File Photo Of Glock Handgun. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
UPDATED 01/26/12 6:49 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) – Significantly more Chicagoans are arming themselves with guns.
As WBBM Newsradio’s Regine Schlesinger reports, over the past two years, the city has seen a 16 percent spike in the number of people holding state Firearm Owner’s Identification Cards.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Regine Schlesinger reports
About 122,000 people possessed FOID cards at the beginning of this year compared to 105,000 at the beginning of 2010, said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police.
Illinois residents must possess a FOID card to buy guns in the state.
Illinois State Police officials check an applicant’s identification and background before issuing a card.
The uptick in FOID cards follows the City Council’s approval of a July 2010 ordinance lifting a 28-year-old ban on handguns in Chicago. That followed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the McDonald v. Chicago case, which rendered the law unenforceable.
The city ordinance requires gun owners to obtain a city gun permit, register their firearms with the Chicago Police Department and keep their guns in their homes.
The Police Department could not immediately provide the number of guns currently registered in the city. At the end of 2010, the department had approved about 1,500 Chicago firearms permits and registered about 2,750 guns.
Todd Vandermyde, a legislative liaison for the National Rifle Association, said he believes Chicagoans are getting FOID cards to comply with state law but are snubbing their noses at the city ordinance because they believe the registration process is too onerous.
“They’re taking their chances with the city,” he said. “It’s just an ordinance violation.”
Officials said the statewide number of FOID card holders and applications for cards has also risen in recent years.
As of Jan. 1, 2011, there were nearly 1.4 million FOID card holders statewide, compared to more than 1.3 million a year earlier, Bond said. That’s an increase of more than 6 percent.
There were 321,000 applications for FOID cards statewide in 2011, compared about 287,500 in 2010, she added.
Vandermyde cited several reasons for the statewide rise: he thinks more women are getting guns; more people are hoping the state will pass a concealed-carry law; and more people believe the Obama administration will make it harder to get weapons in the future.
“I think you’re seeing a lot of people that are more or less breaking into places, and I think people just want to be able to protect themselves and their families,” Phelps said. “I’m going to talk to the state police to find out where the biggest increases were.”
Meanwhile, some downstate lawmakers continue to push for a concealed carry law in Illinois, which is the only state that does not have some such kind of law on the books.
Phelps proposed a concealed carry law last year. It fell a few votes shy last spring, before it was pulled before the vote could be recorded.
Phelps says he’ll likely call it again in March or April.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
98 Comments
Gun owner cards?
I guess this is to make it easy to come and take them just like the 3rd Reich did.
Don’t delude yourself this IS the reason for this tyranny.
January 25, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Just wait until HB1294 comes to Gun Owners attention:
“House Bill 1294, introduced by state Representative Edward Acevedo (D-2), seeks to ban countless semi-automatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns, many parts for them, as well as .50 caliber rifles and ammunition. ”
Every year – same thing.
January 26, 2012 at 9:48 am
I say we should ban the Democrat party.
Do it for the children! :-D
January 26, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Edward Acevedo, former or active Chicago cop and Cook County Sheriff Deputy.
Chicago Alderman Edward Burke, also a former Chicago cop.
.
After people tell you the police support the 2nd amendment, just walk away.
January 27, 2012 at 8:20 am
Yes, that plus it’s a way for liberal socialist to erfadicate decent citizens in this country! obuma loves what’s going on in the major cities of this nation!
January 26, 2012 at 9:58 am
Remember the Police AND military took citizen’s guns after hurrican katrina. so when people think the Constitution gives you a right to own a gun they better think again. the police don’t give an damn about the constitution. Thanks to liberals America as we used to know it is dead. You have to be an idiot to live amongst the liberals and their policies.
January 26, 2012 at 12:25 pm
The Constitution absolutely gives us the right to own guns.
BTW, the governor of Louisiana had a law passed after Katrine making it illegal for guns to be confiscated as a result of a natural distaster. Hopefully the law will not have to be tested.
January 26, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Only in Louisiana were firearms confiscated by the police,at the same time in Mississippi armed citizens protected their property.
January 26, 2012 at 1:06 pm
to MeThePeople below. The Constitution doesn’t “give” us the right, it protects a pre-existing right. All rights exist before the Constitution, the Constitution then enumerates certain rights as protected.
January 26, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Those people in New Orleans did not fight back. Lots of places, incldung where I live, a police officer would die in any attempt to disarm a legally armed citizen.
I do agree with you that the America we once knew is gone, and it won’t be back until half the states secede from the present unconstitutional union and establish a new America based on the old Constitution.
January 26, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Amerika IS a police state:
January 27, 2012 at 5:16 am
Edward Acevedo, former or active Chicago cop and Cook County Sheriff Deputy.
Chicago Alderman Edward Burke, also a former Chicago cop.
.
After people tell you the police support the 2nd amendment, just walk away.
January 27, 2012 at 8:17 am
January 25, 2012 at 8:18 pm
And why is this perceived as a problem? Illegal ownership has never been described by the liberal press as a problem.
January 25, 2012 at 9:52 pm
According to Machiavelli, a culture divides roughly into three groups, government, producers and criminals. The producers are naturally the strongest of the three so the government allies itself with the criminals against the producers. When government becomes stronger than the producers the natural alliance shifts, initiating either revolution, alliance between the people and the criminals, or facism, alliance between the people and the government. If the producers are defeated you then get a failed state such as Somalia.
January 26, 2012 at 10:22 am
Nice. Of course they didn’t have a huge welfare class back then. Maybe now it’s Government, Producers, Criminals and “undecided”.
January 26, 2012 at 11:22 am
The sorry liberal media can believe what it wants, but the people that I know who have obtained FOID’s recently are doing it so that they can purchase firearms to defend themselves when the economy of this state and perhaps this nation collapses under tremendous debt, and the welfare recipients take to the streets to rob and steal what they need to survive. Also, even if that doesn’t happen, since the criminals seem so well armed, why shouldn’t law abiding citizens?
January 25, 2012 at 10:00 pm
“since the criminals seem so well armed, why shouldn’t law abiding citizens?”
We should be, but some in politics want us defenseless. Illinois is the last state to prohibit law-abiding people from carrying guns. Every other liberal state has capitulated to reality, but not Illinois. The evil leftists who run the state will oppose concealed carry with the same arguments other liberals have used for years (it will lead to more violence, a crazy wild-west situation!). It’s never happened in the other 49 states. Illinois residents should be insulted. Maybe if a few more elderly veterans get stomped nearly to death people will finally throw the criminal enablers out.
January 26, 2012 at 11:18 am
The FOID Card is unconstitutional but the long arm of Illinois stops us from buying a firearm with out it even in other states that don’t require it. I was at a gun show in Kentucky last summer, and as soon as they saw my Illinois drivers license they wouldn’t sell me anything not even a case of discount ammo, even with my FOID card.
January 26, 2012 at 12:20 am
Illinois’ laws are ridiculous. I live right across the state line in Ky. I can’t even go to a sporting goods store and buy ammunition in Illinois.
January 26, 2012 at 9:47 am
I W: you are so right
January 26, 2012 at 5:45 am
insofar as any chicagoan can be an American, welcome back to the USA, newly armed folks! Center of mass, fire until the threat stops, but hit no innocents, and you will do OK!
Now, get the evil traitor pigs who did the victim disarm scheme to you, OUT OF OFFICE.
HARM NO INNOCENTS.
January 26, 2012 at 9:43 am
Nooooo…
Actually, I think it’s time for a real life version of the TV series “Jericho”.
Jussssst in case another wave of stupidity sweeps the country come Election Day.
January 26, 2012 at 2:31 pm
I would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
January 26, 2012 at 9:44 am
It’s no wonder gun sales are up with all the out of control animals running wild on the streets of Chicago! It’s all over the nation now and decentb people need to wake up to what’s happening in this country!
Since obuma was elected this gang banger street crime is way up!
January 26, 2012 at 9:55 am
An increase in FOID cards does not equate to increased gun ownership. I suspect many people already owned firearms and are simply finally acquiescing to the state law. Additionally, a FOID is required to even rent a firearm at an IL range or inspect a firearm at a retailer. A retailer will not even allow you to handle a firearm without a FOID or an out-of-state drivers’ license. I know several people that have FOIDs simply as a convenience.
January 26, 2012 at 9:59 am
An increase in FOID cards does not equate to increased gun ownership. I suspect many people already owned firearms and are simply finally acquiescing to the state law. Additionally, a FOID is required to even rent a firearm at an IL range or inspect a firearm at a retailer. A retailer will not even allow you to handle a firearm without a FOID or an out-of-state drivers’ license. I know several people that have FOIDs simply as a convenience.
January 26, 2012 at 9:59 am
thanks for the most irrelevant, idiotic and useless post in the thread. get out much?
January 26, 2012 at 10:21 am
So what is it like being “irrelevant”, an “idiot” and quite “useless” in the basement typing your feckless drivle on Mom’s computer???
January 26, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I went to Chicago to visit my girlfriend’s parents for Christmas this year. I was able to carry my concealed handgun from Texas to the Illinois state line, where I had to unload it and place it in a locked case in the trunk of my car.
It was very nice walking around Chicago with the knowledge that only the criminals around me were armed.
January 26, 2012 at 10:03 am
The 2d Amendment has been incorporated within the 14th Amendment–the 14th Amendment makes the 2d Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States. This shall not be INFRINGED!! The right to keep and bear arms must be regarded as a substantive GUARANTEE, not a PROHIBITION that can be ignored as long as the States legislate in an evenhanded manner. This is a privelege of American Citizenship–Sec 1, Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privleges or immunities of Citizens of the United States.” McDonald v. Chicago, supra., 561 US (2010). Vote ‘em OUT after putting them in JAIL!!!
January 26, 2012 at 10:08 am
Anyone with common sense would not be anywhere near Chicago…or any other liberal/democrat controlled gangster infested cesspool.
Utterly stupid Chicago voters deserve to be under the thumb of the thugs, and the gun hating liberal city leaders who consider street thugs to be the”real victims”.
You thugs keep up the good work!!! Chicago deserves your reign of terror.
January 26, 2012 at 10:09 am
would love to see what hick town you are from
January 26, 2012 at 10:34 am
I guess words like that offend your slave attitude towards your masters who run the Democrat Plantation.
January 26, 2012 at 11:31 am
I would rather be from any “hick town” than that giant landfill, where you helped select our president, known as Chicago.
January 26, 2012 at 11:41 am
jharry3…good one. The cllueless idiot is too ignorant to grasp what you have stated. While the ignorant fool slams the “small town hicks” and “rednecks”, the obama supporters are running amok and slaughtering themselves and any fools that choose to be around them…no complaints from me
January 26, 2012 at 11:46 am
Ah, North Dakota. No FOID, no gun registration, and we have a “no duty to retreat” law which allows a homeowner to defend his house against anyone who tries to break in without fear of being sued. We do have a concealed carry law but those permits are not hard to get.
January 26, 2012 at 10:10 am
SO, the gun free zone murder spree in that city 20 miles to the south of me where WE ‘ve been gun owners all along outside the city limits while crime and murders soared during Daley’s gun free folly.
Check back in 6 months and watch the drop in crime. Freakin liberals.
January 26, 2012 at 10:10 am
oops, deleted a very important word from that fist paragraph
“SO, the gun free zone murder spree in that city 20 miles to the south of me (where WE ‘ve been gun owners all along outside the city limits) is hopefully over, meanwhile crime and murders soared during Daley’s gun free “I own the world” folly.
Check back in 6 months and watch the drop in crime. Freakin liberals.
Check back in 6 months and watch the drop in crime. Freakin liberals.”
January 26, 2012 at 10:13 am
How about voter ID cards? Wouldn’t that be more prudent than gun owner cards? Life in the liberal utopia got you down? Buy a gun and you will feel an instant charge of liberty.
January 26, 2012 at 10:29 am
I’m pretty sure BOTH are equally prudent.
January 26, 2012 at 10:52 am
That’s actually true. I feel much more invested in the political system since I bought a firearm. Not only do you have to jump through a bunch of government hoops all the time, but you have to read up on the gun laws and seek interpretations because they are deliberately vague.
January 26, 2012 at 11:29 am
There once was a girl named Loretta,
Once mugged, she was on a vendetta,
A victim no more,
She’ll settle the score,
Now, mugger, meet Mr. Beretta.
January 26, 2012 at 10:31 am
I’ll get out of jail before the criminal gets out of Hell.
January 26, 2012 at 10:34 am
Guns are never the problem. Liberals and progressives are the problem. Crime rates are lower in states where gun ownership is high.
January 26, 2012 at 10:35 am
“It’s always a cake walk until you find out your victim isn’t Betty Crocker.” ~ Fanny Forbes Franklen
————– http://911essentials.com
January 26, 2012 at 10:35 am
Good News! The more good guys that are armed, the safer we’ll all be.
January 26, 2012 at 10:45 am
So funny the numbers sure don’t add up with the amount of people that got FOID cards and how many guns were registered .. and that does NOT include those that already HAD guns BEFORE the ban was taken down.. and didn’t bother to get FOID cards.. Even though some that get the FOID cards don’t have guns it’s like a gym card just because you have one doesn’t mean you work out.. but they are right .. people MIGHT get a FOID card but that is the END of the regulations they will follow.. no ones business IF you actually HAVE a gun or not.. including the governments..
January 26, 2012 at 10:46 am
Having them have to have a card for purchase and owning a gun and then having to register the gun are both unconstitutional and should be taken to court.
January 26, 2012 at 10:48 am
Support the NRA and that time will come. They need funding like everyone else who sues the liberal plantation.
January 26, 2012 at 11:34 am
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”
Thomas Jefferson
January 26, 2012 at 10:51 am
Gun purchases always go up in the white community when the black community is told by the United States Attorney General that black on white crimes won’t be prosecuted.
Thank you Eric Holder!!
January 26, 2012 at 11:27 am
It is nice to see Chicago is finally joining the real world and allowing people to defend themselves. It is ashamed that Illinois doesn’t allow concealed carry and you have to register your guns.
Not only will I not visit Illinois – I make sure I fill my tank either in Indiana or Missouri so I don’t have to spend a dime in the state. If Illinois won’t support my Constitutional rights I won’t support them.
January 26, 2012 at 11:51 am
you clueless fools living in Chicago (and other liberal infested cesspools) are getting exactly what you voted for…obama’s soljas running loose on the streets…no right to defend yourselves against them (not that stupid voters should have that right)…and Eric Holder protecting the thugs….you losers deserve every ounce of your misery.
Enjoy!!
January 26, 2012 at 12:02 pm
“Illinois residents must possess a FOID card to buy guns in the state.
Illinois State Police officials check an applicant’s identification and background before issuing a card.”
I’d be interested in knowing why EVERY citizen in Illinois is presumed to be a criminal by default.
I thought it was, “Innocent until proven guilty,” not, “Guilty until proven innocent.”
January 26, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Hey you dumb-a**ed liberals. You get what you vote for.
January 26, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“I think you’re seeing a lot of people that are more or less breaking into places, and I think people just want to be able to protect themselves and their families,” Phelps said.
Huh? “more or less breaking into places…” What the hell does that mean?
More guns = less “breaking into places”
On a cautionary note, I heard today that a coworker was assaulted on the 15th and is now in a neurological intensive care unit. Multiple bad guys fractured his skull causing bone fragments to lodge in his brain. This guy was partially disabled and innoffensive BEFORE the assault.
One of the reasons that this happened was that he let people know that he had guns in his apartment. They jumped him outside, then went in and stole his guns. He wasn’t allowed to concealed carry.
Don’t put gun stickers on your car. Don’t advertise you’re armed, or you make yourself an easier target. The first clue that the criminal should receive that you are armed is when your bullet penetrates his chest.
January 26, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Wake up people, leave Illinois to the liberals. Move to states like Texas where any law abiding citizen can own a gun and can keep it in your own auto if you want to. NO CHL needed.
Got to love the ‘Castle Doctrine’
January 26, 2012 at 12:28 pm
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And so far, like everywhere else, there has NOT been an increase in the rate of shootings. In fact, violent crimes are DOWN slightly. And they’ll continue to to decrease, just like in the rest of the country.
Sorry liberals, but the bloodbath you keep predicting hasn’t happened anywhere and never will.
January 26, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Eric If they go up or down that is irrelevant . A right is a right is a right……
January 26, 2012 at 12:52 pm
True. But you’d think their predictions would come true SOMEWHERE, at least by accident.
January 26, 2012 at 12:59 pm
If you Chicagoans are smart you’ll buy a gun on the black market, heck with the ID card. The gov’t can’t confiscate things it doesn’t know exist. Or to be safe, buy two. One if your legal, “governmet” gun that you’ll give up if it comes to that. The other is the one you’ll need when the welfare state comes crashing down.
January 26, 2012 at 1:07 pm
An illegal gun is an illegal gun: if you have n iillegal gun you are a criminal. Better yet; buy one legally, and if they come for it, say you sold it to a private citizen. Then MOVE!
Many states are gun friendly and very safe.
Please donate to the NRA at http://www.NRA.org
January 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Why do Chicagons have to buy guys from blacks?
Don’t white people have guns? They have as much crime as black people no use being racist.
January 26, 2012 at 2:26 pm
http://www.sbpdl.com
Institute the (Frank) Castle Doctrine, and the violence from the Southside will end.
January 26, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Before the haters continue their false tirade, let’s not forget the LEGAL gun purchases are not the issue here. Gun crime is not typically committed by legal gun owners. Gangs on the streets are not acquiring their weapons through legal means. Banning guns from legal ownership only takes guns from law abiding citizens.
January 26, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Yep….where there is a story about guns, the republican wingnuts all come out and scream effing liberal at everybody else. Some of us liberals grew up around guns and can’t stand all the legal bs either….from both sides. I want my right to carry as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to suffer the wrath of the religious right in office to get it. Take your anti-abortion politics away, and I’d probably be a Republican.
January 26, 2012 at 1:35 pm
So you support the death penalty for criminals
January 26, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Probably not, but he definitely supports the death penalty for innocent unborn babies.
January 26, 2012 at 2:51 pm
“I don’t want to suffer the wrath of the religious right” hmmmmm typical mentally ill liberal talkin out both the upper and lower holes!!!
January 26, 2012 at 1:58 pm
so you like killing off little black children eh?? sounds racist to me
January 26, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Grumpster, you have finally convinced us:
You are a lying chunk of human waste.
Take your tired, same old same old Democrat leftist lies, shove them up your lower repository, and seal it with your head.
On SECOND thought, you’re doing that already!
January 26, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Why don’t we just help the mentally ill libs and buy the same guns off the streets that the crooks do… hey, ya don’t even need a permit!!!!! Ya get a hell of a discount too!!!
I didn’t vote for obama last time but this time I am going to vote for him…. I think he is the best thing for America in recent history… WONDERFUL! 4 more years and this country will be purged of a corrupt congress and senate because the people are going to purge every politician out by civil war…. There will be unrest like never seen in America. Because when good is bad and bad is good and Americans can’t say “Merry Christmas” because good is bad and can’t store more than seven days worth of food because good is bad and once they can’t own a gun because good is bad….. There will be a purging of the bad by the good! So lets pull together and re-elect this idiot….
Fair and balanced…. just like fox news….
January 26, 2012 at 1:53 pm
As of the 2010 census there were 2,695,598. At the end of 2011 there were 105,000 FOID card holders. This means that 3.8952% of Chicagoans had a FOID. At the beginning of 2012 there are 122,000 people with FOID cards. This means a SPIKE up to 4.5258%
This is a rather laughable story as the SPIKE mentioned means that an additional 0.6306% of the population of Chicago now has a FOID.card.
I hate to say it, but where’s the story in an uptick of less then 1% of Chicagoans getting a FOID?
January 26, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Hey dumass: that is a 16% rise in ONE YEAR. Let’s put it in words even you can understand: Fricking HUGE spike.
Do math much?
January 26, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Illinois raised the state income tax rate from 3% to 5%.
Using your approach, that would be an increase of only 2%, when in reality, it’s an increase of 67%.
If someone paid $1,000 last year, their bill this year would be $1,667. Would you still think that’s a 2% increase?
Liberals lack integrity.
January 26, 2012 at 2:36 pm
SEAN PENN didn’t have his PUMP SHOTGUN confiscated when he was slogging thru KATRINA flooding
January 26, 2012 at 2:14 pm
He needed it to shotgun marijuana smoke.
January 26, 2012 at 2:36 pm
haven’t you seen all the flash mobs running amok all over the US? you’re an idiot if you’re not armed. and I don’t need a FOID here
read about teh 65 yr old Pa bike rider that capped a couple last night?
January 26, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Grumpster = Stuck on Stupid
January 26, 2012 at 2:38 pm
This isn’t rocket surgery. Buy your guns from ads in the paper so there is no trail. Get a couple of cheap throwaways for when the government starts confiscating.
January 26, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Now go find the politicians that stood in the way of your rights and line them up and…you connect the dots!
January 26, 2012 at 2:41 pm
hooray for the honest people of Chicago finally given back your rights
January 26, 2012 at 2:49 pm
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What kinda place registers CIITIZENS IN GOOD STANDING?
Couldn’t the money be better spent keeping tabs on CRIMINALS?
January 27, 2012 at 8:34 am
Informed AMERICAN citizens are getting ready for the collapse.Obama and his globalist buddies are crushing the middle class so it’s just them and the poor this is why they want to give amnesty so they will have workers that will work for food while they kill of and imprison the middle class to FEMA camps and kill off the others.Research Agenda 21
January 27, 2012 at 9:00 am
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Hey! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance from an established blog. Is it very hard to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about setting up my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any ideas or suggestions? With thanks
January 31, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Only because Oblamo’s been too busy r a p i n g and pillaging the US treasury while filling the coffers of donors and friends in the worst display of patronage which is now called “Crony Capitalism” and he’s the king of those fools.
His upcommance will come once he leaves office and doesn’t have HOLDER’S SOCIAL JUSTICE DEPARTMENT protecting his Kenyan Born Azz
January 26, 2012 at 10:17 am
When will “YOU PEOPLE” grow-up?
S.O.S.
January 26, 2012 at 11:57 am
Hah…that’s funny….not like every replican hasn’t been doing the same to the middle class since the 80′s. Crony capitalism…like Bush I, then Bush II…is there anybody other than a Bush to be King around here?
January 26, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Turn your brain back in to MSNBC – you are stuck on stuipid and need a reboot.
GIGO – knowwhatimean
January 26, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Hey Grumpster: Turn your brain back in to MSNBC – you are stuck on stuipid and need a reboot.
GIGO – knowwhatimean
January 26, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Your mother.
Do something constructive for your country:
DROP DEAD.
January 26, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Grumpster, you previously said the pro-life platform is the only thing keeping you from being a Republican. Now, you have other agenda items to criticize the right on.
I suspect you’re playing fast and loose with the truth.
January 26, 2012 at 2:56 pm