Obama's home state offers a lesson on path to gun laws
Obama's home state offers a lesson on path to gun laws
By Greg McCune | Reuters
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obama...191817411.html
Quote:
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The failure of President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois to pass new restrictions on guns could prove instructive for Obama's own fledging campaign to enact stricter national gun laws.
Within days after a gunman killed 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, some Illinois state legislators sought to capitalize on the national outcry about gun violence to launch a new broadside on the availability of guns. The Illinois proposals were similar to the plan unveiled by Obama on Wednesday to ban so-called assault weapons and ammunition clips that permit rapid firing of multiple bullets.
But even in Illinois, a so-called blue state that went for Obama in the November presidential election, the gun proposals faltered early in the process, done in by the state's urban-rural divide and opposition from the country's powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. Although the bills were approved by an Illinois Senate panel, with Democrats in favor and Republicans against, the plan never made it to a vote on the floor of the state Senate -- despite a Democratic majority. The measures were seen as too restrictive, and some doubted they would work. Lawmakers were distracted by other issues, also a factor in Washington.
"It is hard to overstate how touchy people are on that issue," Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield, said. That said, New York has proven that tighter gun restrictions can be passed. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, this week signed into law one of the nation's gun-control measures and the first to be enacted since the Newtown massacre. And that in a state with its own urban-rural divide and a Senate controlled by Republicans.
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CONFISCATING GUNS
The proposal in Illinois drew immediate opposition from gun lobbyists. The Illinois State Rifle Association, which is aligned with the National Rifle Association, issued an "alert" to members. It said in a statement that the law would have covered 83 percent of guns and would cause them to be confiscated. NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde criticized the proposals at the state capitol in Springfield, saying even some hunting rifles would be banned. "This is an attempt to shame law-abiding gun owners... treat them like sex offenders," he said.
Lawmaker Franks said he received hundreds of emails and phone calls from supporters of gun ownership. Gun control supporters said the confiscation assertion was hyperbole. The text of the proposal said that assault weapons already possessed by Illinois residents were excluded provided that they were registered with the state police. Some Illinois lawmakers were distracted by financial and economic issues and preferred not to deal with gun legislation. A higher priority for them was the state's fiscal crisis, which threatens a downgrade of the state's already low debt rating, an echo of the debt ceiling debate looming over Obama and Congress.
Proponents of control have already vowed to try again later in the year. "Teddy bears are more regulated than guns. That's got to change," said state Senator Dan Kotowski, a Democrat from suburban Chicago and a sponsor of one of the gun control proposals.
