* Rep. Greg Harris has a new bill…
He cited a Chicago Sun-Times Watchdogs investigation published in November that found that although more than 50,000 people with mental illnesses have been barred from owning guns in Illinois in recent years, the law has done little to take guns out of their hands. […]
People with revoked FOID cards are required to report the disposition of their guns to the police. But law enforcement agencies typically don’t check whether they’re doing so, the Sun-Times found.
Under Harris’ bill, when anyone with a revoked gun cards fails to comply with the law, the local police would be required to go to court and seek a warrant to search the person’s home for the FOID card and any firearms.
* That same mandate would apply to people who are on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist…
Though more than 1 million people are on the terrorist watch list, Harris said a small fraction are U.S. citizens, and those on the list have the right to appeal. […]
State Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, a gun-rights advocate who helped craft the current law, said he needs to study Harris’s proposal. But he argued that any new legislation should be worded so it doesn’t intrude on the rights of people complying with state gun regulations.
“I think Representative Harris may have great intentions on this, but I don’t want any law-abiding gun owners to get caught in trap,” Phelps said.
Keep in mind that this is an unfunded state mandate. Some mayors and sheriffs are gonna be upset. But it’s hard to vote against a bill like this.
The proposal is here. Several House Democrats have signed up as co-sponsors.
Thoughts?
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:52 am:
Does a person have notice that they’re on this list? The Feds have made every attempt they can to keep these lists private. It sounds nice, but you can’t revoke someone’s Constitutional rights based on a list they aren’t told they’re on and can’t appeal.
- Aldyth - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:57 am:
This might actually save a few lives.
- Nieva - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:58 am:
I would think before you take any firearm from someone on the do not fly list a hearing should be held in federal court to explain the reason that person is on the list. Then give them a chance to defend their self.
- phocion - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:01 am:
I hate the gun safety blog posts. It always drags out the fringe NRA crowd. Black helicopters! 2nd Amendment is absolute! Secret government lists!
To the post: It’s a smart, common-sense approach that can have safeguards to ensure that people on the list are appropriately notified and given the right to appeal. I can’t imagine that more than a handful of vocal folks would actually publicly oppose this idea. Should have strong appeal not just in Chicago, but throughout the suburbs as well.
- nona - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:03 am:
Rep. Harris might have a better chance if his bill did not include the Terrorist Watch List. The feds provide no due process for individuals who appear on the list, and how they get on is a secret. Better not to take on that dispute, and stick to enforcing current law.
- Union Dues - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:05 am:
Whether you are pro gun or not, owning a gun is a right. This is saying take away a persons right and give them the chance to appeal? Sure you can put reasonable limitations on gun ownership but I am not sure this would hold up in court. Could you take away any other right like that?
- connor - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:06 am:
This is a joke. I’d recommend people to watch Congressman Gowdy absolutely eviscerating a DHS official over the issue of the No Fly list. It is clear that it can and will be turned into the means to deny law abiding citizens of their rights.
http://buzzpo.com/video-trey-gowdy-annihilates-dhs-official-on-no-fly-list-and-the-2nd-amendment/
- Huh? - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:10 am:
Since it is the State Police that issues and maintains the FOID cards, make the State Police go seize the guns from a holder of a revoked card.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:12 am:
Should be a slam dunk.
The NRA claims mass shootings aren’t a gun problem, but a mental health problem.
The governor is so concerned about terrorism and public safety he wants to keep out Syrian refugees, a population that’s proven to be non-violent since Sept. 11, 2001.
Assuming they’re both sincere, this should fly.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:18 am:
So if you lose your FOIA card - that’s it? You lose your right to defend yourself with a legal weapon? Aren’t there any procedures to ensure that FOIA revocations are justified?
How am I notified? Do I get an envelope along with my junk mail? If I don’t respond my house gets invaded and torn up? I’m lucky to keep my lights on and when the power goes off, no one is bursting through my door armed with fire power demanding that I open my checkbook immediately.
Who is doing this work? We have to have a SWAT team available for combat work? Are we going to have HUMMERS and armored vehicles bursting onto my neighbor’s manicured lawns in McMansionville and ordering them out of their house? Who knows, maybe Kip, Muffy and Buffy hid a weapon behind their bidet in the master bath?
Instead of doing this - hey, what if - we take an extra few steps and ensuring that people aren’t stripped searched and laying spread eagle upon the Chem-Lawn fertilizer treatment as Kevlar-clad troopers storm through their five car garages, before discovering that they have the wrong address?
What it - we stop panicking over guns and start treating citizens like they have rights as, you know, American human beings? If a FOIA is revoked, depending upon the circumstances, we let our local law enforcement officers to follow up and ensure that Americans with revoked FOIA cards or those on lists - belong on those lists, and have earned their places on those lists before storming their homes?
Stop the extremism here. Treat people like they aren’t criminals, mental patients or terrorists. Err on the side of smart, not goofy panicked emotions of people afraid of guns.
- Phenomynous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:20 am:
Why stop with just people who registered for FOID cards? Let’s search and sweep every convicted felon’s home, or last known place of residence for guns.
I mean, what is the qualifying factor for the search? The mental health issue, the felony, or the FOID card?
Good luck with the bill.
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:23 am:
When is it unrevoked,never? Nonviolent felons need their rights restored
- Last Bull Moose - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:24 am:
With respect to revoked FOIA cards, can they crosscheck FOIA cards by address? There could be 3 FOIA cards at one address. Revoking one card does not affect the others and weapons could still be at the location legally.
The FBI Terrorist Watch List seems to be an extra-judicial document. Are people on the list subject to search with no additional probable cause? Same question for wiretaps. If not, this sounds like overreach.
- Mason born - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:32 am:
Harris bill would be great if he’d left off the terror watchlist language. There is no due process for being on the list simply the opinion of someone in the federal bureaucracy that the individual should be watched. Let’s not forget being on the list does not equal terrorist and there is no proof that the individual holds any ill will or has committed any crime. If so they would be prosecuted. Quite simply the watchlist is a poison pill. It was wrong headed when the gw admin started it’s wrongheaded now.
- illini97 - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:33 am:
We’re talking about FOID cards, right? Not FOIA? The Freedom of Information Act has no dog in this fight.
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:34 am:
==So if you lose your FOIA card==
What the heck is a FOIA card? Although that brings up an argument: while we’re revoking someone’s 2d Amendment rights for being on this list, I say do the same for that person’s first Amendment rights, and bar them from teaching or speaking at any school or university
- Hit or Miss - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:37 am:
This bill sounds like a good idea to me.
- Fun with Numbers - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:39 am:
Anyone ever think that if a law isn’t being enforced, maybe the answer isn’t to pass another law but to provide adequate resources to implement/enforce the existing law?
- What? - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:39 am:
Why not restrict people’s rights at the government’s behest without due process? Seems perfectly rational and not un-American, at all.
- @MisterJayEm - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:41 am:
“FOIA”
Pouncing on an obvious typo is a rhetorical stroke of genius!
GENIUS!!1!
– MrJM
- Last Bull Moose - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:41 am:
Sorry, meant FOID cards. FOIA cards will be issued to control First Amendment rights.
- Lobo y Olla - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:45 am:
Unfrtunately, you cannot mandate a state’s attorney to petition for a warrant. Supreme Court rules (and the rules of evidence and ethics) require a foundation of “probable cause” to issue a search warrant. Example, what If I have a FOID card, but own no weapon (or perhaps I bought the weapon out of state via private sale) and I turn in my FOID card, but do not disclose my ownership of the gun?
In this example, the SA and LE have no idea I own a gun. Under this fact pattern, you cannot petition for a warrant.
You must state, with specificity in your complaint for SW, the articles to be searched for. “He may own a gun” is legally insufficient. There’s no wiggle room here. None. This would only work if ATF can link a purchase through FFL to the specific person who had his FOID revoked.
- Mr. 17.5 - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:45 am:
The problem with the existing law is that ISP and local police both point the finger at each other on who should be responsible for the search and seizure of the persons FOID card and firearms.
- plutocra03 - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:46 am:
“Do I get an envelope along with my junk mail?”
Not likely. We just received a notice from the Secretary of State via email regarding an expiring license plate. As luck would have it, it went to my junk folder. I wonder how many people will be fined for expired stickers? What would a surrender your weapons email look like?
Seriously, it is a gnarly issue. With the HIPPA laws, how does patient privacy get preserved? Do the mental care professionals have a duty to report any issue to the authorities? A bit of transient anxiety, depression? Who decides what the threshold of illness is to warrant confiscation? As far as the terrorist watchlist, is it checked during a background check, who is responsible of clearing errors?
- walker - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:47 am:
Sounds like a good general concept. Honestly don’t know that it’s doable.
- Wyatt Earp - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:50 am:
==Anyone ever think that if a law isn’t being enforced, maybe the answer isn’t to pass another law but to provide adequate resources to implement/enforce the existing law?==
True, but only to a point.
Does anyone really believe that if someone on the terrorist watch list is, in fact, a terrorist that the lack of a FOID card would foil whatever plot they might be hatching? To a somewhat lesser extent, same thing with folks suffering from mental illness. If they are bound and determined to possess a gun, they will surely have one.
This country is awash in so many guns that there is really no way to prevent anyone who wants a gun from possessing one. The answer lies in repealing the Second Amendment, banning–yes, banning–ownership of guns designed to kill and throwing people in jail who can’t get it through their heads that society has reached a point where the right to possess AR-15’s and Glocks and all the rest is outweighed, heavily, by the more important right of people to live in peace and safety. And spare the ridiculous talk of freedom. My freedom to live without fear of a mass shooter popping up at a school or a church or a stadium is a lot more important than anyone’s right to pack heat.
- Mr. 17.5 - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:51 am:
ISP does check with DHS before issuing FOID cards if the applicant has been admitted for mental health treatment.
- mcb - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:52 am:
This thing goes nowhere as long as the watchlist component is attached.
- illini97 - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 12:01 pm:
I do tend to agree that the watchlist provision is a poison pill. This bill isn’t moving forward with that still in it.
Further, if we do already have a state law dealing with the mentally ill and guns, maybe we just enforce that rather than drafting a new law?
- Blue dog dem - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 12:43 pm:
Can somebody out there tell me how the FOID card idea keeps me safer say, than the other 49 states that don’t use them? Let’s save that money for ISP and they can replace that squad car with 900,000 miles on it.
- ArchPundit - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:30 pm:
====Under Harris’ bill, when anyone with a revoked gun cards fails to comply with the law, the local police would be required to go to court and seek a warrant to search the person’s home for the FOID card and any firearms
Revoked FOIDS occur for a reason you should already know about such as a conviction.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=043000650K8
The above details those reasons and all involve some sort of due process except for minors.
In addition, the proposed law would send you a notice and you have 5 days to respond. The big change in the law is that it changes the issue of local police may seek a warrant to local police shall seek a warrant.
It’s unfunded and that’s too bad, but it is really what should have been happening before.
The terrorist watch list should come off the bill though–it’s simply not reliable. If we get to the point where it is, I’d be fine with it right now, but there are too many incidents where the wrong people or people who shouldn’t be on it at all are listed.
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:39 pm:
==The above details those reasons and all involve some sort of due process==
The due process concerns aren’t with the current revocable reasons. As you said, they’ve been given notice of those reasons, and allowed the opportunity to contest them before being convicted. The Due Process concerns are including a terror watch list entry, where none of the notice or appeal rights are given to a citizen before they’re placed on this list.
- Leave a Light on George - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:46 pm:
.Having a FOID card does not automatically mean you own a gun. Nor does is mean that it is at the address listed on the FOID card.I personally know several folks who for very valid reasons have a FOID but don’t own a gun but often possess them at various times i.e. hunting, target shooting ect. They use a relative’s or friends gun return it when the activity is over then go on their way. ( I used grandpa’s gun until I got my own but still had a FOID).
Know anybody who has a driver’s license but doesn’t drive. Just has is it for an id?
Point is certain conditions are met yes revoke the FOID but that doen’t give you probable cause to start searching peoples homes.
- Leave a Light on George - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:55 pm:
Point two - ISP has a demonstrated track record of going beyond statutory authority when it comes denying FOID/revoking cards. Funding and manpower limitations may be holding them in check at the moment but it is with good reason that law abiding gun owners as well as local sheriffs should be wary of giving ISP more authority in this area.
- mcb - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:11 pm:
I would agree there are a lot of non gun owners with FOIDs. So in many cases you could have completely unnecessary searches and related costs. Why not put a section in the bill where ISP queries the ATF or whoever keeps copies of all the background checks for purchases, so that “shall seek a warrant” only occurs if there was a gun purchase in say the last 10 years? Yes it might miss a few private purchases that happened before the state’s universal check system took effect, but it would make this much more doable. -along with of course removing the terror watch list component.
- Slick Willy - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:28 pm:
There is no due process in place regarding the terror watch list. How can anyone support the removal of any right based solely on suspicion?
- downstate commissioner - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:38 pm:
“Wyatt Earp” Did you ever hear of something called “Prohibition?” Your idea would work as well as that did…
- Todd - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:42 pm:
Maybe this can explain it just a bit. . . .
https://www.facebook.com/Oversight/videos/10153418211287517/
- downstate commissioner - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:44 pm:
Didn’t the US House just beat back a proposal including the no-fly list? Even granting that it is Republican dominated, and the IL House is Democratic, looks like the arguments are the same for that part.
Can see some problems with the FOID card, but it does make some sense, and could probably be made workable.
(By the way, I am getting a FOID card for my wife, and believe me, she has no interest in guns at all…)
- Gun owner - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 4:37 pm:
If the law is passed it should provide for a public hearing before a Judge before any action is taken. If the DHS claims a person has a mental illness, the person should have a right to petition and question at a hearing. If the person is on the Terrorist watch list, They should have the same right to a hearing. Just because you are on a list, doesn’t make it true. We can keep restricting people to the point, they cannot even walk down the street! The politicians want to get on TV and show they are doing something. We need to make sure there is checks and balances if this law passed. I can see this law being abused to no end if passed. It could be used to confiscated firearms from anyone who speaks against the government.
- Small town taxpayer - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 7:05 pm:
===Know anybody who has a driver’s license but doesn’t drive. Just has is it for an id?===
The SOS also issues an ID only card. It costs less than a drivers license, requires no written test, requires no driving test, etc. Not sure why I would want a drivers license only as an ID.
- Gun owner - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 8:12 pm:
Maybe instead of the Terrorist watch list! American citizens only can purchase firearms.
- DuPage Grandma - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:21 pm:
Many people have a drivers license but do not own cars. Most teenagers living at home do not own the car they drive for family errands. Some who own cars do not have drivers licenses. For example, many seniors own a car in order to pay for its expenses so they can be driven to the grocery store, religious services etc. Having a DL does not indicate car ownership or possession, anymore that FOID car necessarily indicates gun ownership or possession. Still I do support parts of the Harris Bill.
- Berserker - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:16 pm:
I’ve owned my home for over 3 years but still receive bills related to the previous owner’s adult son’s psychiotric medical expenses (unopened but return address of provider makes clear what they’re for). To the best of my knowledge he is a transient who is apparently still listed as living here. Do I now need to worry the swat team is going to execute a no-knock search warrant for someone who doesn’t even live here in the event he, or his dad of the same name, have a lapsed FOID card registered to this address? How many other potential clarical errors will expose law abiding citizens to aggressive search by law enforcement. War on Drugs, War on Terrorism now War on Guns.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Dec 15, 15 @ 5:58 am:
50,000 swat team raids on people with mental illness,what could go wrong?