ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE SHOOTS DOWN GUN CONTROL BILLS

April 15, 2005--The Illinois state Senate voted down a number of gun control bills favored by the governor and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and passed one compromise bill favored by the NRA.

The state Senate failed, by a 24 to 31 vote margin, to pass a bill that would have held gun makers liable for criminal misuse of their products, and also would have allowed municipalities to declare gun stores a public nuisance.

Also defeated was a bill that would limit gun purchases to one a month. That bill failed on a Senate vote of 20 to 34.

Another bill, one that Governor Rod Blagojevich had lobbied heavily for, would have banned so-called "assault weapons." That measure failed to be voted out of committee, and is now considered dead.

Perhaps the most controversial piece of legislation the Senate dealt with was a bill requiring background checks at gun shows.

The House had passed a gun show background check bill by a vote of 63 to 51, and sent that to the Senate, where it failed by a 26 to 29 margin.

As gun control advocates sought to revive the bill, and passage seemed increasingly likely, legislators introduced a substitute bill favored by the National Rifle Association.

That substitute bill, which passed by a 37 to 21 vote, would require that background check records from gun show sales be destroyed after ninety days. The bill would also scrap most local gun control laws outside the city of Chicago.

The requirements for the state police to destroy records, as well as the provision to eliminate local gun control laws, are certain to kill any chance of the bill passing the House. The House had previously voted against the NRA-backed version by a 63 to 50 vote margin.

Opponents of gun show background checks are hoping that the legislative gridlock between the House and Senate will ultimately doom any version of the bill.

The National Rifle Association was pleased with today's activity. "Chicago Democrats run everything, and yet Chicago has prevailed on nothing," NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde told the Chicago Sun-Times.