29357 gun owners in Illinois registered firearms, accessories or ammunition during the three week window that just closed on December 31st.  That makes for a good soundbite:  “THOUSANDS of Illinois gun owners registered these guns,” Pritzker can say – truthfully at that.  It sounds impressive until you consider that 2.4 MILLION registered nothing.

And yes, running the numbers through the old calculator shows a 98.8% non-compliance rate.

The Firearms Policy Coalition put their creative minds to work and came up with this.  (H/t to former IL resident, now Texan Jon T.)

Disarmament Regime mouthpieces: “a mAjoRiTY oF gUn oWnErS suPpoRT tHEsE lAws”

98.78% of Illinois gun owners to @JBPritzker https://t.co/L8HsgRZB8C pic.twitter.com/1l4g32kWQ1

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) January 3, 2024

In comments, some of our armed intelligentsia have raised a few very good points.

At least when they weren’t spending some windshield time visiting friends or family outside of IL recently.

How many of our state’s 2.4+ million FOID holders still have no idea they were supposed to register their “naughty” guns like a Ruger Target pistol or face criminal penalties.

Or their hundred-plus-year-old Broomhandle Mauser pistol…  a renowned killing machine if there ever was such a thing.

And don’t forget about the original Star Wars lightsaber!  (Banned “accessories” that were required to be registered.

Why even in my family, a “cousin-in-law” of mine had no idea about the gun registry  at Thanksgiving and he’s enough of a gun guy that he is a member of the Aurora Sportsmen’s Club – the state’s largest gun range.

Widespread confusion over what’s banned and what’s not.  For instance, some folks no doubt registered their Glock 17s because the standard cap magazine held 17 rounds.  (Pro-tip:  Here’s the ISP identification FAQ.  Turn to the last three pages for useful flow-charts.)

Detachable mag capacities are not relevant to whether or not guns are banned in Illinois.  Instead, it’s features.  Like threaded muzzles.  Confusion about this?  You bet.  I just took a call from a guy while driving to the Pontiac GSL meeting who was under the impression his Glock 17 was going to cause him grief if the ISP found out about it, thanks to that 17-round standard cap magazine.

Darren Bailey, bless his heart, must feel pretty confident that his local state’s attorney isn’t going to prosecute violations of Pritzker’s PICA gun ban.

Where does this leave our friends JB Pritzker, Don Harmon, Chris Welch?

What can we expect from them or perhaps the Land of Lincoln’s Attorney General Kwame Raoul?

Here are some whispers we’ve heard.  Details are sketchy.  We’re sharing some of what we have.  We’ll see our mole from Pritzker’s inner circle soon we hope to help fill in some details.

Does Kwame Raoul isn’t going to appoint a special prosecutor to run with cases when local prosecutors won’t prosecute?  This topic certainly stands as a high priority item for the gun control cabal running our state.  If local prosecutors won’t prosecute, then the law is effectively nullified.  What’s more, Pritzker and the rest of them have egg on their face every single time someone points out that effectively 99% of gun owners said, “No Thanks” to registering their defensive firearms.

How aggressively does the state want to get with sheriffs who publicly state that they will not enforce this law?   Will they try to draft legislation to criminally charge or remove sheriffs – the highest elected official in a given county – for refusing to enforce the PICA gun ban?  (H/t Craig)

Lastly, there are moves afoot to craft some sort of “workaround,” to allow the Illinois State Police to conduct compliance audits for more prolific gun purchasers.

How would that work?  ISP has a database of FTIP approvals.  If they see some guy by the name of John Boch has got 65 FTIP approvals over the past 25ish years, that would flag him as a prolific purchaser (my words, not theirs).  So ISP sends queries out to the dealers associated with those approvals (or BATF headquarters for those FFLs who have surrendered their licenses) to pull up the federal Form 4473 purchase forms associated with those approvals.  From there they get make, model and serials.

If they see Mr. Boch has 6 AR-15s, 5 H&K 91s, 4 AK-47s, 3 FN FALs, 2 Uzis and a Browning BAR in a pear tree they will then consult their registry list.  Seeing no guns registered by Mr. Boch, at that point they might go out to his house to do a “knock and talk” to see if he’ll fess up to failing to register his bevy of beautiful bangsticks.  Failing that, maybe they can coax someone in the household to grant consent to search, especially if they show up when they know he’s going to be at one of the GSL meetings somewhere.  Or maybe they’ll see something illegal or suspicious in plain view to give them the ability to conduct a search to maybe find those naughty, naughty little black guns they so desperately want.  Or maybe they can talk Mr. Boch into surrendering the guns on an assurance (because cops never lie to those they investigate) that if he just surrenders the guns that they won’t take him away in cuffs.

Maybe the boys at ISP could even sweet talk a judge in a sympathetic county like Cook, Lake or Champaign Counties to sign off on a warrant and with that, they would have their ability to enter even if consent to search was refused.

Stay tuned for that one.  We’ll share more as we get it.

These are dangerous, uncharted waters for most of us.