Alphecca

So-So News in Illinois

Poor Mayor Daley of Chicago. He keeps trying to disarm law-abiding citizens and the Illinois Legislature keeps, er, shooting him down. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Illinois lawmakers Thursday mowed down a series of major gun-control bills favored by Gov. Blagojevich and Mayor Daley during a marathon day of legislative sausage-making.

[...]

By a 37-21 vote, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a National Rifle Association-backed package that would require purchasers at gun shows to undergo criminal background checks, force the State Police to destroy those background records after 90 days and scrap most local gun-control laws outside Chicago. That bill moves to the House, but its fate there appeared in doubt after House members rejected an identical NRA-backed bill by a 63-50 vote with 71 votes needed for passage.

The same lack of legislative choreography stymied a stripped-down bill favored by gun-control advocates that dealt strictly with the gun-show issue. By a 63-51 vote, the House approved and sent to the Senate legislation requiring criminal background checks on buyers at gun shows, but the Senate shot down an identical measure 26-29, four votes shy of 30 needed for passage.

Separate efforts to hold gun makers liable for shooting deaths and injuries and to give towns the ability to declare gun shops public nuisances also lost in the Senate by 24-31 votes, six votes shy of the minimum needed for passage.

And finally, a bid to limit gun purchases to one a month collapsed on a 20-34 Senate roll call, with 30 votes needed for passage.

Attempts to institute an assault weapons ban, an initiative being pushed aggressively by Blagojevich, remained in legislative dry dock.

"Chicago Democrats run everything, and yet Chicago has prevailed on nothing," NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde said.

Blagojevich praised the House for passing the gun show loophole bill and blocking the NRA's attempts to destroy background check information and undo local gun-control laws.

Do any of you have the specifics on that bill -- what it uses for definitions?