Rod Blagojevich: No Friend of Ours (A must read for Illlinois Gun Owners-Long)

In many ways, Rod Blagojevich’s victory in the 2002 Democratic Gubernatorial Primary may be paralleled with the historical figure Prince Vlad Dracolya. Dracolya, also known as “Vlad the Impaler” is famous for having had friend and foe alike impaled on gold tipped spears and left to writhe and scream while Vlad merrily ate his dinner.

Inspired by the exploits of Vlad Dracolya, Bram Stoker created his horror classic—Dracula. As we all know, the mythical Count Dracula mesmerized his victims with his piercing eyes and seduced them with promises of immortality. But in the end, all he delivered was eternal damnation and the curse of the living dead.

And so goes for the downstate gun owners that sealed Blagojevich’s victory on March 19.

Seduced by the promises of big union contracts, downstate voters, including gun owners, voted for Blagojevich in droves. And if elected Governor in November, Blagojevich will come, with gold-tipped spear in hand, to deliver eternal damnation in the form of licensing, registration, and a statewide gun ban.

Rest assured, Blag the Impaler’s 10 year campaign to destroy the 2nd Amendment will not be slowed out of gratitude for those who were naïve enough to vote for him. If elected, his attack on gun owners will be merciless and swift. And the road to Springfield will be littered with the corpses of the rights the rest of us hold so dear.

So how did a leftist candidate with a record too extreme to win his home county manage a near sweep of counties in right-leaning southern Illinois.

The partial answer is that, early on in the campaign, Blagojevich delivered a pro-labor message to downstaters that was carefully crafted to overcome criticism of his extreme record on core conservative issues such as gay rights, gun control, and abortion.

The message delivered downstate by the Blagojevich camp was that a steady paycheck is more important that Constitutional rights, more important than religious beliefs, more important than family values.

With the help of labor leaders and some “conservative” downstate Democratic legislators, that message was driven home before anti-Blagojevich forces could get their counter-offensive off the ground.

So like the victims of the mythical Count Dracula, downstate voters submitted to something they should have known was wrong.

Another factor in the Blagojevich victory was that his horrible record on gun rights was not adequately communicated to southern voters-many of whom own guns.

For example, Shelby County has a very active grassroots movement headed up by ISRA Director Jim Warren. Voters in Shelby County trounced Blagojevich and Corrine Wood- choosing pro-gun Republican Pat O’Malley and Democratic gun control moderate Paul Vallas instead.

On the other hand, Champaign County handed Democrat Blagojevich a wide margin of victory while pro-gun Pat O’Malley came in second in Republican balloting-barely squeaking by gun control fanatic Corrine Wood. Recall that Champaign County’s so called “pro gun” movement devotes most of its time and energy to disrupt and discredit the ISRA.

Gun groups across the state would do well to follow the lead of Mr. Warren’s organization if Blagojevich is to be defeated in November.

The US House has been home to a pack of notorious antigunners including Carolyn McCarthy, Patrick Kennedy and the legendary Chuck Schumer. When Schumer moved on to become the junior senator from New York, a huge gap was left in the House’s antigun squad. That gap was enthusiastically filled by rod Blagojevich, who has grown to become the most antigun member of the US House of Representatives.

In the course of his two terms in the US House, Rod Blagojevich has sponsored a total of 46 bills. Despite his claim that he is a friend to the gun owner, 23 of the bills Blagojevich sponsored contained radical gun control provisions.

For example, one bill would ban all .50 caliber rifles—including black powder firearms. In campaigning for passage of that bill, Blagojevich preyed on the public’s fear of terrorist attack, telling scary tales of snipers climbing to the roof of the Sears Tower and picking off Cubs fans in the bleachers of Wrigley Field.

Blagojevich utter contempt for law-abiding gun owners was demonstrated by his sponsorship of a bill that would prohibit law-abiding gun owners from purchasing more that one gun a month. It was Blagojevich’s assertion that each and every one of us is a potential “gunrunner”. Of course, there was nothing in the bill aimed at restricting criminals from purchasing firearms.

It goes without saying that Blagojevich and his gun hating pals at HCI and the Violence Policy Center stand in hysterical opposition to concealed carry. As a US Congressman, Blagojevich introduced a bill that, if passed, would overturn concealed carry laws in 40 states. Although the bill did not propose a direct nullification of state laws, it would place a federal ban on the sale and possession of pistols small enough to be concealed. In short, what good would a concealed carry permit be if you could not own a firearm small Blagojevich enough to be concealed on your person?

Blagojevich climbed even further out on the antigun limb by sponsoring a bill that would have actually provided federal assistance to people, like Chicago Mayor Daley, who are attempting to run gun shops and gun manufacturers out of business through filing frivolous lawsuits.

Fortunately, each of Blagojevich’s federal gun control bill’s has died a quiet death in committee. However, the nature of these bills illustrates Blagojevich’s obsessive hatred for the gun owning public. For those of you with access to the internet, you may examine Blagojevich’s federal record on guns by going to http://thomas.loc.gov.

As a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Rod Blagojevich was busily at work trying to destroy your right to keep and bear arms.

The most infamous attempt to stifle your rights came in the form of a Blagojevich proposal to raise the FOID card fee from $5 to $500. During testimony on the bill, Blagojevich asserted such a large increase in the FOID fee was necessary so people would think twice about wanting to own a gun.

Since many, if not most, criminals either do not or cannot hold a FOID card, it’s clear that the lawabiding gun owners were the target of Blagojevich’s FOID fee increase.

In later testimony on the proposal Blagojevich declared that “…there is a sanctity to guns that I don’t understand”. One would think such a highly educated public servant would understand the sanctity of constitutionally protected rights-but apparently Blagojevich does not.

Another of Blagojevich’s assaults on law-abiding gun owners came during floor debate on an assault weapons bill in introduced by Speaker Mike Madigan. During the debate, Blagojevich scolded gun owners and asserted that they have a civic duty to turn their guns over to the police. Such is yet another example of Blagojevich’s fundamental misunderstanding of the rold played by the armed citizen in the building of our nation’s heritage.

Guns pretty much remained a non-issue through most of the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Then, late in the campaign, former state representative Glenn Poshard began trying to rally support for Paul Vallas among gun owners downstate. The message from the Blagojevich folks was that gun owners should ignore Vallas as both Vallas and Blagojevich are equally anti gun. In other words, Blagojevich was telling gun owners that the firearm rights issue was too trivial to consider, and gun owners should resign themselves to taking what they get.

As the campaign entered March, it appeared that the gun issue would not go away for Blagojevich. On March 7th the Blagojevich campaign issued a letter to downstate votors in which Blagojevich claimed to be a friend of the law-abiding gun owner.

Given his legislative record, the fact that Blagojevich could even put such a statement in print is clear evidence of his arrogant disdain for gun owners. Interestingly enough, a week after issuing the March 7th letter, Blagojevich boasted about having a NRA “F” rating in a post debate interview.

Blagojevich’s record along with his behavior on the campaign trail make it clear that he has very little respect for gun owners.

In the closing days of the campaign, Blagojevich treated gun owners like chumps. But, it may have been a good strategy, since so many gun owning chumps voted for him.

There is only one thing that could be worse than electing Blagojevich as governor, and that would be electing Lisa Madigan as attorney general.

As many of you know, Lisa Madigan is the daughter of Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan. As Richie Daley’s point man in the Illinois House, Mike Madigan has been singly responsible for killing off every recent attempt to pass pre-emption, concealed carry, or meaningful FOID reform.

Lisa Madigan is cut from the same political and philosophical cloth as her father. There is absolutely no doubt that, if elected to the Illinois Attorney General’s office, Lisa Madigan would use her position to advocate stricter gun control.

This is an expecially chilling prospect in light of the fact that Daley’s allies at Handgun Control, Inc. believe that Illinois law gives the attorney general sweeping powers to regulate guns through administrative rulemaking. That means that the Attorney General could impose all sorts of restrictions on gun design, marketing, availability and use-without the General Assembly passing any laws.

If elected, it is highly likely that Lisa Madigan would adopt HCIs interpretation of that rulemaking authority and, in short order, administratively institute all the previously defeated Daley gun grab schemes. Although the legislature would have some sort of response to such actions on Madigan’s part, Governor Blagojevich would certainly veto any attempt to curb Madigan’s power.

In short, Lisa Madigan being elected to the attorney general’s office would be the death knell for private gun ownership in Illinois.

The March primary had a number of bright spots too. Among them was Rich Brauer’s impressive win over Gwen Klingler in the 100th district house race. Brauer promises to be a pro-gun stalwart and is a welcome replacement for the on-again, off-again Klingler.

In the re-mapped 48th House District, staunch pro-gunner Jim Meyer squeaked by Naperville City Councilman Doug Krause. Throughout most of the campaign, Krause’s position on guns was somewhat of a mystery. Then, just days before the election, a campaign flyer supporting Krause was mailed to 48th District voters by Freedom PAC. Freedom PAC is an extremely antigun political action committee headed up by the former chairman of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, Dan Kotowski. The flyer mad it clear that Krause was the Daley choise for the 48th District, and the voters sent Krause packing.

Overall, 80% of ISRA-PVF endorsed candidates came out on top in their races. That trend must continue in the November General Election if we are to preserve gun rights for las-abiding Illinois citizens.

So, if you are a gun owner and you are not registered to vote, then register. If you have gun-owning friends who are not registered to vote, get them to register. If you are registered to vote make sure you do-and make sure your votes are cast for the candidates endorsed by the ISRA-PVF.

Democratic turnout in the primaries was about 30% higher than Republican. If that happens in November, its Governor Rod.

A spell checking bump. It's hard on the fingers typing Blagojevich so many times so a few typos here and there is very understandable.

Clearly, RodBla and MadLisa must be stopped. The damage they could do in four short years may be irreversible. But, I don't know how this is going to sit with the 87 million Illinois FReepers, myself included, who joined in the JimRyan bashing during the primary.

Not well. But the choices are vote for Rod, voter for someone else (a vote for Rod), stay home (a vote) for Rod, or vote for Ryan.

I suspect guns won't be a campaign issue, and if Blagojevich is elected, democratic or non voting gunowners will be "surprised". Gun control is one of Rod's key issues in terms of national support (I assume he's ambitious), he will address it if elected.

Not well. But the choices are vote for Rod, voter for someone else (a vote for Rod), stay home (a vote) for Rod, or vote for Ryan.

So I guess we'll all have to swallow our spit and work hard for Ryan (donning my asbestos anti-flame suit).

I suspect guns won't be a campaign issue, and if Blagojevich is elected, democratic or non voting gunowners will be "surprised".

We can MAKE guns a campaign issue, and work it especially hard downstate.

We can MAKE guns a campaign issue, and work it especially hard downstate.

BTTT. Let us begin working this together.

The things we might do:

Begin an education campaign. Let's assemble some facts about Blag.
Work hand-in-hand with gun rights groups to get the message out.
Work the areas hard with calls, signing up people for ISRA and SAS, visits to communities.
See what the Republican party might want us for.

BTTT. Let us begin working this together

Good! Let's discuss and expand on this at the chapter meeting Saturday night.

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