The Illinois House is on a roll. On Tuesday, it approved the single largest expansion of abortion “rights” in the state’s history, rolling back a ban on partial-birth abortion, bringing a de facto end to the state’s parental notification requirement, and authorizing the barbaric practice through all nine months of pregnancy.
On Wednesday, the Illinois House passed an expansive gun control package, including a first-of-its-kind fingerprint requirement, demanding that all gun purchasers in the state have a set of fingerprints on file with authorities before they actually buy a weapon.
The Illinois branch of the National Rifle Association also reports that the bill expands the amount of time allowed for background checks, limits the duration of “firearm owner identification cards” (FOID) already required to purchase or own a firearm within the state, and raises prices for FOID applications.
The bill also creates a “task force” charged with scouring state records for expired and revoked FOID cards, so that the state is better capable of confiscating guns from those whose legal ability to own firearms has ended or changed.
Legislators who, just the day before, argued that greater restrictions on abortion would have no effect on limiting the practice, were determined to push through the gun control bill before the legislative session expires on Friday. The measure passed narrowly — 62-52 — Wednesday night.
Critics of the bill told reporters that it represents “a total and complete infringement of the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution,” and promised to level an immediate legal challenge to the bill. Proponents claimed that the bill was a necessary “improvement” to Illinois’ gun control statutes, particularly in light of a mass shooting that took place earlier this year in Aurora that left five people dead.
Proponents of the bill seem not to realize that it wasn’t Illinois’ lack of gun laws that allowed a shooter to enter an industrial facility in February, killing several of his former colleagues, it was the state’s lack of attention to existing gun laws. The Aurora shooter committed at least two separate offenses that should have gotten his FOID card revoked and his guns confiscated. In addition, in the interim between obtaining his FOID card and committing the mass shooting, the shooter was institutionalized, yet another incident that should have triggered Illinois’ statutes.
Five separate background checks and warnings to the state went unheeded. Illinois ultimately failed to enforce its existing laws.
In 2014, the shooter even provided his fingerprints to authorities, as part of the application process for a concealed carry license. The system was triggered, but no action was taken.
A follow-up investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that although around 34,000 Illinois residents no longer qualified to legally own firearms, authorities confiscated guns in only around 20% of cases.
The bill has already passed the Illinois Senate. It will likely go to the governor’s desk late Thursday.