Illinois State Senate overrides Governor's veto on Gun Bill

It looks like there will soon be a big dent in Illinois gun bans:

SB 2161 was prompted by an incident in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette, where a man was charged with violating a municipal handgun ban after he shot a burglar in his home. The bill would allow a court to clear a defendant of charges of violating such a ban if the gun was used in self-defense or in defense of another on the owner's property.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed the measure, saying "each individual municipality should determine which affirmative defenses apply to a violation of its own ordinance," but the Senate voted 40 to 18 to override him.
State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston, represents the community of Wilmette and said the bill imposed upon the municipality's prerogative to impose stronger gun laws than those of the state. He was unable to convince enough of his colleagues to agree with him.
"It has been a hallmark of our constitutional system that one has a right to defend one's home and family," said state Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton.
State Sen. Ed Petka, R-Plainfield, called it "a commonsense piece of legislation."
The bill now heads to the House, where it must get at least 71 votes in order to become law in spite of the governor's objections. It got 90 votes in the House in May.

The rise of Assault Knives

Well, you have heard of assault rifles, now a new British law aims to ban assault knives. The article notes that "Over the past four years the number of incidents involving knives has risen by 350%." As reported violent crime in Britain has risen so quickly over the last five years or so, it is becoming difficult for the government to figure out what else to ban. A toy gun ban was being debated seriously earlier this year. I was just thinking today about how little we are hearing in the US about the sunsetting of the assault weapons ban in the US. Hopefully, the US government will quickly deal the spread of assault knives in the US.

John Fund on the Voting Process in New Mexico:

When a race is close, all sorts of bizarre things happen:

Yesterday afternoon, [New Mexico] Democratic Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron asked the state Supreme Court to overturn lower court ruling that had allowed Republican observers into the polls in Sandoval and Dona Ana counties. She also seeks to overturn a decision by the Bernalillo County Clerk to allow observers there. In her court filing, she contends state law doesn't provide for challengers to be part of the review process.

But cynics point out that she filed her petition shortly after the Bernalillo County Clerk told media outlets that observers had discovered instances of voter fraud during the qualification of provisional ballots. Provisional votes are cast by people whose names did not appear on registration rolls but nonetheless were allowed to vote pending verification of their eligibility. In counting the first 5,000 provisional ballots in Bernalillo County, observers turned up 53 instances of individuals voting more than once. They also found four voters who were dead and dozens of felons attempting to vote. In two cases, the same individual tried to vote three times: early, absentee and on Election Day.

Double voting appears to fall into two categories: voters who themselves may have voted multiple times, and those whose votes were essentially stolen. Dwight Atkins of Albuquerque attempted to vote on Election Day, only to discover that someone had already voted early in his name. Rosemary McGee showed up to vote at 3 pm on Election Day. But someone had voted in her place at 7:00am (the imposter actually misspelled her name on the signature roster). Both were shocked to learn that if an imposter votes first, the fraudulent ballot will stand, and the provisional ballot, cast later by the legitimate voter, will be disqualified.

Earlier this year, when Secretary of State Vigil-Giron went to court to prevent expanded enforcement of the state's requirement that first-time voters show a photo ID, New Mexico Democrats insisted voter fraud didn't exist in New Mexico. So much for that argument. But now it appears that local Democrats are willing to go to court to make sure more evidence of it doesn't turn up.