxes by about 66%. Those downstate Democrats from conservative districts had to vote for those things in order to get them through, and they expect payback. They expect Quinn and the leaders to give them some kind of red meat issue they can trumpet back in the district, and right-to-carry is perfectly suited. To all that, you can add that IGOLD is perfectly timed this year, bringing thousands of gun owners to the capital (and the capitol) tomorrow to demand right-to-carry. That either gives politicians a push to do the right thing or cover to do what they promised not to do, depending on your point of view.

This will come down to the wire, and even the insiders will not be sure of the outcome until it's over. That's not much of a prediction, but it is mine and I expect it to come true.

Requests and Dedications: Is it OK for the state police to give the AP a list of all legal gun owners in Illinois?

If you read Roberta X (and if you don't, you should) then you've already seen several of my words on the latest anti-gun hijinks in Illinois (Roberta took them right out of my mouth.)

I've still got a few left that she didn't think of, though, and Keith asked in comments, "Are you going to address the FOID thing?" so I suppose I have an excuse.

First, consider the problem. Essentially, the Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, has issued a letter to the Illinois State Police directing them to release a list of the names (but not home addresses) of everyone who holds a FOID card in Illinois. The FOID card is not a carry permit, but a license to possess, own, or transfer a firearm or ammunition. Outside narrow exceptions, an Illinois citizen needs a FOID card just to possess a single round of loaded ammunition. The ISP is fighting this order by asking for an official opinion from the AG and seems ready to take the issue to court. Several bills currently in the legislature, including HB 0007, would prohibit the release of such a list in the future. In practical terms, this doesn't affect me personally, because I'm out and proud and on all the troublemaker lists you can be on in this state. I can easily imagine a lot of others, especially the two-thirds of the population who live in Chicagoland, worrying about their jobs and their relatively harassment-free lives going away in some situations. Some of my other friends who try to "fly under the radar" as gun owners in their neighborhoods to avoid taking chances with thieves are now imagining their names in the newspapers as "gun owners." Chances are, though, that HB 0007 is going to would pass with a large majority after the firestorm they've created here, if it hadn't mysteriously been bottled up in a committee. Few people seem to realize that the Illinois Legislature is dominated by votes ranging from pro-gun to moderate on guns. Year after year, the other side introduces packages of anti-gun bills which go down to defeat, and most pro-gun bills short of repealing the FOID or creating right-to-carry pass.

If all that's true (and I think it still surprises even a lot of Illinois gun-rights activists to look at the legislature that way) then why doesn't right-to-carry pass? The answer is that Illinois has nearly all-powerful legislative leaders. Mike Madigan rules the House with an iron fist, and John Cullerton inherited a near-dictatorship in the Senate from Emil Jones. Right-to-carry would pass the Illinois House and Senate in a heartbeat without that power; Cullerton, like Jones before him, bottles up RTC bills in unfriendly committees and prevents floor votes entirely. Mike Madigan simply rules that RTC would affect home rule (another quirk of Illinois is that we have thousands of home-rule cities; it's not just Chicago) and therefore require SUPER majorities. In other words, everyone including Madigan knows, whether they acknowledge it or not, that there are clear pro-gun majorities in both houses of the Illinois legislature. Illinois readers will probably recall that the Attorney General mentioned above is Lisa Madigan, the daughter of the aforementioned Mike Madigan.

Now we consider one more question: why now? Why did Lisa Madigan decide that now is the time to make a push to join the ranks of the newspapers and state governments that have been pilloried over the years for publishing lists of CCW holders nationwide? I tend to agree with Thirdpower at Days of Our Trailers: this is a case of "Wagging the Madigan." The idea here is almost certainly to create a new controversy over gun control, one where the other side has at least some of the initiative. That's necessary because shall-issue right-to-carry legislation is gaining ground every day; Madigan's super-majority strategy could be overwhelmed this year by simply meeting his requirement, and some sources have been reporting rumors that Cullerton and even Governor Quinn have been feeling a lot of pressure to move. RTC is clearly coming in Illinois, so their three choices are to jump on the bandwagon, get run over by the bandwagon, or set the old warehouse district on fire and hope everybody has to jump off the bandwagon to pass buckets. It seems they chose the third. The problem for them is that this is an obnoxious and dangerous strategy that's already pissing off all the wrong people. They may be able to do some harm with it to a lot of innocent folks who didn't volunteer to be game pieces, but I don't believe they themselves have that much to gain. RTC is not going away, if that's what they were hoping. It's a genuine grassroots movement with no rent-a-crowds or astroturf involved . . . . just distracting the public and waiting for the furor to die down is not going to work. I attended the funeral a couple of months ago of a man who fought like a lion for RTC; we called him "Ol' Coach," but his real name was Gene Martin. Gene's fear was that he wouldn't live to see RTC pass, and his frustration came out in angry words from time to time. He was right, as it turns out, but if anyone thinks his friends will move on to something else if they wave a few distractions around, they've misjudged.

Tomorrow, at 2 p.m., there will be a committee hearing on shall-issue right-to-carry (The Family and Personal Protection Act, HB0148) at the Illinois state capitol. The bill will pass out of the committee; the important thing tomorrow will be the testimony and the press coverage. I've already been contacted by local TV news about this, so I know at least some are paying attention. Will they drop that attention to rush off and get quotes from Lisa Madigan about her Wag-the-Madigan scheme? I doubt it.

Then, on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, the doors will open for IGOLD. Thousands of gun owners will take the day off work and pay their way to the capital to spend the day marching, demonstrating, and meeting with their legislators. We will rally in the Convention Center, and we will march across town (the streets are closed by the Springfield Police.) We will meet and rally again in front of the capitol . . . . but we will also pour into the capitol by the thousands and meet individually with our representatives.

The problem, if you're Lisa Madigan or Mike Madigan or John Cullerton or Pat Quinn, is how to create a big enough distraction to stop a bandwagon that big. Ignoring the problem for the past few years has not made it go away. These people are hearing footsteps; shall-issue right-to-carry is coming. The only thing they really control in this fight now is how long it takes and how much credit or blame they get when the shouting is over.

Since I'm Posting Again, Let's Watch Mike Huckabee Bow Out Gracelessly

I once had a very uncomfortable couple of minutes in an ambulance late at night. It wasn't that time on the backboard--that happened in the morning--but the time that I gave my honest thoughts on Mike Huckabee's campaign for President. Frankly, I was not complimentary. It turned out that my partner that night knows Governor Huckabee as "Brother Mike." Brother Mike was his pastor in Arkansas, and he has lots of folksy memories of church and church camp and the time he gave Brother Mike's son an attitude adjustment by slamming him down on a pool table.

Oops.

And speaking of oops . . . .

According to Michael Shear in the New York Times, Brother Mike Huckabee picked this week to wonder on air whether Barack Obama was really born in Hawaii. He doubled down on this strategy by mentioning that President Obama grew up in Kenya. The chief drawback of that approach was that it isn't true, and even the birthiest Birthers don't actually allege that it's true, so it was probably just misspoken.

In any case, maybe I'll get to see whether one of my pet theories pans out. Although I was far from the first or only to propose it, I believe it's likely that President Obama decided long ago that the Birth Certificate Controversy (tm) hurt its proponents more than it hurt him. I believe he has deliberately refused to settle the matter definitively by releasing his long-form birth certificate or any other evidence (which I believe do exist and can be released whenever he chooses.) I believe that he's doing all this in order to keep the controversy as high as possible and tempt prospective political challengers to try to use it. And I believe that when the controversy cools or when big enough Republican fish have taken the bait and committed themselves to the Way of the Birther, the President plans to pull the rug out very publicly.

In short, anyone who is still talking about the President's birth certificate is being given enough rope to hang himself, and Brother Mike has just stuck his neck into the noose. It's all fun and games until the President opens the trap door.

ISRA Annual Meeting at Rend Lake

Hooray! The wi-fi is alive again!

I'm sitting here next to Thirdpower from Days of Our Trailers in the legislative update session at the Illinois State Rifle Association's annual meetings. We're at the "resort" at Rend Lake a little bit south of Mt. Vernon, deep in the real southern Illinois. This is the part of Illinois that looks and sounds like Kentucky, except when you sit in a room full of people from northern and central Illinois.

Last night I rolled in with the whole family in the dark of the night and managed to get everyone to collapse more or less on or near a bed, so that was a win. This morning I got the boys up early and we headed out to the trails. We skipped out on the Personal Protection seminar (I've been to it before) and spent the time walking around the lake instead. We picked flowers for mom, watched deer and rabbits, found tracks and scat of deer, coyotes, turkeys and squirrels, and generally wasted a couple of hours in excellent style.

Now here we are in nearly-beautiful Conference Room A. It's not the most cheerful place, but the mood is light. Why?

• Chicago is on its heels. Their new ordinance is clearly a ploy to undo McDonald, and according to Don Moran of the ISRA, the clauses that criminalize firing ranges and training in the city have created a bottleneck. There may be a hundred thousand Chicagoans who want to own firearms, and there are tens of thousands who do legally own firearms that were registered prior to 1982--but they need training to get the new Chicago Firearms Permit, too, and where can they get it? There aren't enough trainers (because the ordinance defines the qualifications in a way designed to exclude many trainers) and if you could find them, there aren't enough lanes on ranges in the state to get the training done in a reasonable amount of time. That's the bad news. The good news is that judges can figure this stuff out, too, and my impression (Mr. Moran didn't say this, so don't blame him) is that this is just another reason this ordinance is so vulnerable.
• Mayor Daley is on his way out . . . . and who will replace him? Nobody here will hazard much of a guess, and it's not likely to be a gun blogger. But replacing Daley, the man to whom all favors are owed, has to mean Chicago clout flying all directions. No matter what many candidates say publicly, it's hard to believe that they're privately planning to hitch their wagons to the Brady Campaign Against Success and continue Daley's crusade without his power or connections. Even if someone does want to try it, who can really replace Daley? The only name I've heard with the reputation and personality to remind people of either Mayor Daley is Rahm Emanuel, but he's essentially the Jody Weis of City Hall. Weis is the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, yes, but his police force hates him with a passion. He's a fed from the FBI, they say (J-Fed, to be specific) and he's never "been the police." He doesn't understand their department or policing in general, and Chicago cops figure he's there to take the department apart and clamp down on any cop who gets out of line. They don't trust him a bit, and on Emanuel's first day as Mayor, he'd have the same situation at City Hall, except that the people distrusting him and talking about this outsider from Washington are people with real power in Chicago. His job would be survival from day one. Others have a better chance of winning than Emanuel, but none of them look like The New Daley.
• Statewide, Governor Quinn is in trouble. He hasn't lost yet, but he's a little behind and, more importantly, not showing any signs that he's going to get things moving any time soon. Democrats, even Chicago Democrats, are starting to get in touch with ISRA and NRA leaders and ask how they can get right with Illinois gun owners. Votes for concealed carry are piling up in the legislature; we're likely looking at enough votes to pass a bill right now, but not enough to overcome a veto (Governor Quinn has promised to veto any carry bill, while Republican Bill Brady has promised to sign it--I'm just saying.)

IGOLD 2010 is here

If you can't come to IGOLD 2010 in Springfield today, there are still two ways you can help. The first is to call your local Chicago news outlet of choice and ask them when their story on IGOLD will run.
The second is to go to www.illinoiscarry.org and donate whatever you can afford to support IGOLD and IllinoisCarry. IllinoisCarry is a not-for-profit corporation (but not, legally speaking, a charity, and donations are not tax-deductible.) running at a consistent loss, funded by donations from its "employees," none of whom are paid. Unlike anti-gun groups like the Violence Policy Center, which do little more than convert Joyce Foundation funds into 6-figure salaries for people who literally do Google and Nexus searches for a living, IllinoisCarry does nothing but advocate for right-to-carry in Illinois. I can testify that being a Director at IllinoisCarry has cost me a considerable amount of money so far, to say nothing of time, and the officers pay more for the privilege than I do. If you can help, you can be sure that your money will be spent wisely and gratefully.




IGOLD 2010 is today. Springfield will welcome thousands of gun owners. . . . .

We will fill the Prairie Capital Convention Center . . . .


We will march down Capitol Avenue in a throng of thousands . . . .


We will gather on the steps of the Capitol, under the well-polished nose of Lincoln's statue and the steady gaze of King's. We will celebrate our freedom and demand our rights.
Join us.

Overheard in a bar . . .

. . . . down the street from the Illinois Capitol in Springfield:

Veteran Politico: "Okay, tell me how you win Mcdonald. How do you lay out the argument that wins Mcdonald for you?"
Chicago City Attorney: "Honestly? I don't see any way."

Hearing a Chicago attorney admit they're likely to lose McDonald v. Chicago in a big way is like hearing your wife say she loves you. Sure, it's nothing new, and maybe she thinks it should go without saying, but it's still nice to hear it out loud.

Zombie gun control never stops coming back to life

Illinois handgun dealer licensing bill is back from the dead . . . again.
Now, no one get too alarmed, but it does seem that zombie gun control bills are beginning to rise from the dead in Springfield. The first lumbering corpse to claw its way out of the cold, mossy ground of the legislative cemetery known as the Rules Committee is House Bill 180, the "Handgun Dealer Licensing Act. This is the same bill gun owners have been stopping for years, over and over and over--but it always comes back. Normally, that process takes time, as a bill that went down to defeat in a floor vote the year before must be re-introduced and go through the committee process again before reaching the floor--which is why the Senate version of this same bill, SB3092, is some time away from a floor vote; it had to be introduced anew just this week. However, there was no floor vote on HB180 during the 2009 session, so it went back to the Rules Committee . . . which sent it back out to the floor late last week. That means that a floor vote could be taken at any time. But what would HB180 do that would lead gun owners to call their legislators in opposition?

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IL Politics: Boosting Hoosier self-esteem since 1818

Shootin' Buddy wants to hear more about the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. This is because Shootin' Buddy is from Indiana, and people who live in Indiana love Illinois political scandals almost as much as people who live in Illinois. I think it makes them feel smugly self-righteous.

The quickest reference would be to go to the Capitol Fax Blog and look for the name "Scott Cohen" or "Scott Lee Cohen." I'll write more about this tomorrow, but right now I have some other stuff to do, so here are the important parts for those of you who live outside the walls.

• Illinois' 1970 Constitution mandates that each party hold separate primary elections for Governor and Lt. Governor, but the primary winners run together on the same ticket. So we sometimes see two candidates who hate each other or have never met. Sometimes a Governor candidate and a Lt. Governor candidate team up in the primaries, but they have no way of guaranteeing that if one wins, the other will win too.
• It wasn't that long ago that a young dreamer named Rod Blagojevich had to run with a grizzled perpetual candidate named Pat Quinn. Quinn was a crusader and Blagojevich was a corrupt and hated Governor, but neither got a choice of running mate. And Quinn went so far as to hint that it was now OK to vote for Blagojevich, since Quinn would be there to pick up the reins of the state if Blagojevich happened to get indicted or impeached. That's why Quinn is Governor of Illinois today.
• But OH! The IRONY! Now Quinn has fought his way to the nomination so he can win election on his own and convince people not to inscribe "The Accidental Governor" on his tombstone. It was a vicious campaign, with his opponent, a popular Comptroller with a reputation for trying to control spending and pay the bills, actually digging up video of Chicago's first black Mayor (who can't comment, since he's dead) explaining why he fired Quinn for gross incompetence. The race came down to a 50-50 split, with Quinn ahead by about 7,000 votes, and Hynes waited a couple of days to make sure it was over before he conceded. But a few hours before that concession . . . .
• The press suddenly woke up and began to ask Scott Lee Cohen questions. Cohen was a surprise winner in the Lt. Governor primary, but most people knew almost nothing about him. All most of us knew was that you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing a very persuasive, positive ad for Cohen about how he was "the only candidate doing something about jobs in Illinois" by holding job fairs in the state.
• Unfortunately for Quinn, it turns out that Cohen has a little more to his record than that, including . . . .
  
• Allegations of steroid abuse and roid raging (from his ex-wife's divorce filings.)
• Allegations of abuse in his divorce (again, from divorce filings.)
• Allegations that he held a knife to a woman's throat (happened a few months into his divorce, he calls her his girlfriend and a licensed massage therapist he met in "a massage therapy place," police report on the incident describes her as a prostitute. The cops reported that she had abrasions consistent with a knife on her throat, but she didn't show up for court and charges were dismissed.)

Now at least one political authority in IL (Archpundit) is calling for Quinn and the Democrats to put Dan Hynes, the guy who just spent six months feuding with Quinn and shredding him in an attempt to take his job, in Cohen's place as candidate for Lt. Governor. But here's the catch--even if Quinn is that statesmanlike, they can't remove Cohen. He won the election. He either steps down voluntarily, or he's in the race. And he doesn't owe anyone in the Democrat Party any favors . . . . I'm considering a grassroots campaign of support for the guy.

IL Gubernatorial primary election goes crazy, punches horse, drinks aftershave

Seriously, it's crazy here. Crazy awesome.

The short version: There were two mildly anti-gun Democrats running for Governor of IL, and they tore each other up, ending up about 7,000 votes apart. Their race is probably over, but it was fun while it lasted, featuring Democrat gems like accusations of racism from both sides over the Dan Hynes ad that featured former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington explaining why he fired Governor Quinn from Chicago city government in the 1980s. Why is that racist? Well, it's old video! Harold Washington is dead!
Still not racist? Well, Harold Washington was black, and it's either racist to feature a dead black man in your commercial (even if he was a unique authority on your opponent and no one disputes that his comments are being used in context) or it's racist to criticize a commercial with a dead black man in it . . . . depending on which side you want to win.
Anyway, the spectacle last night was fantastic, with Quinn declaring victory at about the same time Quinn was vowing to fight on "until tomorrow," perhaps unaware that it had already been "tomorrow" for about half an hour by that time.

In the GOP race, everyone knew that it would come down to a showdown between Kirk Dillard, Andy McKenna and Jim Ryan (Dillard is the only pro-gun candidate in that troika.) Fiery Tea Party newcomer Adam Andrzejewski (An-jee-EFF-ski) was considered a possible spoiler, having lots and lots of Facebook fans and having gotten a late mention from Rush Limbaugh himself (tranquilizers be upon him.) But someone forgot to tell Bill Brady, the only candidate other than Dillard with a pro-gun voting record (arguably a stronger record than Dillard's, but not by much.) At the moment, as the candidates are sitting down to the GOP's "Unity Breakfast," Brady and Dillard are locked in a virtual tie for first place. With 97 precincts still unreported, Brady holds a lead of 503 votes. It's anybody's ball game, and a recount is almost guaranteed, but for Illinois gun owners this is a battle between a great candidate and a splendid candidate.

Prepare yourself for a great shock.

Are you ready? Are you prepared? Is your mind right? OK, here it is:


It turns out that Senator Charles Schumer is a rude jerk who thinks he's better than everybody else.

Do you need to sit down? Don't try to take it all in at once, it's a shock to the system. He always seemed so nice when he was trying to crush the spirits of the proletariat.

Big, big news here.
(I wish I could track down the credit for this photo, but I can't. If you know it, please let me know.)

Why even ask Roland Burris that question?

I can see a tree and a concrete parking barrier right behind him, and either of them could have explained it better. Don't be lazy, reporter guy.

So Roland Burris says the Constitution contains a clause empowering Congress to "provide for" the health of American citizens. Turns out he was thinking of the preamble to the Constitution, which A) Doesn't say that, and B) is a preamble.



Seriously, children and politicians everywhere, I realize that the preamble to the U.S. Constitution says the words ". . . promote the general welfare . . ." But the thing is, those ellipses aren't just random, they kind of matter. Specifically, the ones right before the phrase that justifies a huge amount of our federal government stand in for the words "in order to," among others. They were never meant to bestow any power upon any part of the federal government. That is done very explicitly later on in the clauses designed for the purpose. All the preamble says about the general welfare is that it's one reason for the powers and limitations that will be created in the main body of the document.
To say that the powers and limitations put on Congress in Article One (By the Beard of Odin's Manservant, it's right there on the same page, people) are irrelevant because of the clause that was only supposed to explain why those powers and limitations are there in the first place is perverse.

And here's what the Roland Burrises of the world may genuinely not understand: when the preamble says that the Constitution is ordained in order to accomplish some objective, such as promoting the general welfare, it means that the limits on federal powers contained in the Constitution were conceived for that purpose just as much as any of the powers. The Constitution is a document of strict limits on the federal government for a reason. If nothing else, it should worry us that we're using laws that were intended to limit federal power as our excuse to remove all limits on federal power. When you use Super Glue as a solvent, bad things happen.

I guess it's a slow year for world peace.

I don't think the Nobel Committee knows that President Bush was limited to two terms. I think they thought that Obama deposed Bush much the same way that Von Stauffenberg tried to depose Hitler--ending his reign of terror for the good of humanity. They don't need to see evidence that President Obama has actually done anything to benefit world peace on his own watch, because toppling the Bushitler dictatorship was achievement enough for one lifetime.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

Photo: Pete Souza, Obama-Biden Transition Project, licensed by Attribution Share Alike 3.0
Barack Obama
USA
44th President of the United States of America
b. 1961

Ummmm . . . OK. Extraordinary, huh?

Run, Roland, Run!

Roland Burris (D-Blagojevich) explains why he voted in favor of ACORN's federal funding (one of only 7 Senators to do so, along with Dick Durbin (D-Daley household.) Whatever you think of his vote in favor of underage prostitution's tax advantages, you have to admire his steadfast refusal to break into an actual sprint on camera.


Heeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoeheeltoe . . . . ! Maybe there's room for a racewalk championship on that tombstone.

Chicago GRE: Arne Duncan has a record of exploiting school children

Although I disagree with those who are urging parents to keep their kids home tomorrow, I can't help but notice that they're being labeled as paranoid racists by Obama supporters, who seem to take it for granted that of course President Obama* would never indoctrinate or exploit school children to advance his political agenda--the thought itself is monstrous! But President Obama chose a Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, with a history of organizing massive (and massively expensive) political rallies of Chicago public school students paid for with Chicago public school funds. I cannot for the life of me understand why this record hasn't become a bigger part of the public debate over the proposed speech to school students, unless people simply don't realize it exists.

In June 2008, for instance, the Chicago public school district used over 1200 buses and drivers to bus a reported 30,000 students from all over the city to Soldier Field, where they were allowed to watch a free performance by area musicians like rapper "Ben One." The catch? The performance was part of a political rally. The students had to sit through speeches by Arne Duncan, Richard Daley and Jesse Jackson, and these weren't innocuous pep talks about staying in school.

The man who was in charge of that mess is now the head of education for the federal government, and there's nothing particularly paranoid or racist about pointing it out. Click the big blue button to read the whole thing, and if you like it, please take a moment to pass it on or vote on Digg, Windycitizen.com or Reddit.

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Meanwhile, David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner, asks "Can ATF be reformed?"
He's not talking about recycling transmission fluid, but questioning the wisdom of an effort to "reform" the BATFE by legislation. I would add the question: "If the ATF can't be reformed, but it can't be abolished at present, is it worth it to pursue partial reforms, even knowing they won't really solve the problem? David's last piece covered the return of Carolyn McCarthy's "No Fly, No Buy" bill, which would bar anyone placed on the naughty list by the government from purchasing firearms. That's a big step to take based on a list you can be placed on without due process or even a reason given!

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* Seeing the President of the United States referred to as "Mr. Obama" or "Mr. Bush" in the press irritates me. Maybe it says in some style manual that the President is referred to as "Mister," but screw that.