wheA new House committee in the Illinois legislature is devoted to coming up with new ways to go after the state's legal gun owners, who are already subject to an litany of laws and regulations that directly conflict with their right to keep and bear arms. The Illinois House Gun Violence Prevention Committee was created last month at the beginning of the 2025 legislative session, and it's already starting to push a number of gun control measures along with at least one less controversial bill.
This week the committee heard two bills authored by Rep. Bob Morgan, a Deerfield Democrat who was also the primary architect of the Protect Illinois Communities Act that bans so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines. While those portions of the law have largely been held to be unconstitutional by a federal judge, Morgan isn't letting that get in the way of introducing new measures aimed at making it more expensive to keep and bear arms, including HB 33, which would jack up the price of firearm transfers from $2 to $10 per transaction.
He said the extra funds would be used to go after those with expired or revoked Firearm Owner’s ID cards.
“The question is whether we’re getting those resources to law enforcement to do the job that we’re charging them to do, that’s what this legislation is about,” Morgan told the committee.
Four dollars would go to confiscating FOID cards and firearms from those not in compliance. The other $6 would go back to administrative costs.
Josh Witkowski with Illinois Federation for Outdoor Resources said they’re opposed because of how the funds would be used.
“Law abiding firearms owners engaging in legal transactions are being asked to pay extra to handle individuals who are not in compliance,” he said.
Witkowski also said the FOID card could be in jeopardy with a recent court ruling against the requirement for having the ID to keep a gun in the home.
Witkowski's right on both accounts. The FOID mandate might not be long for this world, though the Illinois Supreme Court has repeatedly found ways to get around a direct ruling on its legality in the past. But to Witkowski's other point, why should gun owners who are following the law be singled out and forced to pay for enforcing the FOID statute? If the FOID card is a matter of statewide concern, as Morgan contends, shouldn't the general public be responsible for the price of enforcement?
Morgan also interested in imposing an insurance requirement on gun owners. HB 43 would create a task force charged with investigating the feasibility and sketching out the parameters of a gun insurance mandate.
“This would be like an insurance rider,” Morgan said. “We all have insurance on our home that you might have flooding insurance that would just kind of be a rider on your underlying homeowners insurance or you might have cybersecurity insurance for small business.”
Witkowski said there is no legitimate market for such an insurance product and the makeup of the task force would be lopsided.
Morgan said he’s willing to work on what the task force's makeup will be and other language in the bill.
Note Morgan's language. You "might" have flood or cybersecurity insurance, but the Democrat isn't interested in gun owners being able to choose to buy a liability insurance policy for their firearms. And despite the lawmaker's supposed willingness to amend the language and open up the task force to a broader group of stakeholders, you can rest assured that the majority of its members will be anti-gun, just like the House Gun Violence Prevention Committee itself.
The one measure heard in committee this week that might draw bipartisan support is HB 1710, which would require the Illinois State Police to submit homicide data to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority every three months. That information would then be studied, compiled, and published on the Authority's website on a quarterly basis. On the surface, HB 1710 seems unobjectionable, but the problem is that this data would almost certainly be used as justification for further infringements on our right to keep and bear arms. A majority of homicides in the state will involve firearms, which is all the data the Democrats need to blame inanimate objects and their lawful owners for the actions of criminals.
I'm honestly surprised that Morgan and other anti-gun Democrats haven't proposed broadening the state's "assault weapon" ban to include all gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, but with a committee dedicated to coming up with new and inventive ways to curtail our Second Amendment rights, I suspect it's only a matter of time before a bigger, badder gun ban appears in the Illinois House.
