Pritzker signs bills addressing gun storage, tracing of firearms
[July 29, 2025]
By Peter Hancock
Gun owners in Illinois will soon be required to take additional measures
to keep their weapons out of the hands of children under a new law
signed Monday by Gov. JB Pritzker.
In addition, law enforcement officers in the state must now start
tracing the ownership of any firearm that is recovered from a crime
scene, used unlawfully or is believed to be associated with a crime.
Pritzker signed those bills into law at a time when federal courts are
growing increasingly skeptical of state and local efforts to curb gun
violence. A federal court of appeals is preparing to hear arguments in a
challenge to Illinois’ most significant recent gun restriction — a ban
on assault-style weapons and large capacity magazines.
“I’m tired, frankly, of treating something completely preventable as
inevitable,” Pritzker said at a bill signing ceremony in Chicago. “I’m
tired of forcing our children to duck and cover because too many
politicians are ducking and covering for the gun industry’s money. I’m
tired of hearing thoughts and prayers and then nothing gets done.”
Safe storage requirement
Senate Bill 8, known as the Safe Gun Storage Act, prohibits gun owners
from storing their weapons in an unsecured manner at any location where
they know, or reasonably should know, that the gun could be accessed by
a minor, a person at risk of harming themselves or others, or by a
person who is prohibited under state or federal law from possessing a
firearm.
To secure the weapon, under the law, owners will be required to keep
them in a locked container so that they are inaccessible or unusable by
anyone other than the owner.
Gun owners who violate the law could be subject to civil fines of $500.
But those fines could go up to $1,000 if a minor, at-risk person or
prohibited person obtains the firearm, and as high as $10,000 if such
person uses it to kill or injure someone in the course of committing a
crime.
In lieu of those fines, courts could instead order the gun owner to
perform community service or pay restitution for violating the law. The
new law also provides that gun owners could also be subject to civil
liability in private lawsuits.
However, the law also provides that gun owners will not be found in
violation of the law if a minor, at-risk person or prohibited person
obtains their firearm by unlawfully entering the premises.
In addition to the new storage requirements, SB 8 also requires gun
owners to report a lost or stolen firearm to law enforcement within 48
hours of discovery, as opposed to the previous 72-hour requirement.
Supporters of the bill pointed to recent statistics showing firearms are
now the leading cause of death for children under 18, surpassing motor
vehicles and cancer.
“For far too long, we have witnessed the tragic consequences of
unsecured firearms in homes,” Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, the lead
Senate sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “Firearms, if left
unaccounted for and unsecured, pose risks to those who shouldn’t have
access to them. Firearm owners can help prevent gun-related incidents by
ensuring their guns are securely stored and away from others.”
The bill passed 33-19 in the Senate and 69-40 in the House.
The law takes effect Jan. 1.
Firearm tracing
Pritzker also signed a bill Monday requiring law enforcement agencies to
trace the ownership of every weapon recovered from a crime scene or that
they seize because it was possessed unlawfully, used for an unlawful
purpose or they reasonably believe to have been used in a crime.
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Under new laws signed by Gov. JB Pritzker, firearm owners will soon
be required to keep their weapons stored securely and out of the
hands of minors while law enforcement agencies will be required to
trace the ownership of all firearms they recover from crime scenes.
(Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Campbell)
House Bill 1373, an initiative of Attorney General Kwame Raoul, requires
agencies to check those weapons through a web-based system known as
eTrace, which is operated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives.
Prior to the new law, participation in the eTrace system was voluntary.
“We know now that approximately half of shootings nationwide never get
solved. Only about a third do here in the city of Chicago,” said Sen.
Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, the lead Senate sponsor of the bill. “We
also know that the same gun can often be used again and again in
multiple shootings, multiple killings. We need to do something about
that. That’s what this bill does. It ensures that all law enforcement
agencies report all information they have on a gun anytime they recover
it at the scene of a crime.”
The bill passed 75-40 in the House and 43-11 in the Senate. It takes
effect immediately.
Legal landscape
Since taking office in 2019, Pritzker has signed numerous bills into law
that impose new restrictions on the sale, ownership and possession of
firearms. The most significant of those was a 2023 ban on assault-style
weapons and large capacity magazines, known as the Protect Illinois
Communities Act.
During that same time, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has adopted a
more expansive view of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
and imposed new legal standards that make it more difficult for state
and local gun control measures to pass constitutional muster.
Most recently, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, July 24,
struck down as unconstitutional a California law requiring background
checks for people to purchase ammunition. The court found the law was
not consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition” of firearms
regulation, a standard the Supreme Court established in 2022, less than
a year before Illinois passed its assault weapons ban.
Gun rights organizations are using a similar argument in challenging the
Illinois law.
In November, a federal judge in East St. Louis struck down the Illinois
law using the same “historical tradition” analysis. But his ruling has
been put on hold pending an appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
in Chicago.
In that case, the attorney general’s office has until Aug. 14 to file
its final brief. A three-judge panel will then set a date for oral
arguments. However the court rules, observers expect the law will
eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court.
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