Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (AP Photo/John O'Connor, File)

According to Illinois State Police data, 2,415,481 gun owners call the Land o’ Lincoln home. Earlier this year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act into law which banned the most many of the most popular guns used for self-defense. Under the law, existing owners of these now verboten firearms must register their guns by January 1, 2024 or face felony charges.

Four weeks into the gun registration window, exactly 2430 of those FOID holders have registered their guns, accessories, or .50 caliber firearms. That works out to .1006%, or about one in a thousand.

What’s even more remarkable is the number of FOID holders choosing to comply has fallen with each passing week.

Image by Boch

In other words, Illinois gun owners have declined to participate in the state’s gun ban.

Granted, not all FOID holders own the guns that are now banned under the law. However, given the popularity of America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15, not to mention semi-auto shotguns, sales numbers suggest that the majority of them have at least one semi-auto rifle or shotgun in their collection. Or perhaps (gasp!) a handgun with a threaded barrel.

As the Executive Director of Guns Save Life, I’ve heard from gun owners across the state.  GSL has meetings in 11 throughout Illinois each month. The resounding answer I hear is, “Register my guns? Hell no.” The second most common reply is that they’re planning on taking most, if not all of their banned guns out of state ahead of the January 1 deadline.

Either way, Guns Save Life has taken the position that gun owners should not register anything. In fact, “DO NOT REGISTER” is the cover story in this month’s issue of GunNews. That’s probably a source of irritation to Governor Pritzker and the Illinois State Police.

Image by Boch.

After week one, when the compliance rate stood at .04%, William Kirk published a video entitled, “The State That Won’t Comply.”

Time will tell if he covers the fact that the Land of Lincoln’s gun owners have a pretty resounding message for Governor Pritzker and his merry band of anti-gun jihadists. The family-friendly version of that message is, “Go pound sand.” The real message is two words and starts with an “f” and ends with “off.”

In the meantime, Guns Save Life, the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, the Aurora Sportsman’s Club and Gun Owners of America have challenged the “Protect Illinois Communities Act” in court. In fact we just filed an amended complaint to give Judge Stephen McGlynn a second bite at striking down the law.

This all takes funding of course. If you can help us in this fight, you can donate and claim a tax deduction at the same time.

To help cover the cost of our Illinois litigation team:

SADEC.org
2nd Amendment Defense and Education Coalition (SADEC)
P.O. Box 300
Waterman, IL 60556

To help the national firm that’s backstopping our Illinois team:

2ALC.org
Second Amendment Law Center
284C East Lake Mead Parkway
Suite 530
Henderson, NV 89015

We will win this fight, but we’ve got a lot of court appearances to make before that happens.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

55 COMMENTS

  1. Well damn they did better than NY by a full order of magnitude. Good luck in court to all gun owners in IL. Hopefully we will get some precedent from either coast in time for it to be useful for you.

    • Refusing to comply sorta goes hand in hand with refusing to pick cotton which puts the ball in the slave master’s court. Your move gov. Gun Control fatso.

      • “Gun Control fatso.”

        Glass houses, stones, analogy… 😉

      • It’s always best to pick one’s own cotton. In the long run, it’s cheaper and better for everyone. Yeomen farmers make stable nations.

    • “Well damn they did better than NY by a full order of magnitude.”

      What were those total numbers? Something like 10 percent? 90 percent told NY State to fuck off? 😉

      • Last time I had any access to official numbers somewhere around 4. Gotta love when FOIL laws get information into public domain.

    • Someone REALLY needs to explain exactly what could possibly be accomplished by registration other than facilitating a planned confiscation. Because I have addressed the question in my mind many times and I have never been able to come up with a single thing. But how in the world does someone even advocate such a law, if he cannot tell us of a single thing it could possibly accomplish?

      • In theory being able to narrow down a suspect list based on recovered evidence and who is on the registration list that owns anything on said list. In practice exactly what you suspect with the added convenience of making sure the law abiding are fully disarmed one you clear their list.

        • Wait! Are you saying that if it is discovered that the killer used a Glock 9 mm, that only those who registered a Glock 9 mm will be investigated?

        • LOL no. Just making sure they get all the guns and give you extra time for missing ones if they find a reason to arrest you.

  2. Conclusion? 0.1% of Illinois gun owners are ass-kissers. That’s not bad, really. That means that 99.9% of Illinois gun owners are not ass-kissers. Good on you, Illinois!

      • “…those people are just completely ignorant of the requirement.”

        Quite possible.

        The *point* of that law wasn’t compliance, it was your non-compliance, to make it all the easier to seize them from hate-filled Trump supporters like you when LE ‘just so happens’ to come across one during the course of their ‘duties’, like traffic stops, home burglary investigations, etc.

        When that happens, the gun is gone, and they have someone to throw in a small cage for a very long time with someone who doesn’t bathe named ‘Bubba’. From their POV, it’s a *genius* move, they managed to destroy your life, and introduce you to the humiliation of being anally-violated, over, and over again, for years.

        The fascist gift that keeps on giving… 🙁

    • Perhaps you have an answer for my question BOCH? Does installing a “Kali Key” make my verboten AR15 “LEGAL”??? It still would have a flash hider,pistol grip & a 6 position stock. Kali Key makes it into an ersatz single shot bolt action rifle. THANKS. Or not…

      • It does in CA. Installation of a Kali Key converts it – as far as CA is concerned – to a bolt action, thereby negating any AW designations. When I travel to neighboring NV or AZ, it takes me all of 60 seconds to swap out the BCG and charging handle to the normal config, and restore it to “Free America” status.

        • But ILL annoy is especially effed up Haz. I have the $212 + tax for the stupid key. Before I waste that I’d like a halfazzed guarantee. If not I’ll leave it at my Indiana buddy & the verboten magazines. There’s no “featureless” provisions in the DIMSCUM© “law” either Haz. I may get a cheap Savage bolt rifle in 223 anyway…

        • “Installation of a Kali Key converts it – as far as CA is concerned – to a bolt action, thereby negating any AW designations.”

          I can easily see them fixing that with a new law that makes ‘easily converted back to semi-auto operation’ the same as a semi-auto firearm, just to be dicks about it… 🙁

      • The answer to kali key is maybe and no. The first criteria to define an assault weapon under the Illinois statute is “ semiautomatic rifle.” This requirement has to be met before looking at other features. So the kali key may avoid the assault weapon definition. Unfortunately the statue later refers to “any combination of parts.” So if you’re in possession of a kali key bolt action rifle and a standard gas key you are once again in possession of an assault weapon. In addition, the statute has a extensive list of models including variations and clones that specifically identifies an AR as an assault weapon.

  3. In reality the banned guns (mandatory registration) makes the weapon totally useless to the owner. The owner of such Verboten weapons now cannot use it in self-defense, cannot shoot it at any public range and risks imprisonment if caught selling one.

    After a few high profile arrests, especially if its a celebrity, will induce the remaining people to register their banded guns. People look out for No. 1 ( and old, old adage)

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, do you have any common sense? Just how does “mandatory registration” make “the weapon totally useless to the owner?” Last I heard, the gun will still fire? Maybe I’m wrong? Could it be that by registering the gun, it magically sends some kind of mysterious wave that disables the gun?

      JBOL!

      For your edification, a few Federal Judges have already declared these “bans” to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

    • When you have dozens of armed bodyguards, just about anywhere is effectively “safe.” Unless the Mexican drug cartel or Hamas is after you.

      • In referring to Hamas/Hezbollah. Are you counting the 1000s of college/university students and liberal academia as terrorist organizations, as well. These groups have a lot in common with, ironically the Aryan Nation and White Nationalists.

        • Under the ” Un-effinbelievable files “, the Minneapolis Police Dept. that abandoned their burning precinct building during the Mostly Peaceful Floyd Night Out, is committing a team of detectives to assist the University of Minnesota Police to investigate, wait for it… whom kicked over a sign outside of a muslim student building on campus, on TWO separate occasions.
          I’m sure the Eff Bee Eye is also standing by. Maybe even our AG Ellison will get involved.

  7. I had read somewhere that some Illinois democrats are already planning to introduce legislation next year to close the “assault weapon ownership loophole” and ban any all ownership of such including what they said you could keep (via grandfathering) in the original law. I believe a couple states have already done that too.

    • CA already tried that in 2016 with our infamous AB63, which was struck down by Robert Benitez, leading to our “Freedom Week” in 2019. Our former Governor Jerry Brown attempted to ban all possession of standard cap mags, which cannot be done.

      • “Our former Governor Jerry Brown attempted to ban all possession of standard cap mags, which cannot be done.”
        Cannot be done? Tell that to New Jersey, which recently passed an ex-post-facto law banning legally purchased magazines, no grandfather clause. As soon as our current Governor, Phil Murphy, got elected, he immediately lowered the legal magazine capacity from 15 to 10, with absolutely no grandfathering (just a 90-day window to take your newly banned magazines out of state). The law was so badly written that there was no legal method of destroying your magazine or turning it in without violating the law.
        Anyone who forgot they had a legally purchased 11 to 15-round magazine in a box somewhere in their basement or closet became an instant felon when the law took effect! New Jersey courts have hoplophobic judges who uphold these tyrannical ex-post-facto laws.

        When Gun-Grabber Murphy signed that law, our local gun store was forced to remove all the magazines from their existing pistols and sell all their pistols without magazines! It was weird seeing every pistol for sale in the store without a magazine, and I bet customers were reluctant to buy them, as guns without mags are very expensive paperweights. I had just ordered a bunch of 15-round magazines when Gun-Grabber Murphy got elected, but it was too late to cancel my order, so I had to sell them at a loss on GB.

  10. The compliance in NY and CT was so low that the prosecutors and police said they wouldn’t even try to enforce it. Still, too many “complied”.

  11. Illinois law makers and this IJIT Governor ought to read the U.S. Constitution – Article I, Section 9, Clause 3, in particular, which dictates that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” This is obviously a case of an “ex post facto Law”. This simple clause of “the supreme Law of the Land” gives absolute immunity to everyone that owned any of the types of firearms prior to the enactment of a statute that requires them to be registered. This makes said statute a “Bill of Attainder” and an unconstitutional law which is therefore null and void.

    • No, it is not an ex post facto law. Many people do not understand what ex post facto means. It means making something illegal that was legal when the act was performed, for example, banning the purchase of firearms bought three years ago, and then prosecuting those past “offenses.” It is not ex post facto when that which was once legal is made illegal at the current time, for example, banning ARs and prosecuting owners for their CURRENT possession of such arms. In California, if you had a standard form AR, the state banned them and required registration of such arms as an “assault weapon” or conversion of such arms into a “featureless” firearm (i.e., without specified features). That was a number of years ago. So if you had a standard AR and failed to register it or failed to convert it, you could be arrested for possessing it today, but not for buying it prior to the change in the law (when it was legal to do so).

  12. “”The real message is two words and starts with an “f” and ends with “off.””

    Actually it is seven words and starts with “Go” and ends with “you fat fucking pig”.

  14. The “Guv” is most likely a descendant of the Marxists who fled Germany in 1848 and fled to Illinois, settled there and pushed for Lincoln, the Great Centralizer, to be elected.

  17. We solved our “living in southern Illinois” gun owner problem a few years ago. We moved to the deep red Florida 1st congressional district, Florida Panhandle, Free America.

    JB Phatphuque and all the other Nazi Democrat Phuques can go to hell.

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