So what happened? Here’s some information that got forwarded on to us from an insider in the process.
Usually adding an amendment is not that big a deal and parliamentary in nature. Kinda run of the mill stuff. And a lot of reps were out late the night before, knowing we were going home for a short break.
Session began at 9am and shortly thereafter, the gun grabbers tried to move the bill by adopting the amendment to get it to third reading.
Due to Rep. Kay not being able to ask all the questions he wanted to in committee, he was going to get them out on the floor. Rep. Sullivan noticed the floor attendance and asked for a roll call.
On amendments, you only need to prevail, you don’t need to have 60, just more than the other side.
Several Democrats – about six or so – were excused for the day. Then as a rule of thumb, you never run a heater bill like this, even as an amendment just moving it from 2nd to 3rd when a third of the members are not there.
Our pro-gun friends Representatives Jerry Costello and Brandon Phelps saw the floor. They saw they could kill this thing right then and there and started to get to work.
Our guys started asking questions and staff soon realized there was a problem. The gun grabbers were trying to stall to find people when they didn’t understand the nature of the beast. Roll call goes up on the board and then they get 43. We get over 50 NAYS with five of our legislative friends missing.
The loss was an embarrassing and humiliating defeat for the other side.
The ARS gun grabbers and their paid lobbyists – and some others – kept telling people they were within a couple of votes of passing.
They are not. Not even close, as the vote showed.
But the math has always been the same, grab every Democrat they can and try to find 4-6 Republicans that would flip on us.
The sponsor, Kathleen Willis, was devastated. She later came up to us and admitted that there was a gun ban in there and it was language added by the ARS people who helped draft the bill. She would file an amendment to take that out.
They extended the deadline on 1016. There are some high priced lobbyists and very well-connected lobbyists behind this. Don’t forget that.
So they will file an amendment, because #6 is dead. They need a new one to start over. Floor amendments only take 1 hour posting if they go to committee or they can pop them right out on the floor. We will need to be on our toes.
At the same time we are going to get a chance on legalizing suppressors.
An amendment will be forth coming and looks like SB-206 committee hearing on Sunday afternoon. Stay tuned. We are heading into the last 3 days. They have a House bill which needs 3 readings in the senate. That means if it doesn’t pass by Sunday, they cannot meet the constitutional requirements before the 31st. With the ongoing budget fiasco, we’ll be back and that will give them a few more bites at the apple. So unlike normal years when they gavel out and its over, not so much this year. It will be alive all summer long.
On the brightside, the Americans for Responsible Solutions clown car posse, along with head clowns Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords came back in with a big press conference. It was poorly attended, and trumpeted background checks for people at gun stores and how we needed gun dealer licensing. Except now they leave out the big box stores so it’s not really about licensing dealers- it’s about running them out of business.
They got 43 on their first roll call. That’s embarrassing. They had a super majority of Democrats controlling the chamber and 28 of them said no or walked away. They got just 1 Republican.
They were rebuked. Badly.
And now, they are simply going to start making people mad to keep pushing an issue.
There are games within games going on here. And nothing here is a straight line. Our facts and issues play well. Dealers are engaged and we are hoping to build off of that this summer.
72 hours of regular session remain. Keep the faith. We got the ball, we’re at their 25 yard line. There’s two minutes on the clock. And we’re the guys with the Superbowl rings from prior years. We can do this.
Kudos to those on the floor fighting the good fight for gun owners and dealers.
The suppressor change is good but have we tried to get carry legalized at rest stops?
Bravo.
My only question is will they be able to cobble together 20 votes?
My guess is no, but you never know what those ARS scumbags will do next.
I hope people don’t miss the irony that Gabby Gifford, Mark Kelly and all the rest of the Americans for Retarded Solutions came into Illinois to show the “rubes” here how to pass gun control.
Maybe Illinoisans don’t want what ARS is selling.
Personally, I don’t think anyone would give a damn what Gabby has to say if she wasn’t all gimped up. I am also not sure why anyone with a modicum of intelligence would follow someone with literally only half a brain.
If she didn’t have her Congressional pension and her ARS salary, she would probably be in a public nursing home, raising her one half-good hand to ask for someone to change her adult diaper.
Nothing but DEPENDS gets between Gabby and her Calvin Klein jeans.
Go home, carpetbagger. We don’t want you here. You aren’t wanted or needed here.
As always, Guns Save Life keeps us in the know. Top-notch gun rights advocacy! God bless the USA and all our soldiers that have died protecting our freedoms against this very type of tyranny.