Crime and Safety

HB 3699 – Targeting Carjacking (Delgado/Martwick)

• Provides that the Illinois Vehicle Hijacking and Motor Vehicle Theft Preventing and Insurance Verification Council is responsible for providing grants and financial support to assist in the identification, apprehension, and prosecution of hijackers, and the recovery of hijacked and stolen motor vehicles.
• Provides that the Council is responsible for developing and sponsoring the implementation of plans and strategies for combating vehicle hijacking, and to improve the administration of vehicle hijacking laws.

HB 3772 – Protecting Stolen Vehicle Owners from Fines (Delgado/Aquino)

• Provides that a person shall not be liable for violations, fees, fines, or penalties – such as red light tickets – during the period in which the motor vehicle was reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency as stolen or hijacked.

HB 260 – Expanding Highway Camera Use Purposes (A. Williams/Feigenholtz)

• Expands the Expressway Camera Act to include Lake Shore Drive and allows the use of images from the cameras to investigate and prosecute all forcible felonies, including car hijackings and terrorism.

HB 601 – Modernizing Car Burglary Laws (Andrade/Gillespie)

• Updates possession of burglary tool laws to include situations of an individual attempting to steal a vehicle with new technologies – including devices that duplicate a signal from a key fob.

HB 107 – Addressing Catalytic Converter Theft (Ford/Munoz)

• Targets the incentives of catalytic converter theft by creating a paper trail and requiring scrap yards and metal recyclers to review and record the identification of sellers.
• If a seller does not have a Secretary of State issued license identifying them as an automotive parts recycler or scrap processor, the seller will be required to fill out a 1099-MISC tax form by the buyer.
• Prohibits buyers from conducting cash purchases if a catalytic converter is valued at more than$100.

RED FLAG and GUN TRAFFICKING LAWS: 

• Illinois is one of the first 17 states to pass red flag laws – essentially a family member or someone else close to the offender can report that said person made a threat to ues a firearm in a illegal manner. 

• In 2018 the Illinois General Assembly passed the Firearms Restraining Order Act which allows the petitioner the ability request an emergency firearms restraining order by pleading that the respondent poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself, or another by having in his or her custody or control, purchasing, possessing, or receiving a firearm. (2018 HB 2354 Public Act 100-607) 

• Also in 2018, the Combating Illegal Gun Trafficking Act and the Firearm Dealer License Certification Act were both passed, requiring each Federal Firearms Licensee to file with the Department of State Police a copy of its license. After the license is reviewed the State Police will issue a certificate of license allowing them to conduct business within the State. Creates the Gun Trafficking Information Act which calls for a regular report on the number of Firearm Owner’s Identification Card checks to determine firearms trafficking or straw purchase patterns. (018 SB 337 Public Act 100-1178)

• In 2021, we passed HB0562 which requires the Illinois State Police and the Department of Human Services to coordinate to report mental health firearm possession prohibitors to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”). Illinois is one of 13 states with full point of contact states where federal firearm licensees (gun sellers) must contact the State for all background checks. The State, in turn, conducts its own firearm background check through the NICS.

This bill requires ISP to continuously monitor state and federal databases for firearms prohibiting records, to correlate those records with FOID card holders, and to revoke the FOID cards of any prohibited persons identified in those continuously monitored databases. It also expands and enhances gun trafficking data reporting requirements under the Gun Trafficking Act and statutes.

HB0562 also incentivizes additional use of fingerprints by allowing the ISP to develop procedures for the voluntary use of pre-existing fingerprint data submitted through other state background check systems. It requires Illinois State Police to establish a public database of all firearms that have been reported stolen to be checked prior to the transfer of any firearm to prevent the inadvertent transfer of stolen firearms. 

This was an Illinois State Police initiative and was negotiated between them, the sponsors, Illinois State Rifle Association, and Gun Violence Prevention PAC. (2021 HB 562 Public Act 102-237)