Lake County Sheriff To Crack Down On Revoked Firearm Licenses
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Lake County Sheriff's Office has announced plans to increase enforcement of Firearm Owners Identification card revocations.
When the sheriff's office is notified of a FOID card revocation in Lake County, a team of detectives will be sent out to try to get the person's card and guns, as well as his or her concealed carry permit, if necessary.
When Illinois State Police revoke a FOID card, they send a notice to the license holder and to local police. The law requires anyone whose FOID card is revoked to surrender their license to local police within 48 hours, and complete a "firearm disposition record" form listing what they have done with each of their firearms.
Guns can either be transferred to another FOID card holder, or surrendered to police or the courts.
Police can't seize guns from a person whose FOID card was revoked, unless the license holder fails to turn in a firearm disposition record. However, even when revoked FOID card holders don't submit the form, police rarely seize their guns unless they're arrested for some other reason.
Now, however, detectives in Lake County will review all revoked FOID cards dating back to 2016, and take steps to contact the license holders and recover their FOID card, any concealed carry license they might also hold, and make sure they no longer have any guns.
It's a move prompted by the deadly workplace shooting at Henry Pratt Company in Aurora last month. The gunman, Gary Martin, had his FOID card revoked in 2014, but never gave up his gun.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has said the state's current system of keeping guns out of the hands of people with a revoked FOID card is ridiculous and broken, and has proposed raising FOID card fees to pay for county task forces to seize guns when licenses are revoked.
"The system is the honor system; literally, that's it. There's nothing else," Dart said last month.
Illinois State Police said more than 10,000 FOID cards were revoked last year, but in more than 75 percent of cases, the license holders never told police they had surrendered their guns.