Eye On Illinois: Clearing up phrasing on gun registration deadline expiration

A bit of clarification is in order, because Wednesday’s column about compliance with the state’s new gun law was misleading.

To recap, the Protect Illinois Communities Act, House Bill 5855 from the 102nd General Assembly), banned certain types of guns and accessories. Anyone who bought the newly banned goods before the law took effect (Jan. 10, 2023) would be allowed to keep them by completing a disclosure form through the Illinois State Police before Jan. 1, 2024.

ISP opened an online portal from October through December. But since only about 1.2% of the state’s 2.4 million Firearm Owner’s Identification card holders completed disclosure, it seems likely there are thousands of items now illegally owned.

On Wednesday, I wrote “there doesn’t appear to be a penalty for late disclosures,” but a more accurate sentence would be the law doesn’t provide for someone to legally file a disclosure after the deadline. But the PICA is quite clear on penalties for failure to register. Owners can surrender the items legally, without punishment, but continued possession makes them subject to a Class A misdemeanor for one gun or a Class 3 felony for two guns or a second incident. (Those penalties were stricter under earlier versions of the legislation.)

The General Assembly, when it returns to Springfield next week, could act to reopen the disclosure window and give everyone who hasn’t registered a second chance. Lawmakers also could amend the law to clarify late disclosures are acceptable with some sort of penalty (say a $25 late fee).

As always, there would be political and constitutional considerations. Switching from analysis to prediction, I’d guess there isn’t much appetite for the majority to appear gracious to people who own the banned items, especially absent a groundswell of gun owners claiming they would’ve happily registered their inventory but ran out of time.

In recent years there have been dozens of legal challenges to the FOID program arguing the state’s inability to process applications in a timely fashion deprives people of their Second Amendment rights. It’s a strong position: by law, ISP is supposed to act on FOID applications within 30 days. Some people allege they waited up to three years. Now imagine if county clerks routinely took even a week to certify someone’s eligibility to vote, or if the Secretary of State’s Office had a six-week turnaround time on driving tests.

Many people hope the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately invalidate the entire gun ban, but a separate procedural challenge arguing three months to disclose wasn’t sufficient wouldn’t be surprising.

In the meantime, all the undisclosed items are technically illegal. But resulting prosecutions seem nonexistent, so Wednesday’s conclusion remains: most Illinoisans seem content waiting for further development.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.