“I support Karina’s Law,” Gov. JB Pritzker emphatically
told me. It’s the strongest statement he’s made about the bill, which stalled
in the Senate last spring. The proposal would mandate that police remove
firearms from a person who has been served with a domestic violence order of
protection.
But there still appear to be some Pritzker caveats.
Pritzker has previously said that the bill would put big
strains on local and state police because it could require as many as four
officers to remove those firearms from each of the offenders, and there are
thousands of people who would fall under the law’s jurisdiction here.
“What I’m trying to highlight about it,” Pritzker said,
“is the resources don’t currently exist to do it in the timely fashion that
it’s required under the law to accomplish it.” Local police agencies, “don’t
have the manpower. It’s just a fact,” he said. “There aren’t enough sworn
officers to carry out what’s being asked here.”
“So, having said that, should we try?” Pritzker
continued. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Is there a way to organize
this law, to effectuate what everybody wants, and also do it within the
manpower that exists? I think maybe. But we have a lot of laws where
enforcement falls short, partly because when the law is going through the
legislature, they’re not considering what it actually takes to effectuate the
law. And I don’t want that to happen here.”
Is the law, then, a giant unfunded mandate?
“I appreciate the angle which you’re approaching it, but
the reality is that we have laws on the books that say that you should be
arrested and when you’re convicted of murder, you have to spend a certain
number [of years in prison]. Is that an unfunded mandate when they pass a law
in Springfield that says that murder is a criminal activity? I mean, that’s the
job of police officers, but, you know, all I’m doing is you’re putting some
recognition on the idea that, you know, that we need to consider the challenge
for local and state police in carrying it out. It’s not, you know, should we do
it? We absolutely should try to do it.”
Does he have any ballpark idea of what the bill would
cost?
“I don’t know what it would cost… we don’t know the number of people who will
have to have their weapons removed, as opposed to those who would turn them in.
We just don’t know. But here’s the thing, I think we need to continue to have
conversations about this. Obviously, I’ve been an advocate for gun safety my
entire adult life, and so I am very much in favor of what I think we all want
to have effectuated here. I just know that what law enforcement would tell you
is it is hard to find the manpower to do everything.”
So, is it fair to say he wants “a” bill, but not
necessarily “this” bill?
“I believe there may need to be more conversations,” the
governor said. “’A bill’ should pass, yes.” He did not elaborate
further.
The day after I told subscribers about Pritzker’s
remarks, the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence released its
annual Domestic Violence Homicide Report for 2023, months ahead of its
usual October release.
The group’s consultant said that ICADV hoped an early
release of the numbers, which showed that domestic violence deaths rose by 110%
last year, would increase the urgency of passing Karina’s Bill.
While it stalled in the Senate last spring, Senate
President Don Harmon has since told me he is “eager” to pass the bill after a
recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling appeared to open the door to its
constitutionality.
To my eyes, Pritzker appears torn. He is a longtime
gun control advocate who supports the bill’s concept, but fears that law
enforcement won’t be able to carry out the bill’s sweeping mandate.
So, it appears to me that, since the Illinois State
Police would also be involved with this task, at least some of those failures
would reflect directly back on the governor, which is likely making him antsy.
Pritzker will have to work out an acceptable solution
with legislators before the General Assembly decides to pass something on its
own. It would be almost politically impossible for Pritzker to veto a bill
that he wasn’t comfortable with, so some sort of deal is a must for him – but
not so much for legislators.
This article appears in Downtown’s festival dilemma.
