About 0.07% of Illinois FOID holders register banned guns after Week 2

[October 20, 2023]  By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – In the second week of Illinois’ gun ban registry, of more than 2.4 million Firearm Owner ID card holders, a total of 1,618 have disclosed they own an item banned by the state. A legislator says the registry needs to be put on hold.

Numbers Illinois State Police published for the first week of the registry that opened Oct. 1 showed 1,050 individuals disclosing a total of 3,202 now banned items. For the second week, an additional 568 have filed for a total of 4,678 items, 3,053 of which were banned firearms.

With a total of 1,618 individuals complying two weeks in, that would be about 0.07% of the 2.4 million FOID card holders in the state.

The first week’s numbers showed 1,125 disclosures of .50 caliber ammunition registrations and only 17 reported accessory disclosures. The second week’s numbers had the totals for ammo at 31 and accessories at 1,594.

“On the initial report, the accessory and ammunition numbers were flipped,” a spokesperson for ISP told The Center Square. “Once we identified the error, we corrected it.”

Those with banned firearms not registered by Jan. 1, 2024, could face criminal penalties of a Class A misdemeanor for the first offense and a Class 3 felony for subsequent offenses.

ISP have said those who purchased firearms during the time there was an injunction against the law still won’t be able to file a disclosure affidavit in compliance with the gun ban because they purchased such items after the law’s enactment on Jan. 10, 2023.

State Sen. Jason Plummer, R-Edwardsville, said that’s wrong and if the law is upheld by the courts, he’s looking to pass a bill to hold those firearms owners harmless.

“Not set them up to be penalized for doing what millions of people do every year across the country,” Plummer told The Center Square.

Court cases continue with rulings pending in the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Second Amendment challenges and in the Southern District of Illinois federal court with a vagueness challenge.

“If time goes on and the gun ban is eventually struck down, people start submitting these affidavits or whatever else, what happens to all that information,” Plummer said.

A separate bill from state Rep. Amy Elik, R-Alton, would require state police to destroy gun registry records if the law is struck down by the courts.

Plummer said with that prospect still out there, the state should pump the breaks.

“I think we really need to put everything on pause until we see if the gun ban holds,” Plummer said.

Legislators return for veto session the last six scheduled days of the year starting Oct. 24.