Illinois is a bastion of firearms freedoms, as we all well know, so it is not surprising to find out that the proposed ‘Fix the FOID’ act wants to add a fingerprints requirement to the identity data the state collects on persons wanting to exercise their civil rights.
Illinois State Police said Aurora shooter Gary Martin slipped through the cracks by lying on his application for a FOID card, and because Illinois does not have a fingerprinting requirement, the system missed his 20-year-old conviction for stabbing a former girlfriend in Mississippi. – CBS Chicago
If the ISP had just had his fingerprints there is NO WAY he would have had a gun… Minus the fact he already illegally had the gun and the state was the entity that failed by issuing the FOID.
Very few states have fingerprints as a state requirement for ownership. Carry, yes, but not ownership. Federally anyone looking to purchase an NFA item also must submit updated prints to the ATF.
The Fix the FOID fingerprint submission is not an unheard of requirement. Nor is it particularly burdensome with technology like Livescan. But assuring us that if this particular requirement had been in place that Aurora wouldn’t have happened seems like a stretch… I would hazard that there were other factors involved beyond fingerprints.
The addition of fingerprint data isn’t the only issue up in the act. Raising the tax for ownership ID by 500% is also. Yes, raising the tax… on a civil right… by 500%. I’m certain making it more expensive will help with that homicide clearance rate as those funds will undoubtedly be slated to combat ‘gun violence’. That’s usually the line they sell the tax increase with at any rate, and besides it only affects those crazy gun owners who dare to own guns legally. Fix the FOID now looks like a money grab from this angle.
According to data obtained by CBS 2, in 2018 3,429 cards were revoked in Cook County, but 39% of those cards were never actually returned.
You mean to say that people didn’t want to return their access to arms? Color me shocked! Shocked I say! But how would Fix the FOID change that non-compliance rate? Are those 3,429 revocations based on a background check in error? Would fingerprints have corrected those errors? None of that data is stated although the correlation is implied to bolster an argument for fingerprinting. In reality that number likely represents total revocations for all reasons, including expirations and criminal conduct. Very few of those are likely a revocation based on a background check error, and fewer of that subset would be corrected by having fingerprints on file.
The “Fix the FOID” Act passed out of committee Tuesday. It is poised for a vote in the House. The Senate would have to sign off before it goes to the governor’s desk.
