Supporters of a proposed state licensing law for gun dealers address the House Judiciary – Criminal Committee on May 16. Former federal ATF agent (from left) Mark Jones, Hazel Crest mother and gun violence activist Delphine Cherry and Rep. Kathleen Willis (D-Melrose Park). (Blueroomstream)

A bill to license 2,400 Illinois gun dealers (SB1657) was debated and passed out of the in the House Judiciary – Criminal Committee May 16. The bill was approved by the Senate in April. If the House passes the bill and it is signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, it will become law starting this summer.

Twenty-six states have some form of state licensing laws for gun dealers. Similar bills have been proposed in Illinois for almost 15 years to try to close loopholes for “bad apple” gun dealers whose guns can be traced to almost 40 percent of weapons found at crime scenes, according to proponents Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) and House Sponsor Kathleen Willis (D-Melrose Park).

The National Rifle Association and Illinois NRA mounted an intense online campaign to kill the bill, which their website called, “an onerous gun dealer licensing scheme within the state.”

Republican House members mentioned a large number of constituents had contacted them regarding the bill, which received more than 10,200 witness slips opposing the legislation and more than 3,700 supporting.

“I’ve seen more emails and letters for this [bill] than anything else recently,” said Rep. Terri Bryant (R-Mount Vernon).

Hazel Crest mother Delphine Cherry, who lost two children to gun violence, begged lawmakers to give law enforcement a way to crack down on sloppy gun dealers.

“Since my children were murdered, I’ve been beating the pavement to learn where guns are coming from,” she said. “A few bad apple gun dealers supply a large amount of the guns used in Chicago crimes.”

At the hearing, Mark Jones, a former supervisory special agent at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, asserted that federal licensing and oversight by the ATF is inadequate.

“The bottom line is the ATF got to 6.3 percent of the [139,000] gun dealers in the country last year. They’re just not capable of regulating the gun dealers as they should.”

The proposed bill creates a series of best practices for gun dealers such as mandatory store security systems, training of employees to spot straw purchasers, video of every gun purchase, said sponsor Willis.

Republicans at the hearing complained that big retailers, such as Walmart, were exempt from the rules.

“This is nothing more than a [law] to kill businesses, this is not a bill to regulate the firearms on the street,” complained Steven Reick (R-Woodstock).

But Jones said the ATF focuses most of its regulatory attention on big-box retailers.

Many crimes are committed with stolen firearms, but most of those come from gun retailers, Jones said.

More than 100,000 guns are lost and stolen from gun dealers every year and they’re listed on ATF website, Jones said.

The ATF has formed a special team to investigate gun thefts from Chicago area gun stores, according to David Coulson, a spokesman for the ATF in Chicago. Last year, 14 gun stores were burglarized in Illinois, the ATF reported on its website. A total 280 guns were stolen. The trend is increasing. Only five gun store burglaries were reported in 2015 and three in 2014.

Naperville resident Dan Eldridge, owner of Maxon Shooters Supplies in Des Plaines since 2015, complained to the hearing members that the new rules would cost his business too much money to be competitive. Eldridge was praised by the ATF for security measures the store has put in place since its move to a new location. These measures stopped an attempted gun store burglary last year. But at a previous location, under previous owners, Maxon’s was burglarized twice. In 2012, 140 weapons were stolen from the shop. In 2008, 19 weapons were burglarized, according to crime reports in the Daily Herald.

Willis said the bill was not intended to address all problems caused by illegal guns in Illinois and was designed to protect small businesses that sell legal firearms.

“When the state license is put into effect, gun trafficking goes down,” Willis said.

The bill was set for a third reading in the House after press time.

— Proposed gun dealer licensing bill draws criticism and praise —