Who shot down the right-to-carry bill?

On May 5, 2010, the Illinois House of Representatives voted on HB 0148. The vote was 65-52-1, and the bill was pulled for future consideration in order to avoid being flushed down the drain completely. Pulling it meant the vote wasn't recorded - officially. But you can see a photo of the vote board on this blog and in other places on the web. The goal was 71 votes, to prevent tampering by home-rule cities and a veto by Gov. Quinn.

What’s interesting is the following:

Three Republicans voted against the bill.

Fifty Democrats voted against it.

Of the 53 House Districts voting against the bill, only nine (9) were not in Cook County! Forty-three (43) Representatives – from Cook County – voted against this bill.

More Whites voted against this bill than all other races combined.

The NO vote was divided almost evenly between men and women in the House.

The vast majority of NO votes came from those who became Representatives since 2000.

Illinois legislators are, for the most part, a pretty well educated bunch – on paper. What I wonder is why, when 48 other states trust their law-abiding citizens to use firearms responsibility, do they stick their heads in the sand and fall back on “We don’t want the Wild, Wild West here.” What? They’d rather have men, women and kids being killed almost every day in Chicago? In Cook County?

It’s the elected representatives of the people who are being killed who are preventing the passage of this bill.

Retiring Mayor Richard Daley is apparently afraid to live in his own city without armed police protection. He wants three police officers assigned to him for his safety after he retires. What’s that going to cost? $300,000 or more a year? If he lives 20 years, that’s $6,000,000 (without adjustment for increases). Gee, now who would want to harm Daley? But he wants the protection (and he’ll probably get it).

Did Daley, Emanuel and Madigan put the screws to the legislators to prevent them from representing their own voters? How did they do that? House Representatives should not be controlled by the Democratic bloc in Chicago politics, but it sure looks like they were. And are. Or is it “only” a coincidence?