Illinois' Blagojevich and Daley – A Tale of Two Failures

By Gerard Valentino

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich recently offered to call out the Illinois National Guard to help Chicago fight the recent spike in violence that has catapulted the City into the national news. Daley didn’t immediately accept the Governor’s offer of help and the two most powerful leaders in Illinois missed the irony of the offer.

There is a reason 'citizen' comes before 'soldier' when describing National Guard members. Illinois National Guard members are simply citizens who are given a gun and told to keep order. So, essentially, both the Governor and Mayor are doing what concealed carry advocates have wanted to do all along - put honest citizens on the streets with guns.

None of the national media outlets caught the irony of Blagojevich’s offer of help to the city either. As a former member of the Ohio National Guard there is no doubt in my mind that members are citizens first and Guard members second. Nobody saw their place in the military as dedicated soldier. Sure, we lived under the threat of being called up and thousands of Guard members have served gallantly in the war on terror.

Make no mistake, however, they are still citizen first and soldiers second.

A much cheaper option for the State of Illinois is to do what most other states in America have done – pass a solid, well thought out legal concealed carry law. There can be no doubt the people of Illinois are as honest as the people of Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and Ohio, where citizens carry guns with no threat to public safety.

What is at issue in Illinois is how the rest of the state allows the City of Chicago to rule based on their long since outdated prejudices against guns. The gangland murders during the heyday of prohibition have permanently turned Chicago’s government against private ownership of firearms. That absurd bias has forced the rest of the state to live with draconian gun laws driven by Chicago’s agenda. The tide is slowly changing in Illinois because groups statewide are now lobbying to get back their gun rights.

People like Daley act as a huge counter-weight to the growing pro-gun movement since he lends his well known name to the anti-gun side of the scale. Unless you’re from Chicago you can’t understand just how much weight someone like Daley carries statewide, literally and figuratively. It is a shame that his strong personality and antiquated views on guns destroys the rights of all people in Illinois.

Chicago casts a big shadow over the entire metropolitan area, as well, and many of the suburbs fall in lock-step with the city over the important issues of the day. That holds true with gun control since Daley routinely blames suburban gun shops for arming local gangbangers. Daley and his cronies simply refuse to accept that criminals will find guns no matter what they do.

That infamous Irish temper Daley shows on occasion only works to bully honest people, gang bangers simply laugh at his poorly orchestrated histrionics. They’ve been doing so now in Chicago since the day Daley was elected. Much like the protestors stuck a proverbial finger in the eye of his father, the first Mayor Richard Daley, during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Daley’s recent tirade over the Supreme Court decision that affirmed the Second Amendment as an individual right is a perfect example of how his influence emanates out from Chicago. Shortly after his comments an official from nearby Oak Park equated honest law abiding gun owners with common gangbangers.

His personality rises above Chicago politics the same way the Sears Tower dominates the famous Chicago skyline. But, for people no longer exposed to the one sided nature of Chicago politics, Daley appears as another Emperor without clothes, now long since exposed as a sad relic to the discredited religion of gun control.

Like a child with a security blanket Daley continues to cling to his gun-control and bitterness over the Supreme Court ruling. Even as other cities nationwide give up their gun-control schemes the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting Daley already made the decision to change the Chicago handgun ban to try and subvert the Constitution.

It is somewhat ironic that Governor Blagojevich would make an offer of help to Mayor Daley since nothing happens on the state level without the Mayor’s blessing. Usually, the junior member of a tale of two failures wouldn’t call out his senior partner, yet that is exactly Blagojevich did by offering the National Guard to help fight Chicago’s gangbangers.

Instead, of invoking martial law, the two failures should look around at the success legal concealed carry is nationwide and give his citizens back the right to bear arms in self-defense.

To do otherwise borderlines on criminal.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair and writes for the ValentinoChronicle.com.