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.
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