Blagojevich will sign a bill allowing 18 year olds to get an Firearm Owner Identification Card. The change in the law makes sense. 18 year olds with an FOID can already by long guns. They will still be prohibited from buying handguns, but now they simply don’t have to have parental permission for getting the FOID. The change is consistent with making gun laws more consistent.
Blagojevich will veto concealed carry legislation for retired police officers and a rather strange piece of legislation to overrule local laws if a gun is used in self-defense. Concealed carry isn’t the scary thing most opponents paint it as, but it won’t come to be in Illinois. Illinois has long had relatively restrictive gun control laws that allow legitimate gun owners to have firearms. Those share broad support and until recently that was across party lines.