Sheriff: 80,000 Illinois residents banned from owning guns still keep them

In Illinois, 114,000 people are banned from owning guns because of legal tangles or mental health issues, but three-quarters of them haven’t surrendered their firearms, according to data the Cook County sheriff will present Thursday.

Sheriff Tom Dart is seeking $10 million from state lawmakers to tackle what he calls in naming the report “A Firearm Regulation Crisis.” The money would train and equip more door-knocking officers to retrieve or ensure the safe storage of weapons from those who have had their state Firearm Owners Identification cards rescinded.

The aim would be reducing the chance potentially volatile people would exhibit the type of violence seen when a shooter who wasn’t allowed to own a firearm carried out a massacre at Henry Pratt Co. in a Chicago suburb.

Otherwise, the menace of revocations of FOID cards from noncompliant gun owners will spiral beyond law enforcement’s control, the Democratic sheriff told The Associated Press in releasing the report in advance. 

There are 2.42 million FOID card holders in Illinois. They are rescinded when a gun owner is convicted of a felony, is the subject of an order of protection, is dealing with other mental health or cognitive issues, or is deemed a “clear and present danger” to themselves or others by police, school administrators, or medical professionals. Notified gun owners are required to turn over their weapons for storage or transfer them to a trusted person possessing a FOID card, an action certified with the completion of a Firearm Disposition Record.

Historically, the approach was for local law enforcement to repeatedly send letters informing the recipient of the obligation to do so.

Dart’s report found that of nearly 114,000 repealed FOID card holders, 74% — approximately 84,000 — have never accounted for surrendering weapons.

The issue came to a bloody, devastating head in February 2019 when a man dismissed from his job at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora pulled and fired a gun he wasn’t allowed to have, killing five employees and wounding half-a-dozen others. The gunman bought the weapon in 2014 when a background check failed to identify a 1995 conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi. When authorities became aware of it, they revoked the man’s FOID, but he never surrendered the weapon.

Morgan’s proposal would increase the $2 fee on firearm purchases or transfers to $10, with $4 of that earmarked for the Illinois State Police’s revocation enforcement fund. Morgan said the legislation has yet to be reviewed by the House task force on firearms.

Despite the steep increase in the transfer charge, Morgan said many states charge more than Illinois, from $15 in New Jersey to $25 in Nevada.

Legislation pending in Springfield would increase fees on weapons purchases to fuel enforcement, but just two weeks remain in the spring legislative session.