ArchPundit

For a long time I made fun of the conceal carry movement not so much for their goal–I don’t really care about the issue much.  However, they consistently believed they had a shot when it passed the ag committee and Madigan than had it ignored in Rules.  It was such a standard tactic to bury a bill while allowing rural legislators to claim credit for a yest vote, it was hard to imagine that everyone didn’t get this.  Imagine Madigan being Lucy and ISRA being Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.  The great thing is it never stopped being funny because of the overreactions on both success and failure by the gun lobby.

So ISRA does some long term strategic coalition work after finally figuring this out and I was ready to hand it to them for being effective finally.  Then the Posner decision which I read differently from everyone and all of a sudden the gun lobby starts running victory laps and telling the Lege what they, the gun lobby, will accept.  Never a good strategy, but when you are already overplaying your hand it’s especially bad.  How the Supreme Court will rule on Moore v Madigan is very much in question.  Using it as leverage to get an imperfect bill before their opponents figured out that ISRA had less leverage than everybody assumed would have been the smart strategy.  But not the gun lobby, it’s all in and all crazy all the time.

Then, you have the mass murder of children so what do you do?  STFU and say some nice things and point out to your allies conceal carry isn’t really an issue in the Connecticut case so let’s lay low and seem reasonable on some recommendations for further gun control even if you want to quietly kill it.  That is what any sane and thoughtful lobby would do.

The gun lobby?  Hell no……

SPRINGFIELD — One of Illinois’ leading gun-rights advocates urged state lawmakers Monday to pass legislation that would give school districts authority to arm school principals, teachers and even custodial staff with concealed weapons.

“The problem we have is a gun-free zone. We have a gun-free zone around a school. Every crazy person knows that. And so, the gun-free zone is like a magnet for the lunatics. He or she knows there won’t be any resistance there,” said Richard Pearson, executive of the Illinois State Rifle Association.

Way to take a dump on your momentum.  You can believe this all you want, but saying it loud after the slaughter of 20 6 and 7 year olds is perhaps the dumbest thing a gun lobbyist could do.  More guns around my children at this particular moment in the national dialogue is a big loser.

Oh, and the crazy guy isn’t rational Richard.  Your typical calculus of what someone will do is a problem in such circumstances for that very reason.