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Mayor Daley has had little luck with his annual gun control agenda at the Statehouse, but that doesn’t keep him from trying year after year.
Once again, Daley wants to ban assault weapons statewide, license gun dealers and limit handgun purchases to one a month per person. He also wants to mandate trigger locks in homes whose residents include anyone under 18, instead of 14 as now required. […]
The mayor’s plan would mandate a background check on every gun purchase and require that all transfers be conducted through licensed dealers. Reporting and record- keeping would be the same as required of gun shops. Dealers would be permitted to charge a small fee to cover processing costs. The only exceptions would be gun transfers between spouses, from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild.
The other new proposal would use driving privileges as a lever to punish a wider array of gun crimes. Instead of suspending or revoking drivers licenses only after a aggravated discharge of a firearm, the bill would add such offenses as unlawful use of a weapon, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and reckless discharge of a firearm.
The larger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have some saying that at least a few of Daley’s ideas could pass, but the pro-gun groups beg to differ.
Todd Vandermyde, Illinois legislative liaison for the NRA, countered that only one of the five new Democratic senators is “definitively anti-gun.” He argued that requiring a firearm owners identification card makes it unnecessary to crack down on private gun sales.
“There’s gonna be a lot of hollering and screaming, but you’ll end up with the status quo,” without any gun control legislation, he said.
I haven’t had a chance to “officially” talk to all of the new legislators since the election, but I plan on doing an interview series for subscribers soon. This would probably be a good question to ask.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:13 am
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“..mandate trigger locks in homes whose residents include anyone under 18, instead of 14 as now required”
Any politician this pedantic has my vote.
I think it should be 21. Just because you have a child that wakes up on the morning of their 18th birthday is NOT AN EXCUSE for you to remove all the trigger locks from your guns. That is just reckless, irresponsible behavior.
Oh, and I’d also like to see banning of smoking in private residences where there are children under 21. They cannot defend themselves and need our help. What? You say such a law cannot be enforced…?
Comment by Anon Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:40 am
Don’t forget that, a few years ago, Daley told a US congressional committee, “If it were up to me, nobody would own a gun.”
Daley’s latest gun control schemes are aimed directly at that end.
The so-called “assault weapons” ban would affect every lawful gun owner in the state. Collectors would see their prized specimens become worthless. Target shooters would have to give up their target rifles, since about 95% of target shooters utilize firearms that would be banned. And, lemme ask this…just how do Daley/Blagojevich plan to enforce the ban on possession of so called assault weapons? I think it would be safe to say that there are probably 20 million affected firearms in the state. Are we talking about house to house searches here? Can anybody spell W-A-C-O? How about a “Waco” on every block in the state? Would that make Daley and Blagojevich happy?
Let’s not forget that the Illinois arms manufacturing business contributes over $150 Million to the state’s GDP. Under the manufacturing ban provisions of Daley’s bill, those jobs and income would go out of state.
Then there is Daley’s “handgun dealer licencing” bill. The intent of this bill is so transparent it is laughable. Daley is pandering to the “big box” sporting goods stores that only sell rifles and shotguns. They’d be expempt. The burden of this legislation would fall squarely on the small, locally owned dealer who sells handguns. The cost of compliance with this bill would certainly be staggering - or Daley’s bots wouldn’t have thunk it up. This bill would drive most, if not all small dealers right out of business. Would criminals be at all affected? Noppers. Would the law abiding gun owner be affected? Of course - that’s the intent.
Then there is Daley’s “one gun a month” bill. This is nothing more than a registration scheme. Besides, nobody - not even King Richard - has a right to tell me how to spend my money. Of course, this one gun a month scheme would only be for law-abiding citizens, criminals wouldn’t have any reason to obey the law. Criminals would just hire more and more single moms and others to expand their legions of straw purchasers. Instead of 20 straw purchasers buying 10 guns for gangs per month, 200 would be buying 1 gun a month to arm gangs. This bill would be nothing more than a minor personnel management challenge for black market gun dealers - just like hurdling a toothpick. But, again, the target of the legislation is the law-abiding gun owner who must cool his heels waiting to exercise his constitutional right to acquire firearms of his choosing.
Oh, and lookee here…Daley has a “private sale” bill too. Isn’t that just ducky? Law-abiding citizens would have to sell their guns through licensed dealers. The beauty of that, through the eyes of Daley, is that his handgun dealer licensing bill would drive all the dealers out of business. So, who will handle the transactions? Bingo. Anybody want to venture a guess as to whether criminals will utilize license dealers to swap guns?
Honestly, putting politics aside, an objective look at these proposed bills does not offer even a single solution to the problem of violent crime. These bills are clearly designed to punish people who dare to enjoy firearm ownership.
These proposals are less to do with public safety than they are about a henpecked mayor who is obsessed with punishing people who dare defy him.
Comment by Frosty D Snowman Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:40 am
Once again, Governor Daley….oh wait…he’s never been elected to statewide office…tries forcing his agenda on the entire state.
A couple of things I’d like to point out:
1. Banning guns only means that criminals will have them.
2. Chicago has a gun ban…yeah that’s worked.
3. If they want to ban them under state jurisdiction, why don’t they make the legislation specific to Cook County or Chicago (which is what they want to do all the time anyway).
4. Chicago is trying to get the Olympics. My question is: there are shooting events in the Olympics….what does the Mayor plan on doing…letting the Olympians compete and then have them arrested?
5. As was my understanding from one of the earlier proposed bills, all different types of guns would be banned, but that people from other states would be allowed to enter the state with prohibited weapons to go to the Sparta World Shooting Complex; guess it would be ok for out-of-staters to have them but just not Illinoisans.
6. It all gets down to control.
Comment by Common sense Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:00 am
Dictator Daley, err, well he might like that label but his power ends at city limits. Dooohhhh!
Comment by Sam Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:14 am
You know, someone’s 6 year-old could have a hairdryer fall into the bathtub, where the kid could get electrocuted, or some toddler might have fun poking metal objects into an outlet not properly childproofed. Are they going to ticket parents for those potentially life-threatening safety violations?
There will NEVER be enough gun control for Dems, because they’ll keep coming up with new things to nitpick, all the while sitting there and screaming at pro-life Republicans who cannot fathom why anyone would NOT support a late term abortion ban (even many pro-choicers) and why no one is calling for a reduction in the showing of gun violence in films. Such hypocrisy.
You can’t hurt yourself in Democrat land. You can’t smoke anywhere anymore. There’s a trans-fat ban coming to a state near you. You must buckle up; it’s the law. You must have trigger locks. You can’t speak freely on college campuses due to the speech codes that effectively outlaw “insensitivity.”
Remind me again why I should feel bad about seeming “conservative” in the sense that I think government ought to conserve more of that energy wasted on trying to manage your behavior FOR you.
Government is Hillary Clinton’s “village” from hell. Just stop it already. Stop!
Comment by Angie Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:40 am
No more laws, how about they enforce the laws that make sense and are on the books.
Comment by Wumpus Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:13 am
I have a question. Why is Mayor Daley so vocal with this gun control issue, but has been invisible and has said NOTHING regarding our electric rates going up 30 percent. What kind of leadership is that? Even our Governor has said nothing. I can’t understand how Com Ed is going to get away with this.
Comment by swede Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:26 am
Hey, I would trade most of that for a concealed carry law with restrictions written by the NRA. An interesting point was made about the Olympic shooting sports. Why not build another shooting sports complex in Wisconsin for these events with Illinois tax money?
Comment by Ali Bin Haddin Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 11:09 am
I don’t own a weapon, but if they come beating down my door to search for weapons, they will have to pry my staplegun from my cold, dead hand. Maybe I need to buy a automatic nail gun before they are also outlawed.
Comment by independent downstater Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:54 pm
The comments regarding the Olympics remind me that I had a minor role in planning a national training conference of law enforcement officers in Chicago a few years back. The conference is funded by a fee to each officer but in order to keep costs down we have quite a few raffles. Several manufacturers of handguns and long guns that are used by cops were willing to donate guns to be raffled to COPS ONLY, obviously abiding by all laws, state and federal. (Three Illinois companies in particular wished to donate weapons.) The co-hosts who worked with the Chicago Police Department told us that under no circumstances could hand guns or AR-15 “assault rifles” be brought into the city of Chicago for if Mayor Daley heard of it he would punish the department and possibly the involved officers. It was then suggested that we could use photos of the weapons, and the raffle winner could have the weapon shipped from the manufacturer to a licensed firearm dealer, but the CPD officers feared losing their jobs if the Mayor heard that they participated in arming police officers. I asked if Mayor Daley has an armed security detail but my nervous companions declined to answer!
Comment by Freezeup Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 4:05 pm
Yes, and I believe that when Terry Hillard was Field Marshall at he CPD, he sent out a memo ordering all CPD officers to destroy their privately owned firearms.
Comment by Frosty D Snowman Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:09 pm
How can anyone take Mayor Daley’s gun prohibition proposals seriously when he allows his bodyguards, aldermen, and political allies to carry handguns for self-defense? What makes the defense of their lives more important that the defense of my life? Mayor Daley is a hypocrite!
Comment by Pro-Gunner Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 7:03 am