How Will it Fare in the Senate?

Mdeigan is happy - his hands are clean:

• Over objections of Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the House approved a concealed weapons bill today that is aimed at ending Illinois’ status as the last state in the nation without a law to allow its citizens to carry guns in public.
  
  But the gun bill backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan goes to a Senate where President John Cullerton has denounced the proposal because it would override local gun laws like Chicago’s assault weapons ban.
  
  
• The bill is designed to create a law that spells out who can carry concealed weapons in Illinois and where they can carry them, but the legislation’s removal of home-rule powers also wiped out local firearms laws—giving more fuel to the opposition of Quinn, Cullerton and Emanuel.
  
  Chicago Democratic Rep. Ann Williams said the bill would wipe off the books local assault weapon bans and taxes on gun purchases, Williams called for the defeat of the Phelps bill and for support of a stricter, New York-styled law to “reflect the realities” of differences between rural areas and urban areas like Chicago.
  
  
• Quinn quickly issued a statement vowing to block passage in the Senate. “This legislation is wrong for Illinois," he said.
  
  “The principle of home rule is an important one. As written, this legislation is a massive overreach that would repeal critical gun safety ordinances in Chicago, Cook County, and across Illinois. We need strong gun safety laws that protect the people of our state. Instead, this measure puts public safety at risk. I will not support this bill and I will work with members of the Illinois Senate to stop it in its tracks,” the statement read.

We are constantly amused that Quinn and his ilk spout off about "gun safety in Chicago" where the streets run red with blood despite the presence of what have been called the strictest gun laws in the nation. And the comparison to rural Illinois is nonsense, too, seeing as how a higher rate of gun ownership there is in direct proportion to lower crime rates.

As someone said, we have one Illinois Vehicle Code for all of Illinois. One Criminal Code. One set of rules covering Concealed Carry ought to be plenty for Illinois.