Eye On Illinois: Dust unsettled as deadline for new gun registration passes

The NFL playoffs begin this weekend. Perhaps you’ll hear someone assert referees “could call holding on every play.”

Doing so would grind games to a halt. Thanks to nflpenalties.com, I learned league officials called 560 offensive and 176 defensive holding penalties across the entire regular season. Those numbers are down 37 and 35, respectively, from the 2022-23 regular season. Almost half the league – 15 of 32 teams – was flagged for offensive holding once a game or less.

I have these statistics handy from a similar column last January exploring our reliance on discretion in daily life: speeding on the interstate, warnings versus citations, discrepancy between state and federal drug laws, immigration enforcement, elected prosecutors seeking plea deals or dropping charges and more.

At the time, I was gently writing around the then-fresh gun legislation, trying to more broadly demonstrate the reality of limited government resources and societal appetite for selective enforcement. Calling holding on every play would make football unwatchable. Pulling over every speeder would require more police than are available and clog the roads beyond utility.

But now in January 2024, the theoretical has become practical. According to the Illinois State Police (isp.illinois.gov/Foid/Statistics), 29,357 people who hold Firearm Owner’s Identification cards made 112,350 disclosures under the Protect Illinois Communities Act (House Bill 5855 from the 102nd General Assembly) from October through December.

Of those disclosures, 68,992 were for guns, 42,830 were accessories and 528 were ammunition. By completing the paperwork, those FOID participants are able to legally retain items they bought before the state banned the sale of new inventory in certain categories.

But the state has 2,415,481 active FOID members, which means only 1.2% completed the paperwork before the deadline. We have to fill in the blanks on how many of the other 98.8% own now-banned items, but it’s probably a sizable sum.

However large that group may be, it likely includes subsections, like people who meant to register but forgot, those waiting to see if the law passes Supreme Court scrutiny and others who never intended to comply. “Persons who violate these requirements may be arrested and charged” according to the ISP’s website for the law (isp.illinois.gov/Home/AssaultWeapons), but at present it seems like this is a textbook case of discretion in action.

There doesn’t appear to be a penalty for late disclosures. The government doesn’t know everyone who owns now-banned items. Social media posts disclosing possession haven’t (and probably won’t) result in further attention. Similarly, people who see me drive to the grocery store don’t know whether I renew my license or my AllState policy.

The dust isn’t fully settled here, which underscores the importance of discretion. For now, most Illinoisans seem content waiting for further development.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.