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A panel of state lawmakers gave approval Tuesday to that
emergency rule after ISP officials assured them that the agency
had made significant progress toward clearing a backlog of
renewal applications.
“I wouldn't say we're over the hump. We're on top of it,” ISP
Lt. Greg Hacker, who heads the agency’s Firearms Services
Bureau, told the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. “Over
the past three months, our metrics have shown us that we are
starting to bend the curve in our direction.”
Under the emergency rule, a FOID card or CCL that has expired
since the start of the pandemic is still considered valid as
long as the holder has applied for renewal, paid the required
fees, and the card is not subject to revocation, meaning the
person has not committed an offense that would otherwise
disqualify them from holding the permit.
Yvette Loizon, ISP’s general counsel, said that in the month of
March alone, the agency received 14,847 renewal applications,
and it approved 67,847 applications, the largest number of
approvals in a single month in more than a year.
ISP saw a huge increase in renewal applications last year,
Hacker said, in part because FOID cards are issued on 10-year
renewal cycles and the 2019-2020 period marked the end of the
program’s first 10-year cycle.
But the program has been beset by funding and personnel
shortages, officials have said. The application and renewal
process involves extensive criminal background checks that are
paid for with the fees paid by applicants. But that fee fund was
often “swept” during the state’s two-year-long budget impasse,
so the agency did not have enough staff to handle the flood of
renewal applications that came in last year.
Hacker said ISP began 2020 with only 21 “firearms eligibility
analysts,” or FEAs, who are trained to process applications.
Since then, he said, the agency has hired an additional 29 FEAs
and it plans to hire another five or six by July. In addition,
ISP has hired another 25 contractual employees to conduct
background checks for both new and renewal applications.
But Hacker said it has been a slow process to get all of those
new employees fully operational because the training process
generally takes about six months.
Meanwhile, gun rights activists in Illinois have grown
impatient. Although state law requires ISP to process
applications within 30 days, many have complained of waiting
several months before ever getting a response from the agency.
In July, the Illinois State Rifle Association and the Second
Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit against ISP,
arguing that the FOID card processing delays were effectively
violating the applicants’ constitutional right to bear arms.
That case is still pending, according to court documents.
Members of the joint committee pointed out that they have been
hearing complaints from constituents for months.
“I mean, within the last two days, I've gotten emails from
folks, they applied last July. We're nine months in, haven't
heard a word,” said Sen. Donald DeWitte, R-St. Charles.
Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, a cochair of the committee,
said he has also heard complaints from constituents.
“So we're gratified to see that the process is moving up (and)
ask you to continue to work with JCAR staff on this,” Cunningham
said. “There's been a long-standing problem that has only gotten
worse because of COVID. So it's something that still demands a
long-term solution.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan
news service covering state government and distributed to more
than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the
Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick
Foundation.
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