By Illinois Review
The Illinois State Police have released their final numbers for Illinois’ gun registry revealing that only 1.2 percent of the 2.4 million Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card holders in Illinois registered their firearms by Monday’s deadline – indicating a massive statewide rebellion in protest of Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker’s assault weapons ban that he signed into law last January.
In a video statement released on Monday morning just hours after the deadline had passed, Richard Pearson, Executive Director of the Illinois State Rifle Association said,
“When Gov. Pritzker signed his unconstitutional ban on commonly owned firearms last January, he wanted to create mass confusion and bully law-abiding gun owners like you and me into registering their firearms by January 1st, or potentially face felony charges and even imprisonment.
This mass confusion is reflected in the registration numbers. Since October 1st, less than 1 percent of the 2.4 million FOID card holders in the state registered their firearms by today’s deadline.”
By Wednesday morning, the final registration numbers had gone up slightly since the ISRA released their statement on Monday, but not by much – indicating that 98.8 percent of gun owners in Illinois were ignoring Pritzker’s registration deadline.
On Monday afternoon, downstate Republican congressional candidate Darren Bailey posted on X, stating,
“I’ll say something the weak-knee Republicans are too afraid to say: I will never give up my guns, and I will NOT comply. Like I’ve said many times, I’ll die on my porch before I give up my guns.”
In December, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules held a meeting to discuss the gun registry rules, but many questions from gun groups including from the ISRA went unanswered – leading to even more confusion amongst gun owners. In the end, it was decided that the discussion would continue at the next meeting scheduled for the middle of January.
On Monday, the ISRA made a point to highlight the mass confusion being created by the Democratic-led legislature:
“The next JCAR meeting to discuss the registry rules is scheduled for January 16th, but the deadline to register your firearms was midnight. And even then, the rules may not be final.”
The gun group then concluded their statement with, “Only in Illinois.”
The ISRA is currently preparing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court where they will be asking the Supreme Court to declare the entire law unconstitutional. ISRA officials remain confident that the Court will rule in their favor.
The next JCAR meeting to discuss the gun registry rules is January 16th in Chicago.
