New
permanent rules will soon go into effect spelling out how people who own
assault weapons and related items that are now heavily regulated in Illinois
can register them with the Illinois State Police.
The
legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted along party lines Jan.
16 to let the rules go into effect, ending months of negotiations and debate
between supporters of the law and gun rights advocates.
“Obviously,
this is an issue where there is a difference of opinion on a partisan basis,
and I think you saw that play out today,” Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, a
co-chair of the committee, told reporters after the meeting.
The
rules are the result of an assault weapons ban that state lawmakers passed last
year in the wake of a deadly mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in
Highland Park in 2022.
That
law, known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act, bans the sale, purchase, manufacture, or possession of a long
list of firearms that are defined as “assault weapons,” as well as several
types of attachments, large-capacity magazines and certain kinds of high-power
ammunition.
Under
that law, people who already owned such items before the ban took effect are
allowed to keep them. But to do so legally, they were supposed to register
those items with the Illinois State Police before Jan. 1.
Last
fall, ISP published temporary “emergency” rules that went into effect Oct. 1, enabling people to begin
filing online registrations ahead of the Jan. 1 deadline. But many gun owners,
gun rights advocates, and state lawmakers pushed back against the rules,
complaining that they were too vague in some areas, too complicated in others,
and generally impossible to comply with.
In
response, ISP held additional public hearings in October and November as it worked to craft permanent
rules.
One
of the concerns raised during the discussions focused on how ISP planned to
collect and store information about the items people registered, and what the
agency would do with that information if the law is eventually overturned as
unconstitutional.
So
far, the law has survived legal challenges in both state and federal courts,
but the National Association for Gun Rights, which is the major plaintiff in
one of the federal lawsuits, has said it plans to file an appeal with the U.S.
Supreme Court within the next several weeks.
Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, who also co-chairs the committee, said he was frustrated
by the short timeframe used to adopt the new rules and by the way some issues were
handled. He then offered a motion to prohibit ISP from adopting the rules,
arguing that the rules do not meet a requirement in state statute that they be
“simple and clear” so that people and groups affected by them can understand
them.
That
motion failed because it needed eight votes on the 12-member committee but only
received six.
Spain
then made a motion to “object” to the rules on the same grounds that they were
not “simple and clear.” An objection has little practical effect on the rule,
except that it requires the agency to respond to the objection in writing
within 90 days before the rule can take effect.
That
motion, which only requires a simple majority of members taking part, passed on
a 6-5 vote.
That
vote allows ISP to move forward by adopting the permanent rules and enforcing
them into the future. But it remains unclear how many assault weapon owners
will comply with the law by registering those firearms.
According
to data maintained by ISP, just under 30,000 individuals had filed registration
forms ahead of the Jan. 1 deadline. Those registrations covered roughly
69,000 firearms that fall under the ban as well as nearly 43,000 accessories.
It
is not known what percentage that represents of the total number of assault
weapons and banned accessories in circulation in Illinois, but many people have
suggested that a large number of gun owners will refuse to comply with the
registration requirement.
Cunningham,
however, said he was not concerned about speculation of widespread
noncompliance with the law.
“I
would just repeat what I said earlier, which is the law is in place, and I
would encourage people to follow the law,” he said.
This article appears in When DCFS makes mistakes, children die.
