Feinstein Goes For Broke With New Gun-Ban Bill

The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Affairs is warning trouble is brewing on the horizon. NRA/ILA has said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), author of the federal assault weapon and large ammunition magazine ban of 1994-2004, has announced that on January 3, the first day of the new Congress, she will introduce a bill to which her 1994 ban will pale by comparison. According to the NRA, Feinstein has been working on the legislation for over a year and it will be more Draconian than the previous version. The new ban would, among other things, adopt new definitions of assault weapon that would affect a much larger variety of firearms, require current owners of such firearms to register them with the federal government under the National Firearms Act, and require forfeiture of the firearms upon the deaths of their current owners. Other changes would reduce, from two to one, the number of permitted external features on various firearms. The 1994 ban permitted various firearms to be manufactured only if they were assembled with no more than one feature listed in the law. Feinstein's new bill would prohibit the manufacture of the same firearms with even one of the features. The new bill includes a new, far more extensive, list of external features that would be banned.

Swimming upstream faster than the current

The passage of the DNR Sustainability Bill (SB1566/FAQs) is a significant victory for conservation and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). What the bill does is allow the agency to keep state parks and sites open and begin to address a backlog of needed facility repairs, which now totals $750 million. It also allows us to address other program problems for the agency.

The bill took nearly a year to negotiate and included over 40 DNR constituent groups in talks, who worked with sponsor Rep. Frank Mautino for a consensus bill.   A key component and big win for conservation included in the bill was the rarely used anti-sweeps language that ensures funds would not be used for other purposes than keeping state parks open and programs working.  Governor Pat Quinn's management and budget director also signed a letter committing to not sweep these funds and hold DNR's funding level. The Sustainability Bill will take effect as law on January 1st, and we project that eventually it will provide DNR with an estimated $30 to $33 million dollars annually to be deposited into dedicated funds connected with each revenue source.