So this afternoon—barely past lunch, mind you—my phone rings with one of those calls. You know the kind: deeply concerned, with a dash of conspiracy flavoring, straight from the horse’s mouth kinda things.
“Hey John,” the voice says. A voice I recognized from the Sangamon County GSL meeting. I think he gave his name, but I was still rousing from my Influenza A & B recovery nap. “My buddy works in the printing section of the Capitol complex. He swears he saw a bill that’s gonna mandate buybacks for every gun registered under PICA. They’re coming for the registry list!”
My brain’s trying to spin up to reality. “Huh?” I almost dropped the phone. “No way. There’s no way.”
But then the little paranoid devil on my shoulder whispered, “Hold up… these people running Illinois day-drink mimosas at 7 a.m. with breakfast and move on to the hard stuff by lunch. And still think they’re sober enough to write laws. Stranger things have happened.”
So yeah, I did what any rational person does when Springfield starts acting frisky: I sicced Grok on it like a bloodhound on Red Bull.
Here’s what I got:
No, there are no bills in the current Illinois General Assembly (the 104th General Assembly, covering 2025-2026) that propose to confiscate or implement a mandatory buyback of guns previously registered (or eligible for registration/endorsement) under the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA, Public Act 102-1116, enacted in 2023).
The Protect Illinois Communities Act banned the sale, manufacture, delivery, purchase, and import of certain “assault weapons,” .50 caliber rifles/cartridges, high-capacity magazines, and related devices, but it included a grandfather clause: pre-existing owners could retain possession if they registered/endorsed the items via affidavit with the Illinois State Police (generally by early 2024 deadlines, with some extensions or ongoing processes noted in ISP guidance). The law explicitly does not provide for confiscation of properly registered grandfathered items; enforcement focuses on non-compliance (e.g., failure to register or new transfers), and sources clarify that door-to-door seizures or broad confiscation were not part of the Act or its intent.
Searches across legislative sites (ilga.gov), news, and related sources show no introduced bills in 2025-2026 proposing:
Confiscation of registered grandfathered firearms.
A state-run buyback program specifically targeting or tied to PICA-registered items.
Mandatory surrender or repurchase schemes for these previously legal/registered weapons.Related gun legislation in the current session includes:
Safe Gun Storage Act (SB 8, signed 2025, effective 2026) — requires secure storage, reporting lost/stolen guns, but no confiscation or buyback.
Various bills on FOID card changes, tracing firearms, or repealing/reforming other gun laws (e.g., HB 1034 to repeal concealed carry aspects, SB 3171 to repeal FOID Act entirely) — but none address PICA-registered guns via confiscation or buyback.
Earlier bills (e.g., HB 4681 from prior sessions) mentioned voluntary/local buyback programs where firearms are destroyed post-purchase, but nothing current or PICA-specific mandates buyback or seizure.
Legal challenges to PICA (e.g., Barnett v. Raoul) continue in federal courts, with some rulings striking down ban provisions as unconstitutional, but this has not prompted confiscation-related bills; instead, it focuses on the validity of the bans/registration themselves.If you’re tracking specific bills, the official source is the Illinois General Assembly website (ilga.gov), where you can search legislation by keyword (e.g., “assault weapon,” “firearm registration,” “buyback,” or “confiscate”) in the 104th GA. As of mid-February 2026, no such proposals appear active or introduced.
It is AI, which means it doesn’t walk on water. But its investigative abilities are pretty impressive.
If you find something out there, please add a note in comments.
In the meantime, you can breathe a little easier. Especially if you or one of your friends were the 1.xx% who actually registered their PICA regulated guns.