* The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will be endorsing Gov. Quinn this morning…

A national antigun group is endorsing Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in the November election.

Quinn’s campaign office says he will pick up the backing of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence at a Tuesday event on Chicago’s South Side.

The group believes that the recent Supreme Court decision striking down Chicago’s gun laws can still be used to promote robust gun control. From their website…

“We are pleased that the Court reaffirmed its language in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent our elected representatives from enacting common-sense gun laws to protect our communities from gun violence. We are reassured that the Court has rejected, once again, the gun lobby argument that its ‘any gun, for anybody, anywhere’ agenda is protected by the Constitution. The Court again recognized that the Second Amendment allows for reasonable restrictions on firearms, including who can have them and under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are available.

“Chicago can amend its gun laws to comply with this ruling while continuing to have strong, comprehensive and Constitutional gun laws, just as Washington D.C. has done. After the Heller decision, at least 240 legal challenges have been brought to existing gun laws, nearly all of which have been summarily dismissed. There is nothing in today’s decision that should prevent any state or local government from successfully defending, maintaining, or passing, sensible, strong gun laws.”

* Meanwhile, somebody in Illinois finally noticed that Gov. Quinn signed a bill into law late Friday evening. From the Sun-Times editorial page…

If you play a long shot in poker, you’d better be ready for a losing hand.

With legislation that Gov. Quinn signed Friday to amend the 2009 Video Gaming Act, Illinois is playing a long shot: that organized crime won’t creep into the newly authorized video gaming industry.

Theoretically, this law could prove a winner for Illinois, just as you can theoretically win a poker hand with a pair of deuces.

Problem is, the odds against you are pretty steep.

Now, if they’d just open their eyes and look around, they’d see a whole bunch of other actions that Quinn successfully buried Friday night. It’s truly amazing to me that the entire Illinois media has let Quinn get away with this.

* In other news, the Tribune whacked the guv but good today…

On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Quinn budget director David Vaught had predicted during an interview that, in January, Illinois lawmakers would raise the income tax by 2 percentage points. Quinn, in full damage control mode, on Thursday admonished Vaught for speaking out of turn, said Vaught’s remark was “misconstrued” and added that a Bloomberg reporter from out of state didn’t understand what Vaught said. Quinn reiterated his support for a 1 percent income tax increase — sorry, a 1 percent surcharge for education — and added that he would veto anything else.

The wheels fell off that “misconstrued” explanation Friday when the Capitol Fax Blog posted a video recording of Bloomberg’s interview with Vaught. His words: “We fully expect that we’re going to pass a tax increase in January. We think it’s going to be substantial.” Asked to define “substantial,” Vaught explained Quinn’s support, variously, of a 2 percent hike and a 1 percent hike and concluded, “To me that’s the range of possibilities.” Then John Sinsheimer, Quinn’s director of capital markets, made 2 percent sound like Quinn’s true goal: “The overseas investors we talked to, when we told them we could balance the budget with a 2 percent increase in individual and corporate income taxes, that pretty much raises about $6 billion, slightly less than that — that’s the deficit.” The overseas investors, he added were impressed. “They looked at us and said, ‘Only a 2 percent increase?’ They were amazed by that.”

Illinois taxpayers may be amazed too. We can’t top the headline on Bloomberg’s follow-up story: “Illinois sends contrasting messages to bond buyers, voters on deficit plan.” Oh, and about that supposedly clueless out-of-state Bloomberg reporter: Among the three Bloomberg journalists conducting the interview with Vaught and Sinsheimer was Flynn McRoberts, a former Tribune staffer and now Bloomberg’s Chicago bureau chief.

I can’t argue with any of that.

* And non-union state workers won’t have to use holidays for furlough days…

However, CMS said employees may voluntarily use that option to meet the requirement that they take 24 unpaid days off by June 30, 2011.

Rules fleshing out how the furlough program, ordered by Gov. Pat Quinn, will work were issued to state agency directors, budget directors and other managers who work under Quinn’s control. The rules still leave a lot of discretion to agencies to see that the furlough day commitment is followed while still ensuring that the agency can function. […]

At one time, the administration was considering requiring employees to use their paid state holidays to fulfill the furlough requirement. State employees get 12 paid holidays between now and the June 30, 2011 end of the current fiscal year. Forcing non-union workers to forego pay on the holidays would allow the state to get the benefit of furlough days at a time when the majority of employees would be off work anyway.

However, the CMS memo makes the use of holidays as furlough days voluntary, not mandatory. CMS spokeswoman Alka Nayyar said the idea was dropped because it would have required a change to state personnel rules, a process that would take a minimum of 90 days. That would have further compressed the time in which employees had to take furlough days.

* Related…

* Our Opinion: Nix furlough plan once and for all

* Pro-Gun Control Group To Endorse Quinn