About 1.2% of legal Illinois gun owners registered banned items before deadline

(The Center Square) – The final numbers for Illinois’ gun ban registry leading up to the Jan. 1 deadline are in. One high profile politician says he’s not among them.

The final numbers from Illinois State Police show a total of 29,357 individuals disclosed they possess a now banned item. That’s nearly double the numbers that were reported the prior week and now 1.22% of the state’s 2.4 million Firearm Owners ID cards holders.

Of the individuals who disclosed banned items before the Jan. 1 deadline, there were 68,992 banned firearms reported, or about 2.3 firearms per individual that filed an affidavit. There were 42,830 banned accessories disclosed and 528 .50 caliber ammunition disclosures. The three-month registration window opened on Oct. 1, 2023.

Former state Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, posted a video to social media on New Year’s Day showing him shooting several banned guns and saying he will “die” on his porch before he gives them up.

Tuesday, Bailey said his message is clear.

“This is an issue that we have an opportunity to stand and save this republic over and I believe that is what’s at stake and what this is all about,” Bailey told The Center Square.

Responding on X, former Twitter, state Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, said what Bailey is doing might be a detainable offense.

“There is this LAW with an ORDER and if you violate it threatening to kill yourself and the people who come to enforce the law then that might just get you detained pretrial,” Peters wrote.

Bailey said the gun ban is creating fear, panic and complicity.

“And they just lead to one thing after another until our freedoms are gone,” he said.

Being found out of compliance could lead to a Class A misdemeanor for the first offense, or a Class 3 felony for second and subsequent offenses.

Cases against Illinois’ gun ban and registry continue despite the Jan. 1 deadline.

In the Southern District of Illinois federal court, Judge Stephen McGlynn denied the state’s motion to delay responding to a Fifth Amendment challenge of the gun ban. He ordered the state to respond by Jan. 19. McGlynn reset a scheduling conference from Jan. 4 to Jan. 12.

In state court, attorney Thomas DeVore will be in Effingham County Wednesday to try and bring back his cases that were vacated after the Illinois Supreme Court’s August ruling against a separate gun ban challenge.

“It’s important to note that the state of Illinois never asked for our case to be dismissed, our equal protection claim, they never asked for it to be dismissed. The judge did it on its own motion,” DeVore told The Center Square. “So once we argue on Wednesday the judge is going to have to make a decision on whether he’s going to change his mind and put the case back in play in the circuit court so we can do discovery, which is what we’re asking, or he can deny our request.”