How Illinois police are cracking down on illegal guns with $1M in firearm enforcement grants

Illinois State Police crack down on illegal guns with $1M in enforcement grants

The Illinois State Police are distributing more than $1 million in firearm enforcement grants to 21 police departments across the state — including Chicago, Aurora, and Joliet — to help agencies track revoked Firearm Owner’s ID (FOID) cards and ensure guns are only in the hands of legally eligible owners.

CHICAGO - Illinois State Police (ISP) are distributing about $1 million in firearm enforcement grants across the state to help local police departments ensure guns don’t end up in the wrong hands.

What we know:

ISP Director Brendan Kelly said the program focuses on people who have lost their legal ability to own a firearm, whether due to a criminal conviction, a firearm restraining order, an order of protection or being flagged as a clear and present danger. 

While revoking a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card is one step, Kelly said the real challenge is making sure the guns themselves are removed.

"It's one thing to, in the system, revoke their ability to have that firearm in a legal sense. It's an entirely different effort for law enforcement to go make sure the guns themselves have been properly, either permanently or temporarily disposed of, while this person poses a threat to themselves or others. And that is very intensive work. It requires a lot of investigation, it requires a a lot work up, and it's a very kind of particular set of skills, capacities, and time that law enforcement has to devote to it," said Kelly.

The firearm enforcement grants were created through bipartisan legislation about four years ago. 

This marks the fourth round of funding, which will be shared by departments both large and small. For example, Willowbrook Police Department will receive nearly $7,000, Joliet about $33,000, and Chicago Police more than $425,000.

Kelly emphasized the grants are designed to support lawful gun ownership while preventing tragedies. 

"When you're a lawful gun owner, and you go and purchase your firearm, or you pay the fee that you have for your firearm's identification card, this money is going into enforcement to be able to make sure that people who are dangerous are not going to have that firearm, so it supports lawful gun ownership, safe gun ownership and being able to intervene when we all agree. Regardless of our perspectives. We all agree that there might be someone who's either for mental reasons or because of their criminal conduct, should not be able to have a firearm where they could hurt themselves or hurt somebody else," said Kelly.

What they're saying:

The funding helps agencies cover investigative costs, including manpower and overtime. Kelly said that while the work is complex and time-consuming, the goal is to prevent both large-scale tragedies, such as mass shootings, and individual acts of violence, including suicides and domestic disputes.

"This isn't really driven by any new law," said Kelly. "This is really about follow through. This is about execution. This is not just changing someone's status in the background check system, but actually verifying that a firearm that could be used to hurt somebody, including someone hurting themselves, that that has been properly disposed of. And sometimes it's a temporary thing, because someone may be going through a mental health crisis, and we're going to take that firearm. Sometimes it's in the middle of an investigation. We're trying to put the facts together, and it's clear on the surface of it that there may be a very dangerous set of facts here, but then we do an investigation, and we have due process and those things play themselves out, but in the meantime, we've done what needed to do to protect public safety. So it's not driven by some new law or some new incident. This is just a common-sense thing to be able to give local law enforcement a little more support for this effort."

Firearms collected through these efforts are either secured by law enforcement or transferred to someone lawfully allowed to possess them.

Kelly also stressed that the program should not cause concern for lawful gun owners. 

"This is just good common-sense law enforcement work, you know. Guns can be used to hurt people, and we know that gun violence is a big driver of criminal activity and I think we all agree if somebody has lost that right, if they have threatened to hurt somebody, if they are threatening to shoot a school up, if they are threatening to kill their family members or they're threatening other members of the public. Or someone's in a mental health crisis and we're very concerned that they're going to take their own life, we have to intervene and we have take appropriate steps, reasonable law enforcement steps to make sure that we're protecting their safety, protecting the safety of the public. And this is just a very obvious and straightforward way that we are supporting that kind of common sense," said Kelly.