Illinois doesn’t have a reputation for being a gun friendly state, which is why it may have seemed like their trigger modification bill was a done deal. After all, aren’t they right up there with California in the “hates private gun ownership” category?

Well, it looks like they’re not quite as anti-gun as some of us might have thought.

A number of downstate Democrats jumped ship and joined Republican lawmakers to oppose a bill targeting semi-automatic firearms that many deemed an overreach.

Needing 71 votes to pass the body, Dems could only garner 48 after several defections bolstered a GOP stand against the bill, designed to restrict any part, or combination of parts, intended to accelerate a gun’s rate of fire without converting it into a machine gun.

“House Bill 4117, as so often happens, was too hastily and poorly crafted in response to a terrible situation,” said state Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee. “Because of this, the bill failed to address the fear it was attempting to protect against and instead would have turned law-abiding citizens into felons had it not failed in the House today.”

Rushed through the House Judiciary Committee on a partisan vote earlier this week, opponents of the measure argued it banned not only now-vilified bump stocks but also just about anything that could improve how a gun fires, in effect slapping new regulations on most firearms in the state.

State Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, sponsor of the tanked bill, said he would consider amending his proposal to win over those still on the fence but cautioned a Republican-sponsored alternative narrowly focused just on bump stocks wasn’t strong enough of a prohibition, The Chicago Tribune reported.

Ain’t that just interesting as all get out?

The bill in question sounds suspiciously like Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill currently sitting in a Republican-controlled Senate, with a similar bill introduced in the House by Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida.

If a bill like that can’t make it through Illinois, how is it supposed to make it through a Republican-controlled Congress?

Yes, there appears to be broad-based support for the banning of bump stocks, but these bills go well beyond that. They’re so vague as to ban almost any modification that may increase the rate of fire even marginally. That means a lot of competition triggers would be suddenly illegal, and with there being no grandfather clause to most of these bills, it creates a serious difficulty for most of those impacted.

It doesn’t take much to realize that the ramifications of making millions of people potential felons are probably not good for one’s reelection chances. At all.

Rep. Curbelo may have already cut his own political throat by simply introducing such a broad bill in the first place. It’s unlikely he’ll be touting his grade from the NRA or the GOA after this in conservative circles, that’s for sure.

In short, what happened in Illinois is great news for gun owners throughout the country. If a bill like this can fail there, then it’s got about as much chance of passing in Congress as Hillary Clinton has of becoming president.