ELECTION 2014: What it all means in Illinois, and beyond

by John Boch

I was given permission to share something written by someone I know and trust.  Someone with an inside track on the General Assembly and who has been there for decades.  He doesn’t want his name used.

I’ve incorporated some of my thoughts as well, so the final product is a hybrid.

What does it all mean?

Simple:  BREATHING ROOM

Nationally: 

With the U.S. Senate going to the Republicans, gun control at the national level is officially a dead duck.

Or a dead bunny, depending on how you hop.

It was pretty much dead already as we command a strong pro-gun presence in the U.S. House of Representatives – which was made stronger by this week’s elections.  After the new Congress is sworn in though, there will be no gun bills going to the President’s desk.

Yes, that means Chuckie Schumer, Diane Feinstein and friends are just plain out of luck to move their gun control games and run their schemes. That takes pressure off of us from the national level.

Oh yeah, remember that Global Gun Control Treaty the Obama regime signed onto?  That treaty’s ratification is going nowhere as well.   Remember, a couple of years ago, the majority of Democrat U.S. Senators refused to say they’d vote against its ratification.

Of course, the next question is what will Obama do by executive action? How far does he think he can go without further damaging the Democrat party or does he just not care?

There have been rumors of something big being drawn up at ATF.  They are keeping a pretty tight lid on things so we wait and see.  You know how rumors are though.

Here in Illinois:   OPPORTUNITIES!

With Quinn losing, his anti-gun bully-pulpit is gone.   So are Neighborhood Recover Initiative-style state grants to promote gun control.

Quinn’s dominance over state agencies is gone, as are most of his appointees, many of whom where philosophically aligned with the clueless one.

There are some huge opportunities for us with the new Rauner administration.

Rauner doesn’t hate guns.  In fact, it’s rumored that he is a strong supporter of gun rights.  (There’s that ‘rumor’ word again…)  Even if he doesn’t like guns as much as most of us, he’s not going to be hell-bent on creating obstacles and problems for gun owners like Quinn  (see some of the arbitrary and capricious rule-making regarding the new concealed carry law, for instance).  Rauner’s pen won’t run out of ink signing every gun control bill that lands on his desk.

A lot of folks in State government who have caused us a great deal of grief over the last few years had better be working on their resumes.

Our Immediate threat

Our most immediate threat is the veto session and the lame-duck session in early January.  It’s going to be wild and wooly as Quinn and the gun control crowd know it is their last and final chance to pass gun control in Illinois for at least the next four years.

Legislative make-up:  No change.

A lot of people spill a lot of ink writing about Republicans vs. Democrats in the General Assembly.

Our issue is less about R vs. D, but about pro-gun vs. those who despise guns.

While we were optimistic things would break a little more favorably in the pro-gun direction, that didn’t exactly happen.  Looking at it another way:  we lost nothing inside the state capitol building.

One loss – Mike Jacobs – was a true friend.  However, replacing an A-rated candidate (on guns) with another isn’t really that valuable in our way of looking at things.

The legislature remains pretty much the same in terms of pro-gun vs. anti-gun.

The bottom line is that if we can hold the politicians we had on our side to beat back the magazine ban by two votes in both the House and the Senate, we’re going to be fine as far as keeping legislation off the governor’s desk.

What’s more important, even if we have a defection or three, we’ve got a guy by the name of Bruce Rauner.   I really believe he will prove to be our backstop.

He doesn’t seem to be interested in making gun control part of his plan.   In fact, if we are to believe his aides, he doesn’t support gun control.  What’s that mean in English?  It means a whole bunch more “squishy” legislators are going to ask themselves, “Why should I cast an anti-gun vote on a bill if it’s just gonna get vetoed?”  The House and Senate leadership (Madigan for both, effectively) aren’t even going to call a bill for a vote if they know it’s going to get vetoed unless it’s politically expedient for them.  I assure you, there’s grief to be taken for supporting anti-gun bills – that’s how all of you grassroots gun supporters are more valuable than Bloomberg’s millions.

Speaking of money:

The Bloomberg Moms tried to spend a bunch of money to buy some dates for the Gun Control Ball.  They got nothing.

Anti-gunners spent nearly a half-million and got very little bang for their buck (pun intended).    They spent over $270,000 touting Quinn’s die-hard support for banning America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15, and other scary guns and it didn’t move the needle.   They dropped $30K on Batnick they got…  not even a squib.  They might as well as have been firing blanks at the Rebboletti open seat.

For almost a half-mil, you would have thought big gun control could have gotten something – anything – to show for it.  The fact that they didn’t should be very troubling to them.

So, in Illinois, like most other states, the Moms Demanding Action were looking for a date and voters stood them up.   All the Moms have are cute little internet slogans and precious little else.

What’s coming

Look for Mayor “Tiny Dancer” Rahm, Cook County Board Czar Preckwinkle and Cook County’s State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez become the mouthpieces for gun control in the state.   Look for them to trumpet their flawed, non-binding referendum question for all its worth in the coming weeks and months.

Yes, it’s going to make us work harder, especially in this veto session and the lame-duck session coming in January, but we’re not afraid of work because our cause is just and our work noble.

We will have to work hard.  To win, we need to hold all of our votes and find new ones. We have to educate legislators and set up for the 2016 election starting now.

In our favor will be a year of right-to-carry without incident.   What’s more, thanks to all of you, our intensity is orders of magnitude greater than the other side.

I feel pretty good about things right now.

And you should too.

Just don’t get complacent!