One week before Gov. Pat Quinn proposes his first state budget to the General Assembly, legislators and advocates of all stripes are revisiting a lot of issues they tried but failed to enact during the Blagojevich Administration. This time, there’s a new context:
Deficit redux
By Hilary Russell
Members of the bipartisan Senate Committee on Deficit Reduction held the first of four hearings today to determine how to pare down the state deficit. Education advocates and officials testified for three hours about how budget cuts to education would have lasting consequences.
Sen. Matt Murphy, a Palatine Republican, chairs the committee with Sen. Donne Trotter, a Chicago Democrat. Murphy said today’s hearing detracts from the committee’s initial intention. “We want to know where you’re willing to cut and where we think we can cut. I mean, it’s not supposed to be a parade of people explaining how they’re indispensable,” he said.
Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University, said the school received $ 9 million less this year than it did eight years ago, and that loss resulted in tuition hikes that nearly doubled the cost of an education since 2004.
Trotter said he viewed the committee hearing as a positive work-in-progress. “We asked the individuals, the stakeholders, to talk about how we could find money. And there were some ideas that weren’t considered before. I think we are getting the feel of what we can seriously be looking at that individuals are willing to stomach,” he said.
The hearings will span through March 24, covering topics such as health and human services, pensions and state government operations and revenues and reductions. The next committee meets Tuesday, March 10, and will discuss the Healthcare and Family Service budget deficit and revenue shortfall. Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, and Senator Minority Leader Christine Radogno, a Lemont Republican, each appointed five party members to the committee.
Gun bill advances
By Jamey Dunn
Gun owners may have to report any loss or theft of a handgun to local police within three days or they could lose the right to own a firearm.
House Bill 845, sponsored by Chicago Democrat Sen. Edward Acevedo, passed out of a House committee today with a 6 to 4 vote. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez testified in favor of the measure, which she called “common sense gun legislation.” She said it would help law enforcement track guns that are used in crimes because the owners often supply the guns to people who commit the crimes, and then the owners claim they lost the gun.
Todd Vandermyde, spokesman for the Illinois Rifle Association, said the bill is unconstitutional because it could take away the right to own a firearm for a “failure to report a property crime.” He said that current laws should be properly enforced to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Failing to report a lost or stolen handgun the first time would be a petty offense. A second offense could carry the weight of a felony, possible jail time and loss of the Firearm Owner’s Identification Card, which is required for gun ownership in Illinois.
I doubt you'll hear the Illinois State Rifle Association raising these arguments in public, but this column by author Kristian Williams and activist Peter Little takes a look at the historical racial undertones of the gun control debate in America.
Talking About Guns, Fighting About Race is an eye-opener:
Truth is, there has always been gun control in America. Starting in the colonial period and continuing after the American Revolution, laws excluded specific people from gun ownership — slaves, free blacks, Indians, poor whites, non-Protestants and even some heterodox Protestant sects.During the same period, militias — which never performed particularly well in military engagements — were chiefly responsible for putting down insurrections. And in the South, they were responsible for organizing slave patrols to police the black population.
After the Civil War, Southern states sought to preserve this tradition by instituting “black codes” that barred blacks from owning guns, land or businesses. At the same time, terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan continued the work of the slave patrols, using violence to restrict blacks’ travel, suppress their political activity and disarm them.
And more recently...
In Watson v. Stone (1941), the Florida Supreme Court overturned the gun conviction of a white man. Justice Rivers Buford wrote in his concurring opinion: “The Act was passed for the purpose of disarming negro laborers. … [It] was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.”A quarter century later, in 1967, California passed its Panther Law, with the specific aim of ending the Black Panthers’ armed patrols against police brutality.
White supremacy has refined its presentation since the civil rights period, relying increasingly on nominally colorblind laws. Yet many gun regulations — bans on guns in housing projects and laws that take the cheapest pistols off the market, for example — have continued to disproportionately affect people of color.
Concluding...
Many liberals trust the state to respect the rights of individuals and to protect them against crime and disorder. They see no role for private gun ownership under the rule of law.Many conservatives retain some suspicion of government regulation and don’t believe the state capable of protecting decent law-abiding people. They see gun ownership both as an emblem of citizenship and as a protection against those they view as criminals — historically, blacks and, at present, immigrants.
The disagreement is over who should have guns.
The point of agreement is over who shouldn’t.
As presently construed, both the gun-control and the gun-rights arguments — that is, both the liberal and the conservative positions — represent the defense of white supremacy.
I live in Morton Grove, which prides itself, seriously, as the first municipality in the United States to institute a handgun ban. That was back in 1981, shortly after three prominent assassination attempts took place: John Lennon in late 1980, which sadly was successful, followed by the spring 1981 shootings of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
That ban may be un-banned after today's landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar handgun ban in the District of Columbia. Already the National Rifle Association is taking aim (Sorry, I couldn't resist) at anti-gun laws across America, including the one in Chicago.
Now if the Morton Grove Board of Trustees and our mayor, Rick Krier, are smart, they'd vote to toss out the gun ban, and save the 22,000 residents of Morton Grove thousands of dollars in legal fees. Fighting the ban is a losing cause. Besides, crime in Morton Grove, like most middle to upper middle class suburbs (I'm middle, by the way) involves the usual array of indiscretions shared with like-minded communities: shoplifting, driving under the influence, home burglaries, fistfights, petty vandalism, and domestic abuse. There may be a person or two who have reasons to fear for their lives, but as far as crime goes, making handguns legal won't change things much here. And almost all of those burglaries, like most others, take place when no one is home.
But late last year Morton Grove police were called to the home of a man who lives four blocks from me because his adult son told the cops his father had a handgun. The police didn't find any firearms, but discovered the man was allegedly producing fake credit cards.
Most, if not all of the arrests of people possessing handguns in Morton Grove are of motorists pulled over for serious driving indiscretions--this allows the police to search the offender's vehicle, where a gun is sometimes found.
Here is some background on the gun ban--from Morton Grove, 100 Years, A Tradition of Service, published in 1995.
On June 8, 1981, the Morton Grove Board of Trustees passed two ordinances relating to firearms. One prohibits the sale of handguns within the village, the other restricts the possession of handguns within the village. The genesis of these ordinances was in direct response to residents' requests that a gun store be prohibited from opening and doing business in their neighborhood.
During their thorough study of the issue, several trustees felt it appropriate to consider the broader question of handgun control. The result of their deliberations, which were closely watched and presented to the world by the international news media, was a vote of five to one to prohibit the sale of handguns and a vote of four to two to restrict the possession of handguns.
As a result, Morton Grove residents who own handguns have the option of storing them out of town or at a licenced gun club. The regulation is on handguns only and no other legally owned firearms.
Channel 39, Fox TV in Rockford, has this story about a public hearing on Winnebago County Board member Randy Olson's proposal to have the county sheriff deputize citizens so they can use handguns to protect themselves.
175 people packed the Veterans Memorial Hall.
You can read details of the proposal in this article:
Since so few women stand up to be counted on their desire to be able to protect themselves from raper-muggers, one who did got interviewed.Chicago Mayor Richard Daley held something called a “gun summit” Friday.
But, you know what?
He didn't offer to disarm his body guards.
And, he didn't ask aldermen and women to turn in their guns (which they are allowed to have...unlike ordinary citizens in need of personal protection).
There has been other recent news on Chicago African-American views on guns and those of the McHenry County Board.
Every year for most of the nearly 20 years that Richard M. Daley has been mayor, he has pushed his people who work at the Statehouse in Springfield to get the Illinois General Assembly to approve a statewide ban on handguns similar to what is already THE LAW in Chicago.
The measures always get through legislative committees, where Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan – in keeping with his unofficial role of keeping the Legislature in line with Chicago’s desires – uses his pull to ensure that the issue gets a hearing.
Then, the Illinois House of Representatives engages in a rare act of bipartisanship as rural and suburban lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, come to the conclusion that “the enemy” is Chicago. They gang up, and vote the measure down.
At a time when the rural portions of Illinois only account for one-third (at most) of the state’s population, this issue has become one of the annual acts of state government. They kill off Daley’s dreams of gun control to show him that he can’t run roughshod over the rest of Illinois.
The most recent political killing took place Wednesday.
This year, Daley allies weren’t so bold as to push for any outright bans on firearms. What they wanted this year was creation of a state law that would have required the sale of handguns in Illinois to occur only at federally licensed firearms dealers – who must comply with laws requiring criminal background checks.
It was a measure designed by Chicago city officials to get around laws that allow private sales of firearms by dealers at gun shows, where background checks on the gun buyers are non-existent.
City-oriented officials argue that these private dealers are the loop hole by which handguns wind up in the possession of people who otherwise would not be able to get a gun, but rural people say the Daley-desired change in law would criminalize individuals who privately sell a pistol to a friend.
The bill received a 58-58 vote, with two other legislators – Eddie Washington of Waukegan and Jim Watson of Jacksonville – not voting because of excused absences. Had those two legislators cast votes for the measure (a long-shot), it would have passed with the bare minimum of 60 votes.
Now for those who think the city is being picked on by the rest of the state, keep in mind that Daley allies knew full well they would lose again this year. A similar measure had already been rejected this spring. There was only one reason for the bill to be called for a vote, and that was because of Wednesday’s date.
April 16, 2008 is the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech University where 32 students were killed when a well-armed student went on a rampage on campus.
Every single one of the 58 state representatives who voted against the Daley plan now runs the risk of having campaign advertising used against them that tells would-be voters how their local legislator celebrated, so-to-speak, the one-year anniversary of Virginia Tech by voting against “reasonable restrictions” on firearms.
Some of the legislators who come from suburban areas (who are only voting against the measure because they are Republicans opposing Democrat Daley) could run the risk of losing votes from people in their legislative districts who are not government junkies and do not follow the nuances of every single one of the thousands of bills that come before the General Assembly every year.
For rural legislators, this is less of an issue. Many come from small communities where rifle ownership can often be a cultural tie passed down from generation to generation. They are more likely to want to believe whatever spin the Illinois State Rifle Association wants to put on the issue, rather than the Daley spin.
Wednesday’s legislative action is a case of rural Illinois exerting what little influence it still holds (as they will be the first to tell you, all of the state constitutional officers and the General Assembly’s top leaders are from Chicago) on an issue where it believes the city’s desires are too far at odds with their own.
It literally becomes an issue where Southern Illinois Democrats have no problem breaking with their Chicago counterparts to unite with central Illinois Republicans to show that they are united in their desire not to be an extension of Chicago.
One legislator, Mike Bost of Murphysboro, said he thinks this year’s measure would have made criminals of the gun dealers who operate heavily in his area, and would not have any significant impact on violence in the city.
“It’s not going to cure your problem with criminals in your city with handguns,” Bost told the Bloomington, Ill.-based Pantagraph newspaper.
“Your problem,” and “your city.” That is the sad thing.
Guns have become an issue of regionalism overcoming common sense and a desire to reduce violence, made worse by the fact that “Illinois” is, at best, a theoretical concept – rather than a distinct region with unified interests.
This different perspective is not new. I still remember the 1998 Democratic primary for governor – when eventual nominee Glenn Poshard (who takes great pride in being a Southern Illinois native with no ties to Chicago) started off the campaign as an outspoken critic of any measures to restrict firearm ownership.
Eventually, though, even Poshard moderated his talk against gun control, often telling the story of how he visited a Chicago hospital emergency room at a moment when some shootings were being treated.
He would say during the latter days of the campaign (while trying to convince Chicagoans he was not some rural ‘gun nut’) it was at that moment that he realized just why so many urban residents wanted handgun restrictions and were willing to put aside the desires of hunters and the theoretical notion of the Second Amendment to the Constitution (which guarantees the American people the right to arm themselves so they can be in a militia).
Perhaps the key is to drag every rural legislator into the Stroger Hospital emergency room to give them a sense of the chaos that can be created by firearms in the city.
Maybe then, people like Bost would start seeing that there are commonalities in Illinois’ regions, despite the roughly 300 mile difference that exists between Chicago and his hometown.
Admittedly, Bost is from the region that literally is closer to Memphis than either Chicago or St. Louis – the two cities that 95 percent of Illinoisans identify with. That could be just too large a social gap to bridge.
But there are political people who live on the fringes of the Chicago area who act as though they wish they could put space between themselves and the city. They are the ones who need to have a little arm-twisting.
Ultimately, it will have to come down to Chicago’s political muscle being used to let all Illinoisans know just how much of an economic and social stake they have in an improved Chicago – one that is safe and secure both in reality and in perception.
The scary thing is that too many legislators would see this as an excuse to extort Chicago for some sort of local project. No matter what they might want to think, rural legislators aren’t any more ethical than their urban counterparts. Just think back to how many rural lawmakers were upset that they didn’t get more for their support of a Chicago Transit Authority emergency funding measure that finally got approval early this year.
Short of an extra effort by Chicago, there doesn’t seem to be any sense that the two sides will come together any time soon. In the words of state Rep. John Bradley, a Democrat from Marion, “we’re always going to have philosophical differences about the issues involving gun ownership in the state.”
-30-
(Originally published at http://www.ChicagoArgus.blogspot.com/)
Capitolfax asked what government can do to stop teen violence in Chicago. I took the challenge as a Democrat to come up with a list of ideas that didn't include gun control.
Why did I leave tougher gun control out? Mayor Daley is dogged when he really wants something, like the children's museum. But he's been talking about tougher gun control laws once a year now for atleast 10 years. I figure he must like talking about them more than he likes passing them.
I know some conservatives want to deny there's a link between crime and poverty. Just as some liberals want to deny there's a link between juvenile delinquency and single-family households. I'm told there are also people who still think the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of bleu cheese.
I think we can all agree poverty and broken families put kids and communities at greater risk. The root causes of crime are so complex and individualized that they are extremely difficult to prove, with many contribution factors, so its time to stop offering Magic Bullet solutions like one more gun law. At the same time, we shouldn't shirk from our responsibility to provide a comprehensive plan just because we're not sure of all the answers yet. That's why it took us 50 years to take on Big Tobacco and we still haven't addressed global warming.
So, here's my list:
1. Stop closing schools in Chicago without community input. Much of the escalating violence can be traced directly back to Mayor Daley’s decision to close schools, shifting kids with different gang allegiances to different schools.
2. Decrease classroom sizes and increase the number of teaching assistants. Disorder in the classroom leads to chaos outside the classroom, and class sizes are completely unmanageable.
3. Reinvest in extra-curricular programs, arts, music, and physical education. These programs are proven to motivate academically challenged kids and lift their performance. They also keep kids off the streets and away from gangs during after-school hours.
4. Strengthen community policing in troubled neighborhoods, and invest in a “Weed and Seed” program. East St. Louis’ “Weed and Seed” program is a cooperative effort between local, state and federal law enforcement that relies on a local community policing as its backbone, cracks down on career criminals (weeds) by going after them for everything from jaywalking on up, disrupting criminal networks.
5. Restore public faith in the police. Police can’t do it alone, they need community support, but Chicago has done everything possible to undermine public support, from John Burge on down.
6. Invest in communities. Unemployment in Chicago’s struggling neighborhoods is off the charts, especially among teenage black men. Black and Latino neighborhoods are shortchanged on everything from parks to schools to streets to police to economic investment.
7. Increase TANF payments. Public assistance payments (TANF) haven’t been increased since the 80’s, inviting crime into poor neighborhoods.
8. Reform our juvenile justice system. Many parents see their kids headed down the wrong path, but there’s nowhere for them to turn for help. If they go to the police, their son goes right to the juvenile detention center, and while the JDC is making progress down the road to reform, most people think their kids would be better off on the streets.
9. Reform DCFS. If parents turn to DCFS, they worry about having all of their kids taken away from them, and then having their parental rights severed.
10. Pass a Living Wage Law in Illinois. No parent should have to work two or even three jobs just to pay the rent and put food on the table, and we can’t expect anyone to be much of a parent if they are working 16 hour days seven days a week. Most are doing a heroic job of juggling it all, but something inevitably is going to fall.
11. Strengthen our child support enforcement. Last time I checked, more than 50% of court-ordered child support goes uncollected, and 2/3 of Illinois employers weren’t complying with a law requiring them to report new hires. Let’s increase fines for employers who aren’t in compliance and allow enforcement lawyers to go after them for treble damages if they’re sheltering a delinquent parent. And lets create interstate agreements with our neighbors so deadbeats can’t simply shirk their responsibility by going to work in Indiana.
12. Boarding schools. (Hattip: Ghost)I watched C-Span's America and the Courts last night and listened to some of the oral arguments in this case. The case is a challenge of DC's gun control laws. So the only reason this is here is whether or not any of you thinks what a ramification of say a ruling against DC gun laws would have towards any local gun control legislation in the state. I could especially refer to gun control legislation in Chicago.
Here's more information for those of you who are following this US Supreme Court case.
By Patrick O'Brien
House Democrats tried again Wednesday to advance measures designed to curb gun violence.
For instance, if children got hold of their parents’ guns, which they legally owned and registered, then parents could be held responsible under a proposal by Chicago Democratic Rep. Greg Harris. The parents would lose their FOID cards. The proposal passed out of committee along party lines and goes to the full House, though Harris said negotiations with opponents of the bill will continue.
The bill doesn’t require the minor to commit a crime for the parents to have their gun rights revoked. That goes too far for some. The law would apply to children who had a history of violence rooted in mental health.
Harris said the bill responds to past cases involving minors and their parents’ guns that were brought to his attention by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. “It seems to me there is a clear and present danger,” he said in committee.
Todd Vandermyde of the NRA doesn’t think the measure addresses the problem and was troubled by the language, which he said could prevent “children” up to age 21 from lawfully possessing a firearm. Eighteen-year-olds are allowed to own guns in Illinois.
“I think that in some cases they are trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer,” he said. “They’re trying to take rights away when a crime hasn’t been committed.”
Denise Kane, the inspector general who brought the issue to Harris’ attention, said the law intends to keep potentially violent teens from easily accessing guns in their own homes.
She recounted an incident in Rockford where a 14-year-old boy shot and wounded his 15-year-old friend. The boy had previously used his parents’ legally owned guns to shoot another boy with a pellet rifle and had brought ammunition to school. Though the boy had accessed his parents’ guns three times without their permission, the state could not revoke the parents’ right to own guns.
Another measure, sponsored by Rep. William Davis, a Homewood Democrat, failed. It would have ammunition laser encoded to better investigate crimes. The measure was soundly turned away by the committee after representatives of Winchester Ammunition’s East Alton plant said the measure would force it to close the plant and relocate 1,700 jobs out of state.
Watch for the next major front in the annual fight between gun rights activists and many Democrats — the assault weapons ban that waits action in the House. Measures to require firearms training courses for gun owners and a firearm relinquishment amnesty for illegal gun owners may also be heard by the committee soon.
My hometown of Morton Grove, Illinois is in the news again, and for once it's not about the controversial, first-in-the-nation handgun ban.
Family Circle Magazine's latest edition lists America's "10 Best Towns for Families."
And Morton Grove made the cut.
From Michael J. Weiss' article:
Family-friendly perk: About 20 percent of the town's land is set aside as a forest preserve for running, walking, cycling, and picnics.
BY DEANESE WILLIAMS-HARRIS
Bethany Carson contributed to this report
Several legislators are asking Gov. Rod Blagojevich to convene a special session specifically for ethics reform. Today, Sen. Christine Radogno, a Lemont Republican, led the group in an attempt to persuade the governor to add ethics and campaign finance reform to the list of topics to be addressed during this summer’s ongoing special sessions.
Until Wednesday, the special sessions called by the governor have focused on the much-delayed state budget. But Blagojevich Tuesday proclaimed today’s special session to focus on gun control, leading Radogno and Chicago Democratic Rep. John Fritchey to urge the governor to take the same steps to end pay-to-play politics.
"It may not be time to take up contentious legislation, but I'll tell you what, Governor, if you're serious about taking care of unfinished business, I've got a suggestion for you," Fritchey said Tuesday on the House floor. "There's a piece of legislation that's not contentious. There's a piece of legislation that was supported by every member of this chamber, the 117 of us that were there. That was House Bill 1, the bill that will end pay to play."
House Bill 1 is just one of three ethics reform measures stuck in the Senate. It would set a $25,000 limit on how much contractors could give to state officials who received state contracts.
In yesterday's budget talks at the governor’s mansion, Radogno said lawmakers confronted Blagojevich about why the legislature hasn't acted on ethics legislation in any of the special sessions. According to Radogno, the governor said they were going to get to it, that nothing comprehensive was out there and that he called HB 1 "inadequate." Radogno said, "This, mind you, from the same man that told us two years ago that he was going to ‘rock the system,’ He has done absolutely, positively nothing with regards to ethics reform in this state."
Blagojevich did enact an ethics package during his first term that requires all state employees to take an annual ethics exam and that created ethics inspectors general for each executive office.
Radogno went on to say that there are two other measures being held in the Senate rules committee that are comprehensive ethics reform bills. The House also has approved both HB 3 and SB 1305, which have yet to be called for action on the Senate floor.
"We can stay in session for more than 10 minutes to work on this very important topic, and we need to do that," Radogno said.
During the special sessions, the governor has continued to advocate for his proposals to increase education funding and to provide health care for the estimated 1.4 million uninsured Illinoisans. He also wants gun control legislation. However, Fritchey says the most dominant issues in our state and in the headlines hasn't been education funding or gun legislation. "Its scandals and allegations and indictments," he said Tuesday on the floor. "Tell people that when you said you wanted to rock the system, you meant it."
The governor continues to keep his lips sealed about the subpoenas received by his office from federal investigators. As of this posting, the governor's office hasn't responded to our question whether he plans to call a special session for ethics reform.
UPDATE
The governor's call to spend an entire special session on gun control (the eighth special session) backfired Wednesday. One sponsor of the gun control legislation, Chicago Democratic Rep. Harry Osterman, repeated what he's been saying for the past few days: He will not call the legislation for a vote until it has enough votes for approval. That will take 71, to which Osterman said, "This bill will not get 71 votes ... It would be irresponsible of me the sponsor of this legislation to call this bill for a vote, knowing that it's going to fail."
In fact, if the bill is amended to need only 60 votes, as Osterman intends to do, the effective date will be June of 2008. "June of 2008," he repeated on the House floor. "So if passed with 60 votes, it won't take effect until June. So there is no need to rush a vote today or tomorrow."
Osterman will have to work to gain the votes on the controversial measure, but, he said, "Today is not that day. We need to be focused on the budget of our state. That is our collective priority."
House members clapped as he closed his comments.
The governor responded with a letter to House Speaker Michael Madigan that said, "I urge you to convene a Committee of the Whole to limit access to deadly large capacity ammunition clips. Giving the full House an opportunity to hear from law enforcement officials, anti-gun violence advocates and victims’ families will help us move closer to consensus on this important issue." He said he looked forward to working with the sponsor and the speaker's office to get the bill approved.
There was no leaders' meeting today.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich ignored the concerns of some lawmakers and legislative leaders by calling a special session Wednesday that will focus on gun control.
Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie and Rep. John Bradley of Marion, both Democrats on opposite sides of the issue, said Monday that the governor’s special session on gun control was meant to further divide lawmakers. They, along with House Speaker Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross, agreed that any special sessions should focus on finalizing a state budget, which has been deadlocked since regular session ended May 31.
The governor’s proclamation made an attempt to tie gun control to the budget by saying the session would “consider and discuss Senate Bill 1007 as well as the impact of assault weapon violence on the state’s health care expenditures and general fiscal health.”
Here’s what we wrote about the legislation May 28:
Ban on some ammunition clips
A proposed ban on ammunition clips that shoot off more than 10 rounds won approval by a House committee. Supporters say the ban would ease the emotional and social costs of losing innocent victims of gun violence, while opponents say it would worsen economic loses when gun manufacturers move to other states. The emotional issue has continued to come up in Illinois since a 1994 federal ban on assault weapons and the high-capacity magazine clips expired. Such opponents as the National Rifle Association and downstate lawmakers trying to protect sport say the legislation is too broad and would ban some firearms without stopping plotted crimes like those at Virginia Tech this spring.
I don’t usually comment on national issues, but this article from World Net Daily sent by a friend of McHenry County Blog is spot on and I've added an Illinois angle.
The very short article is entitled,
Death toll limited before campus gun ban
5 years ago, shooter subdued by armed students
It explains what happened January 16, 2002, when a student started shooting administrators at Appalachian School of Law.
A couple of students, one an off-duty police officer, got guns from their cars and subdued the gunman.
He was more than tackled by bystanders, as most press reports said.
Since then, the state legislature banned guns on college campuses last year in the interest of safety, the article says.
My gubernatorial campaign manager Ted Semon referred to areas where guns are banned as “protection free zones.”
Mayor Richard Daley’s reaction, of course, would have pleased the Virginia assemblymen who voted to ban guns on campus after the Appalachian School of Law murders.
ABC reported this Saturday:
The mayor's state legislative package includes laws that ban assault weapons and magazines that hold more than ten rounds.He’s “pushing for what he calls ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” ABC says.
"There just too many guns in our society," Mayor Daley said. "Too many guns leads to too many accidents, and you have too many victims."
the bottom of which said,Also, if everyone on campus had been armed…it’s hard to imagine anything bad happening.Read more...
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