FOID Law: ISP Gets Funding To Seize Guns After FOID Card Revoked

AURORA, IL — Under an amendment to Illinois gun laws signed Monday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, state police will have more resources to seize guns from those with revoked firearm ownership licenses starting next year, and background checks will be required for private gun sales in Illinois starting in 2024.

House Bill 562, dubbed the FOID Modernization Act, will streamline the Firearm Owners Identification card system and reduce the backlog of applications while reducing the number of guns in the hands of people whose cards have been revoked, supporters said. The bipartisan bill had the support of 10 Republicans in the Illinois House and one in the state Senate.

As of May, the most recent data available from the Illinois State Police, new FOID card applications took an average of 207 days to process, renewals took 218 days. Existing state law calls for them to be processed within 30 days. As for concealed carry licenses, which are processed separately, those that included fingerprints took 183 days to process and those without fingerprints took 152 days to process. Submitting fingerprints as part of a CCL application is touted as a faster and more efficient process.

"I wish we didn't live in a world where lives could be so thoughtlessly and easily stolen in the first place," Pritzker said. "But today, Illinois is putting policy into force that will save lives."

At a signing ceremony Monday in Aurora, Pritzker said HB 562 was more significant than the 2013 Firearm Concealed Carry Act, which created licenses to carry concealed weapons after a federal court ruled the state's gun regulations violated the 2nd Amendment.

"This bill is the most comprehensive reform to our state firearm laws in more than a generation," the governor said.

Under the new law, state police will be required to remove guns from people with revoked FOID cards. One such gun owner fatally shot five people nearly two and a half years ago in a mass shooting at the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora.

Shortly before the bill signing, Abby Parks, the widow of one of the five company workers killed in the shooting, said the new law will save lives by requiring state police to seize guns from those whose licenses have been revoked. She said she has been working since the February 2019 shooting to keep her husband's memory and legacy alive.

"Part of that work means addressing the fact that Clay and the four others taken that day could still be with us if illegal guns were not left in the hands of people with revoked FOID cards," Parks said. "The shooter at the Henry Pratt Company had his FOID card revoked, which means he was legally prohibited from having a gun — yet he was able to keep his weapon."

Another Illinois man accused of going on a shooting rampage at a Nashville Waffle House did have his guns seized after he was arrested by the Secret Service and accused of unlawfully entering the White House grounds. But sheriff's deputies in Illinois later returned his guns to his father, who still had a valid FOID card — and his father reportedly gave the weapons back to his son before the 2018 shooting, which claimed four lives.

Gun bill reallocates funding, trades fees for fingerprints

While HB 562 does not require the state to collect fingerprints, it does add incentives for gun owners to voluntarily submit them. Submitting fresh fingerprints — or allowing state police to have access to fingerprints on file with another state agency — will allow for an automatic renewal and waiver of the $10 fee.

The bill also changes the allocation of that fee. Instead of being split 60-40 between Illinois State Police funds and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Wildlife and Fish Fund, FOID card fees will be split between the ISP's Firearm Services Fund and a newly formed Revocation Enforcement Fund.

State police expect the reallocation to provide an additional $1.5 million to the agency's budget, according to a spokesperson.

That additional funding will allow state police to devote more resources to collecting guns from people whose FOID cards have been revoked, and the agency will be able to improve the application process through investments in new technology and plans for a single, electronic card that serves as a combination of a FOID and CCL.

ISP Director Brenden Kelly said the bill will be good for law enforcement and law-abiding gun owners alike.

"That's less paperwork, less bureaucracy, less effort we have to put into someone we know has already been validated through either one of those processes," Kelly said at the signing ceremony. "By combining them into a single thing, that will help us concentrate, again, on people who are threats to public safety instead of bureaucratic work that doesn't really add much to the public safety equation."

Since the Aurora shooting, state police have conducted 450 compliance checks, putting 1,300 individuals into compliance with the law, and the additional funding will allow for improved enforcement efforts, according to an ISP spokesperson.

Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) was a chief co-sponsor of the bill. He said the Henry Pratt shooter could have been prevented from going on a workplace shooting spree if state police had sufficient resources to take away his pistol.

In that case, the gunman's FOID card had been revoked because the fingerprints the shooter submitted as part of a CCL license flagged an out-of-state felony conviction from 1995 that should have precluded him from ever legally owning a gun in Illinois.

"There was a specific tragedy that took place, and we answered with a specific solution," Villivalam told Patch. "And the solution would have prevented that strategy, and we know that it will prevent future tragedies."

Villivalam said the 11 Republican lawmakers who supported the bill deserve credit for their involvement.

"When is the last time that we can say in our entire nation that we passed gun safety legislation that was pushed by GPAC, Moms Demand Action, the Brady Campaign and other gun violence prevention advocates and received bipartisan support and an executive signed it?" he asked. "When's the last time that happened?"

Related:
Illinois FOID Card Changes Headed To Governor's Desk
Pritzker Leaves Out Aurora Shooting: 'It Hasn't Happened Here'
Aurora Shooting Prompts FOID Revocation Crackdown: State Police

State Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Belleville), the bill's chief sponsor, thanked the advocates who helped push the issue through the general assembly and the governor who signed it.

“With the help of a broad coalition of legislators, we are finally able to modernize the back-logged FOID system to ease the process for law-abiding residents while helping prevent those who should not have a gun from getting one," Hoffman said in a statement.

The FOID Modernization Act was opposed by the National Rifle Association, but the Illinois State Rifle Association stayed neutral on it. ISRA leadership suggested it was preferable to an alternative firearm bill under consideration in Springfield this spring.

State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington), one of the bill's opponents, said it would make it harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutional right to own a gun and could require new fees and paperwork.

"There are numerous issues with our state’s FOID system, including the wait times that applicants are facing and the unnecessary hurdles it places for people trying to lawfully enjoy their 2nd Amendment rights," Barickman said, in a statement ahead of the bill's passage. "Unfortunately, this bill doesn’t do anything to fix those problems, but in fact will make things worse for law-abiding gun owners."

While state police already keep records of guns that are reported stolen, the new bill requires ISP to allow public access to all the serial numbers contained in its stolen gun database.

'Gun show loophole' closed

The bill also includes a timeline for universal background checks, even for private gun sales. Kelly said there are an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 private firearm transfers in the state every year.

Currently, sellers need only check that the buyer has a valid FOID card. Starting in 2024, they will also need to provide a record of the sale to a federally licensed firearm dealer, who will then need to keep a copy of the record for 20 years.

Pritzker said closing the so-called "gun show loophole" by requiring sellers to conduct background checks on buyers and allowing buyers to ensure the gun has not been reported lost or stolen was important progress toward increasing gun safety in Illinois.

"We are constantly chasing all the ways that criminals are attempting to get around the law, that's just a fact of life, but every loophole we close we get closer and closer to safety for our communities," Pritzker told reporters after signing the bill. "That's why I wouldn't look at this as the end of a process, but nonetheless a beginning of a process to make sure that we are keeping illegal guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them."