This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Concealed carry mired in bureaucracy?

 


By Mark Fitton The Southern
Although it appears they have started to take small steps, Illinois State Police have an uphill climb if they are to keep from subverting the Illinois Firearm Concealed Carry Act.
In Shepard vs. Madigan, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Illinois’ blanket ban on civilian carry outside the home to be unconstitutional. The court gave the state until July 9 to change its law.
A fiercely negotiated yet quite restrictive concealed carry law overwhelmingly cleared the General Assembly. It was then was heavily rewritten by Gov. Pat Quinn, but the Legislature easily overrode Quinn’s amendatory veto.
Still, the Legislature gave Illinois State Police an ample set of deadlines: Sixty days to approve instruc-tors and publish a list of those instructors; 180 days (inclusive of the 60) to begin accepting citizen ap-plications; and up to 90 days to start approving or denying citizen applications. In short, ISP was put on a 270-day schedule.
The agency published details of the instructor application process the afternoon Aug. 30, the Friday of a holiday weekend. The requirements:
 Fingerprints had to be electronically scanned and submitted by a state-approved vendor, and the applicant had to mail a “Live Scan Authorization Form” to Springfield.
 Two notarized documents, a signature form and an affidavit of sorts regarding a state-approved (although vague) curriculum outline, had to be mailed to Springfield, as did instructor credentials. In addition to a criminal background check, instructor applicants also signed a privacy waiver regarding medical records.
 Instructors also had to submit an online application.
Applicants wasted no time. While state police have not said exactly how many instructor applications they received, reports from people familiar with the program rang from about 800 to 1,000.
The running list of instructor approvals to date, per the ISP website:
 As of Thursday Sept. 5: zero.
 Friday, Sept. 6, the last weekday before the legal deadline: seven
 Monday, Sept. 9: two.
 Tuesday, Sept. 10: eight.
 Wednesday, Sept. 11: two
 Thursday, Sept. 12: four.
 On the 13th, 16th, 17th and 18th of September, no approvals were posted.
 On Thursday, state police exceeded their entire previous output of 23 approvals and posted 33 new ones.
 On Friday, no new instructors were added, and one was struck from the list.
Instructors are going to be vital if the state is to meet the intent of the court’s order and the letter of its own law. That law requires 16 hours of handgun training, although eight of those may be from previous service or courses. However, the only approved eight hours that are clearly and certainly acceptable at the moment are proof of military service.
State police say they will make applications available to the public by Jan. 5, 2014. By its own projection, the state expects about 300,000 concealed carry license applications in 2014.
So, as October 2013 approaches, Illinois has approved 55 instructors and no curriculums.
There’s a real problem with the math. Unless ISP can seriously speed its processes, the system will overload from the start.
Further, some of the requirements to date are baffling. No one seems to know how, for example, to spend three hours teaching gun cleaning. There is simply nothing in handgun cleaning that takes three hours. Nothing.
The National Rifle Association also has a long list of concerns and not all of them what one might ex-pect. For instance, the NRA wants lawyers and law officers to be allowed to teach sections on use of force and the law while under supervision of a certified instructor. That seems sane and reasonable.
State police also are requiring instructors to obtain their own firearm concealed carry licenses. That requirement does not appear in the Act, the NRA says. And applicants are posing this question: If the state cannot process applications for both instructor and carry licenses in time, who teaches then?
Illinois has, in the past, failed miserably at getting Firearm Owners Identification Owners cards issued within legal time limits. Its performance to date on instructor applications is not reassuring.
Some in the pro-carry movement say there are people of good will within ISP trying to make the proc-ess workable and efficient. Others say the legal department is tying it in knots. With the ISP’s Spring-field headquarters being about as transparent as the NSA, who really knows?
Some want to hold Gov. Pat Quinn and ISP Director Hiram Grau responsible. Now. They say follow state law like other citizens. Others advise quiet patience and discretion, apparently believing that misplaced frustration will only tighten the knots.
We certainly can tell Gov. Quinn, Director Grau and the General Assembly this: If you cannot get this legally mandated system moving with efficiency and logic and January 2014 arrives with concealed carry jammed in a corner of an un-elected bureaucracy, your efforts or lack of efforts will not be forgotten.
MARK FITTON is managing editor of The Southern Illinoisan. He is also an NRA certified multi-discipline instructor and chief range safety officer. His own application for Illinois instructor status is pending. He can be reached at 618-351-5807 or mark.fitton@thesouthern.com.From " the Southern Illinoisan"

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?