Illinois House Gun Violence Prevention Committee gears up

[February 25, 2025]  By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – A newly created Illinois House committee aims to tackle more gun control measures.

When the new General Assembly was seated and rules were agreed upon last month, legislators created the Illinois House Gun Violence Prevention Committee.

During the committee’s first hearing last week, two measures were discussed. One would modify the state’s interaction with the federal eTrace program. Illinois Attorney General deputy chief of staff John Carroll tried to allay concerns around House Bill 1337 and on how eTrace would be used by state and local law enforcement.

“It’s not on the fly, ‘gimme your gun, I’m going to run it through eTrace, you can have your gun back,’ that’s not how it works,” Carroll told the committee last week. “eTrace is not instantaneous.”

The Illinois State Rifle Association was concerned an innocent gun owner could find themselves charged with a crime if eTrace doesn’t show they had sold a gun to someone else 15 years ago in a private transfer.

“Could you be charged, at least temporarily, with owning a stolen firearm,” ISRA’s Ed Sullivan asked. “There’s no way to know that I purchased the gun 15 years ago from somebody else and … law enforcement would not have a record of that transaction.”

State Rep. Curtis Tarver, D-Chicago, said his measure is a work in progress.

“This is not a tool to charge the individual who necessarily has a firearm as much as it is understanding whose firearm it was in the first place, that is the intent,” Tarver told the committee.

The Illinois House Gun Violence Prevention Committee meeting in Springfield - ILGA.gov

Another measure they heard would prohibit certain individuals from coming to Illinois to buy a firearm.

State Rep. Daniel Didech, D-Buffalo Grove, said his bill to prohibit anyone from out of state convicted of a misdemeanor stalking charge that would be a felony in Illinois would be prohibited from buying a gun. House Bill 18 could go beyond just stalking offenses.

“The feedback I got from the attorney general’s office was to insert the word ‘substantially, substantially similar stalking offense,’” Didech said. “I believe that is a term of art.”

Committee chair, state Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, said debate around such measures is why the committee was created.

“I’m really glad that we have such robust conversations around this,” she said.

Both measures remain in committee. Other measures remaining in committee impact Firearm Owner ID fees, health exams and gun safety issues, gun storage requirements and more.

The committee meets again Wednesday afternoon at the capitol in Springfield.

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