While about 15,000 Illinois gun owners have registered, 2.4 million of us have not. Instead, we have arrived at the point in the gun registration window that we have to make a final decision: Do we comply with Pritzker’s new gun and magazine ban’s registration requirement in one way or another, or do we ignore it.
The registration window closes at the end of the day this Sunday, December 31st.
Without a doubt there are potential downsides no matter what we opt to do.
Compliance without registration:
1) You can destroy the gun. That seems silly.
2. You can surrender the gun to the police. What? Are you not paying enough in taxes?
3. You can sell it, to an FFL or other exempted person.
4. You can rehome the gun outside of Illinois. Gas is expensive, but a half-day or a day on the road beats paying a retainer for a criminal defense attorney. Remember, any ISP investigators at your front door wanting proof you rehomed your guns should be offered a breath-mint and told to GTFO from your property. It’s NOT up to you to prove your innocence (that you no longer have said guns). It’s up to ISP to prove that you do have care, custody and control of said firearms.
Gray area “compliance”:
5. You can bury them out of the reach of your buddies at Pritzker’s Illinois State Police. I love visiting old mausoleums, don’t you? The bolt cutters and the weathered padlocks in my backseat? Completely unrelated. Hint: cut the chain, not the original lock.
6. You can have a tragic boating accident. Please report the accident to IDNR or you might get a couple hundred dollar fine. Gotta follow the law, ya know.
Outright non-compliance aka civil disobedience:
7. Not gonna register and not gonna take them out of the state. I like my self-defense tools where I can access them if I need them. Do yourself a favor though: take then out of the safe and put them somewhere else, just in case Five-O shows up with a warrant to look around.
RISKS: If you don’t register, as an average person with a handful armful of these suddenly-banned firearms, you have an almost zero risk of an arrest for failing to register unless you do really dumb things with them. Keep them in a safe, out-of-sight, and never discussed. Don’t take them hunting, or to the range. Don’t practice dryfiring in front of your living room window while the school bus drops off kiddos outside. Or any other time. Tell EVERYONE – including friends, family, neighbors and co-workers that your guns were taken out of the state just to be on the safe side. What’s more, this may also apply to your spouse and/or kids.
Now, if you’ve purchased scores of guns over the last few years including naughty guns, then you have a slightly higher chance of finding yourself on the wrong end of a compliance check. Particularly if you live in Cook, Lake or Champaign Counties. Regardless of where you live, hopefully you and everyone in your home are on the same page about refusing to answer questions from police and consenting to searches of your home absent a warrant.
Register.
Or you can register. If you’ve got Class III toys, obviously those must be registered. If you’re worried to death about it, register them.
Downsides to registration? Oh, I don’t know… Maybe the governor’s plan to “close the existing owner loophole” after a mass casualty event next year? Or potential for Illinois Department of Revenue “random” audits? Or other issues?
At Guns Save Life, we urged people not to register early in this process back in September. Today, we formally encourage folks to take the option that best suits their circumstances.
Comments are closed.