We’re headed for chaos! A ‘firearm’ situation as messed up as redistricting

The mere mention of firearms these days brings a blackened mood over the Statehouse, such as in this century-old postcard

Our state legislature is really a stubborn lot!

Just one day after the Illinois House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have permitted for a “concealed carry” law that would give great discretion to local police to decide who actually gets a permit to carry a pistol on their persons, the same legislators knocked down a measure that would have ensured just about anyone who wanted such a permit would be able to get it.

SO ONE DAY after the National Rifle Association types were able to crow about how they knocked down their dreaded bill, their fantasy bill got knocked down for the count.

Which means that what we have in Illinois is a situation where everyone is digging in their heels on the issue of gun control measures. They’re using their political powers to ensure that the other side doesn’t get what they want.

“Victory” is being defined as the opposition losing!

And the rest of us are confused about what will wind up happening.

BECAUSE WE’RE IN the situation where a Court of Appeals for the Midwestern U.S. (and based in Chicago) has given Illinois until mid-June to come up with a law that permits some people the ability to carry a pistol in public for their own defense.

If the court winds up having to get involved because the political people weren’t able to pull their heads out of their behinds, then we’re truly going to get a situation that everybody hates.

I suppose it’s possible that the next month-and-a-half could see our government officials come together and reach some sort of negotiated deal that could be approved prior to the state Legislature’s scheduled adjournment at the end of May.

Soon to be a common Illinois sight?

Then again, it’s always possible that the Chicago Cubs could play far above their abilities and actually win a championship of sorts. In short, fat chance!!!

ANYBODY EXPECTING SERIOUS compromise is missing the point of our modern-day government structure with all of its politically partisan leanings.

It’s kind of like the redistricting process, which in most decades winds up being resolved with a random lottery because the two sides can’t even come close to negotiating a serious deal on legislative and congressional boundaries.

The lottery process was written into the Illinois state Constitution on the theory that the randomness of it all (with one side getting absolutely nothing) would be so scary that it would force people to talk.

Instead, the natural greed of political officials makes them like the option of getting everything (with their opposition getting nothing) that they don’t even try to talk.

THAT IS THE same mindset at work here. Everybody is holding out for what they want – which in many cases seems to be ensuring that the opposition gets stuck with something they detest.

Such as the plans being put forth by the firearms advocates who think they’re making significant progress by including a few places (such as government buildings) in which people could not bring a pistol – even if they have a permit.

I can’t help but notice they insist that CTA trains and buses NOT be included on any exempted place. As in they WANT the ability to have a pistol on them if, by chance, they happen to be riding the “el.”

I’m sure they’ll give some jibberish about wanting to protect themselves from potential muggers. Although it strikes me more as the mentality of those people in other states who persist in carrying a holstered pistol while visiting a Starbucks franchise.

THEY JUST WANT to get in the face of people they see as different from themselves. It’s the bully mentality at work.

This may well be less about the firearms themselves and more about payback for the current partisan situation where the two-thirds of Illinoisans who live in the Chicago area predominate over the one-third that lives in the rural parts of the state.

After seeing the NRA-preferred measure go down to defeat Thursday, an NRA spokesman told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Chicago’s not going to get their own permitting system.”

Will we hate it as much as these boundaries?

Is this really about the rural parts of the state asserting themselves on this issue out of some sense of political payback for the election results of 2010 and 2012?

YES, I’LL ADMIT to being wary of the firearms advocates and their interests – mainly because too many of the ones I have met seem to be a little too eager to have a legal justification to shoot someone else!

But I’m also aware of the definition of “compromise” and realize it means getting only a part of what we want – instead of seeing the results of a political stalemate, doing nothing and getting stuck with something we all despise.

Just think! We in Illinois could get stuck with a “concealed carry” practices that causes as much bickering as the redistricting process does.

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EXTRA: $1 Billion?!?

Falling from the 'fiscal cliff' ...

Crain’s Chicago Business came up with an intriguing figure Friday.

If our national government falls over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” Illinois stands to lose $1 billion.

AT LEAST THAT’S what state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka thinks.

She told the business publication that if the federal government has to impose a series of financially harmful measures because of the inability of political people to reach a deal on their own, the state will lose about $500 million in federal grants.

After all, something will have to be cut. Also, Illinoisans would lose some $500 million collectively in income taxes – because we’ll have to pay more.

Just a little more catastrophe to have to cope with, at a time when our state’s Legislature is supposed to be returning next week for a few final days of action and they’re supposed to try to resolve the pension funding problems that Illinois has long been confronted with.

THAT IS ANOTHER problem where political people seem to be incapable of reaching agreement.

For as state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, said recently, there are several options under consideration by the General Assembly that could work. “Some of them aren’t even completely draconian,” he said.
 

... and into the state pension morass

Yet our legislators can’t seem to come to agreement on what option to consider. It makes me think the Illinois Legislature is a perfect training ground for our Congress – particularly when it comes to political procrastination!

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Four days ‘til we fall off the cliff?

Will these people be able to reach agreement with the President?

We’ve had a lot of rhetoric in recent weeks about how we’re doomed financially. Our government in the District of Columbia is incapable of doing much of anything when it comes to compromise.

The dreaded “fiscal cliff” is just a few days away (Monday into Tuesday, to be exact). We’re going to see actions forced upon us that will drive our economy back into recession.

OF COURSE, THE ideologues (many of whom are among the hardest-core of those refusing to do anything) will try to claim it’s all Barack Obama’s fault! Which seems like what they really want to do – place blame on the president whom they didn’t vote for either time and are determined to see end his time in office in utter failure.

Those of us who are a little more rational in our thought process will realize that blame needs to be placed all the way around.

Yet I have to admit that my quarter-century of watching politicos as a reporter-type person has given me a perspective that has me thinking that all is not lost yet.

Because government officials tend to behave like “C-level” college students who insist in majoring in procrastination. How many papers do they write on the final weekend prior to its being due?

NOW THAT WE’RE approaching the final weekend before the deadline, this is the time period in which I expect to see any serious movement toward trying to reach a financial deal that would avert the significant tax increases that would be mandated unless officials can reach agreement on spending cuts.

The fact that any solution concocted during the weekend and voted on by Congress on Monday prior to that ball dropping in Times Square will be a rush-job will make it the equivalent of that college paper that ultimately got a “C” because nobody put any serious long-term thought into it.

Instead, it is just a short-term solution that likely will cause more problems than it resolves – even if it technically averts the fall off the cliff!

Not that I’m saying we should take the plunge and accept whatever hit comes along with it. We’re not Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons – we can’t get hit with an anvil and just bounce back into shape.

SO WE’RE LIKELY to get a mediocre solution put together – one bailed together with scotch tape (perhaps purchased from the “Scotch Tape store” from that old Saturday Night Live sketch?) that will make those of us who pay attention shudder.

While the masses just sort of shrug their shoulders and try to figure out how they’re going to pay off all those charge card bills they incurred during the soon-to-be complete holiday season.

Although I suspect the real motivation for many of our government officials will be to reach a solution that allows them to be out of D.C. and back home in time for whatever New Year’s Eve celebration plans they had in mind.

The only real fear is those people who are so stubbornly determined to do nothing. Because some of those ideological nitwits are more than willing to see everyone suffer around them.

THE THING IS the concept of the “fiscal cliff” is supposed to be a deterrent. It is supposed to be something so incredibly awful and horrid that political people would fear it. They would do anything to avoid it.

Yet those of us in Illinois see the way our redistricting goes – the process that ultimately gives control of the process to the winner of a random lottery.

Instead of fearing the prospect of getting nothing, political partisans greedily stand by their principles because they think they can win the lottery and TAKE EVERYTHING!!!!!

That same mentality is at work among some in Washington these days – and I’m sure they’re the only ones who enjoyed the New York Post front page on Thursday. That’s the one that figured out a way to get a picture of a girl in a bikini to illustrate the “fiscal cliff” story. Ugh!!!

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