SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — In Illinois, 114,000 people are barred from owning guns due to legal or mental health issues. Three-quarters of them have not turned in their firearms, according to data that the Cook County sheriff will present Thursday.
Sheriff Tom Dart is demanding $10 million from state lawmakers to address what he calls the report “A Firearms Regulation Crisis.” their state firearms owner identification cards were revoked.
The goal would be to reduce the chance that potentially volatile people would engage in the kind of violence seen when a gunman who wasn’t allowed to own a gun carried out a massacre at Henry Pratt Co. in a suburb of Chicago.
Otherwise, the threat of FOID card revocation by non-compliant gun owners will be beyond the control of law enforcement, the Democratic sheriff told The Associated Press as he released the report in advance. Dart has scheduled a press conference Thursday morning to announce his findings.
“I wish I was making this up. I wish someone would take my argument apart and say, “You’re exaggerating. You are being dramatic,” Dart told the AP in an interview on Wednesday. “No. Do the math. At this rate, in two years we will have 100,000 revoked FOID card owners, and there will be no contact with them to make sure their guns have been handled properly.
Legislation pending in Springfield would increase fees on gun purchases to boost enforcement, but there are only two weeks left in the spring legislative session.
There are 2.42 million FOID cardholders in Illinois. They are revoked when a gun owner is convicted of a crime, is the subject of a protective order, is dealing with other mental health or cognitive issues, or is deemed by the police, the school to be a “clear and present danger” to themselves or others is considered to. administrators or medical professionals. Notified gun owners are required to surrender their weapons for storage or transfer them to a trusted individual in possession of a FOID card, an action certified with the completion of a firearms disposition record.
Too many don’t. Historically, the approach has been for local law enforcement agencies to repeatedly send letters notifying the recipient of the obligation to do so.
Dart’s report shows that of the nearly 114,000 revoked FOID card holders, 74% – about 84,000 – never reported gun surrenders.
The issue came to a bloody and devastating head in February 2019 when a man fired from the Henry Pratt Co. pulled out and fired a gun he wasn’t supposed to have in Aurora, killing five employees and wounding six. others. The shooter bought the gun in 2014 when a background check turned up no 1995 conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi. When authorities became aware of this, they revoked the man’s FOID, but he never surrendered the gun.
The same year, a DuPage County man, whose FOID had been revoked on an aggravated battery charge but who had not turned over any weapons, shot and killed his 18-month-old son and then himself, Dart’s report said.
Dart’s efforts in the area predate the Aurora incident. He formed a unit of eight officers in 2013 trained to deal with tense environments, including those with mental illness. His staff says the office has closed 9,200 cases, collected 4,000 FOID cards, taken 1,517 guns for storage and allowed the safe transfer of several thousand other guns.
“It’s not the same as trying to draw a conclusion and read minds about who is about to commit an offense,” Dart said. “We literally have the name and address of someone who has a gun and shouldn’t have it.”
Legislation signed in 2021 created a program to fund repeal enforcement teams. The Illinois State Police has awarded local police departments — including Dart’s and the Chicago city police — about $1 million a year.
Illinois State Police began monitoring repeal enforcement in May 2019 and have reported 4,300 people in compliance through 2022.
Despite recent efforts, the backlog has not changed since state police reported it in the days after the Aurora disaster.
Dart has a sympathetic ear in the capital, and a particularly sensitive ear for the subject. Rep. Bob Morgan, a Democrat from the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, was marching with voters in the 4 of July 2022 parade in Highland Park when a gunman opened fire, killing seven and wounding at least 30.
Morgan’s proposal would increase the $2 fee for the purchase or transfer of firearms to $10, $4 of which would go to the Illinois State Police’s revocation enforcement fund. Morgan said the legislation still needs to be reviewed by the House Firearms Task Force.
Despite the sharp increase in transfer fees, Morgan said many states charge more than Illinois, from $15 in New Jersey to $25 in Nevada.
“We just have tens of thousands of these guns floating around out there, from people who have had their FOID cards legally and ultimately revoked them,” Morgan said. “We have to do better.”