By Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois gun dealers told Illinois State Police officials about their concerns with the rules for the Firearm License Certification Act.
During public comments on Thursday in Springfield, about a dozen members of the public spoke about how the rules would affect them. Two people sought to beef up the rules, by increasing the video surveillance backup requirement from 90 days to 1 year.
Gun store owners and advocates expressed their concerns.
Todd Vandermyde with Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois said one gun store he knows has 125 cameras.
“What your requirements have been talking about are asking him to upload 125 high-definition Netflix movies simultaneously,” Vandermyde said. “And now if you want to take that we’re being asked that that should go to a year? You’ve already run 50 percent of the gun dealers out of business in this state. You’re going to drastically remove the few that are left now.”
Last summer, it was revealed by cross-referencing federal gun dealer licensees in Illinois with state data that half of the state’s federally licensed gun dealers effectively went out of business because they didn’t apply for the state certification required by the new law. Gun store owners said they couldn’t comply with the law without knowing what the regulations would cost.
Dan Eldridge, the owner of Maxon Shooter’s Supplies and Indoor Range, told regulators Thursday the requirement in the law for keeping firearms in a secured area inside the store was not clear.
“That requirement for safe storage needs to include a secured room,” Eldridge said. “It’s impractical for many of our members to move thousands of firearms nightly into a safe.”
Vandermyde held up a picture of a gun store owner standing next to 4 million rounds of ammunition. He asked how they are supposed to lock that up to comply with the “safe storage” requirement.
“This is where the people who are doing some of the regulating obviously don’t understand what takes place in the industry,” Vandermyde said.
Justin Lipes, owner of the Tac Shack in Peoria and Monmouth, said he had paid state police thousands of dollars to apply for the state certification and has heard nothing back. He said that money was on top of other investments he had made in the business.
“I’ve invested almost $2 million in this state to do business for the state to turn around and try and slap me in the face and try to put me out of business,” Lipes said.
Other gun store owners said the rules are overly burdensome and would drive up costs, threatening their businesses, especially smaller businesses in more rural areas. They also said they needed the rules modified to be less burdensome or they’ll file additional lawsuits.
The Illinois State Rifle Association last summer sued the Illinois State Police because of the delay in crafting and approving the rules.
Emergency rules for the state law have been approved and ISP officials said they’ll take the comments under consideration for final rule consideration by the Joint Commission on Administrative Rules.
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