The Capitol Fax Blog » A bipartisan gun control bill

Thursday, May 1, 2008

* This is an interesting turn of events. The House passed a gun control bill yesterday with 74 votes. Even serious gun rights proponents like Rep. Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein) voted for the bill, so it wasn’t the usual gun legislation, drafted in a vacuum with only supporters’ views in mind…

The Illinois House has approved legislation that would punish parents who fail to keep guns away from their mentally ill children. The measure would cover parents or guardians of anyone under 21 with a diagnosed mental disorder. They would be required to keep guns away from their children or face the loss of their Firearm Owner Identification Card. Losing the gun permit would happen only if the parents failed twice to keep the guns locked up.

* More…

The bill, which heads to the Senate, was drafted in response to a Rockford area case in which a 14-year-old boy shot his 15-year-old friend in the chest with his parents’ gun. State officials said the boy had gotten in trouble for four prior gun-related incidents, including being suspended after bringing ammunition to school and shooting a 10-year-old with a BB gun.

Many Republicans denounced the bill and compared it to taking the driver’s license of a parent whose teenager accidentally kills someone with the family car after twice using it without permission.”What you are doing is changing the standard,” said Rep. Roger Eddy (R-Hutsonville).

Usually, these gun control votes are pretty predictable, with not quite 60 House members voting “Yes” and everybody else hitting their red buttons. That wasn’t the situation yesterday, however.

Besides Rep. Sullivan, other somewhat surprising Republican “Yes” votes included: Hassert, Leitch, Pritchard, Reboletti, Saviano, Schmitz and Tryon. Two usually pro-gun rights Downstate Dems also voted “Yes” - Dugan and Granberg.

* Read the bill’s synopsis here, check individual votes here, read the whole thing here.

- posted by Rich Miller

9 Comments

- Ken in Aurora - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 11:46 am:
I would have been more comfortable with a restriction on possessing firearms until the little brats were out of the house, but that would probably be have been unworkable.

- VanillaMan - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 12:11 pm:
We don’t have brats.

We have incredible human beings that we love dearly and sacrifice our very being to nurture.

Try it and become a man too.

- Ken in Aurora - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 12:31 pm:
VM - what’s with the attack? On re-reading, I see I was hasty with the “brat” label as the legislation only affects children with a “diagnosed mental disorder”. The Trib article implied this was in response to misbehaving (criminal) kids, thus the “brat”.

Again, what’s with the personal attack? Not very manly.

- Chanson - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 12:35 pm:
The age limit should have been less than 18 years of age.

- T.i.w.i.t - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 12:53 pm:
Aren’t parents by law already criminally responsable for their children’s actions in regards to firearm crimes? If so, wouldn’t, if convicted, that make the parents ineligible for a FOID card?
Seems like feel good parent/child control law, which would probably be easier to pass under a gun control cloak that hey here’s an idea be accountable and take the responsibility you have as a parent serious.

- NRA Endowment Life Member - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 1:00 pm:
I have a real problem with this. The text of the bill apparently calls for revocation of the FOID of a parent if they cannot prevent a child (that meets certain criteria) from obtaining firearms or ammunition. This would seem to indicate that a parent could potentially be punished for their child being give a firearm outside of the home by a third party.

If, for example, another child who already illegally possesses a firearm gives it to the child with the ‘diagnosed mental disorder’, should the parent of said child be held responsible even though he or she was not physically present to stop the action? Also, who is to define ’severe or major mood disorder’? This ambiguity is unacceptable in my opinion. The whole bill, as written, smacks a little too close to a ’sins of the father’ definition for my comfort zone.

Once again, this looks like a hastily conceived, ill-crafted and overly broad attempt to do SOMETHING. This seems to be typical of most of the legislation that we get at the state level these days. It is this kind of thing that keeps people like me from supporting any restrictive gun control measure.

- Pro-Gunner - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 3:44 pm:
I am suspicious of any gun-control bill sponsored by well-known rabid gun prohibitionists.

- Not even close to rocket science - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 4:10 pm:
This Yes vote for the traditional No’s is just a way for those same lawmakers to say they are passing legislation that will curb tragic incidences like NIU - watch the campaign lit - pure and simple folks.

- amy - Thursday, May 1, 08 @ 5:32 pm:
what 4:10 said.

pathetic effort on all sides.

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