So everyone is asking what happened with the Illinois Senate passing the Gun Dealer Licensing bill. In short, we lost two votes that we thought we had locked up. As you’ve read, Senator Don Harmon and friends made deals to lessen the opposition. His plan worked.
You can also add that since the November election, our guys have gotten complacent. That same election has the other side simply apoplectic. Hillary’s loss has bent lots of leftists completely out of shape. On top of that, we’ve got a phalanx of Washington, DC lobbyists pounding Illinois House and Senate members.
The result is downstate Senate Democrats, worried about their left flank, tossing gun owners under the bus in an effort to prevent primary challenges They figure they can smooth over any hard feelings of gun owners if they get through the primary. They must think we’re stupid in addition to forgetful.
Already some of these downstate Dems are trying to talk about voting for other pro-gun measures as a way of making up for their votes on the dealer bill. To them the dealer bill doesn’t affect gun owners. It’s all about those “bad” dealers in Cook County. They probably believe in unicorns too, and that if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan.
They refuse to believe that enough rules and regulations can be foisted upon gun dealers that would run them out of business.
In fact, the goal of Harmon, the bill’s sponsor, was to impose a regulatory rectal exam on those gun shops he doesn’t like so as to shut them down. Never mind that Chuck’s Gun Shop underwent an ATF inspection last November in which 10 — yes 10 — ATF agents showed up unannounced and spent three weeks going over their books with a fine-tooth comb.
What did they find? Nothing.
When was the last time you heard about ten ATF agents showing up to do an audit of a gun shop? Yeah, Rahm and friends called in a favor with the O’bummer regime before it shuffled off into history. And they found nothing improper. Not an un-dotted “i” or even an uncrossed “t”.
But that isn’t good enough for Senator Harmon. The result didn’t fit the narrative he wants. So now he wants to have someone else look at things and find a way to shut down a business he doesn’t like.
The difference on this vote that allowed SB-1657 to clear was made up by downstate Senate Democrats who, despite their image as “reasonable” Dems, unlike their Cook County pals, showed gun owners that they’re more than willing to throw us under the bus.
For example, Senator Scott Bennett had an NRA A-rating before selling out gun owners in voting for gun rationing, universal background checks, and gun dealer licensing. He probably won’t need to worry about getting any “A” grades from NRA in the future.
Expect to see Illinois’ downstate Dems try to make some sort of overture down the road to make amends.