Just re-registered my guns here in Chicago

[anotherinkling]

Well, I just did my annual duty here in Chicago and renewed my gun registrations. Here's the process, for those who are curious:

1) Obtain as many registration forms as you need from the Gun Registration Office downtown or your closest police station. Try to be civil when they ask why you need multiples.

2) Get a head shot taken (digital camera and printer works fine) and adhere two copies to each form.

3) Fill out each form (one per gun) with your driver’s license number, Firearm Owner’s ID number, home address & phone, work address & phone, serial number of each firearm, make/model, barrel length, magazine capacity and caliber/gauge.

4) Sign it twice on the front, then attest that you’re not a convicted felon or mentally ill on the back and have it notarized.

5) Write a check to the City of Chicago. $20 for one gun, $25 for 2-10 and, I believe, $35 for more than 10.

6) Enclose a copy of your Firearm Owner’s ID card with the check and registration forms and send it to the Gun Registration Office. Using Certified and/or trackable Priority is preferable as I’ve had three registrations “disappear” in the mail in the past couple years.

7) Repeat annually.

You can play a tiny violin for me if you want, but I’d rather you just take a grateful pause that you (hopefully) live somewhere where your rights are respected.

 

[Manedwolf]

So glad I'm here.

Entire procedure:

1. Fill out one form for CCW license. Wait a week, if that. Pay $10.
2. License handed over with a smile from police, no questions, good for three years.

And no registration on any guns. You're not a felon, you can have guns, period. Hi-cap mags can be bought with cash, silencers legal, AOW legal with just the tax stamp. (I believe) machine guns are as well, with the federal money-grab required, of course. They don't care what it is you have, as long as you don't commit a crime with it.

I couldn't imagine living in a place like that.

 

[Henry Bowman]

[Blink. blink]

Wow.

At least it eliminates all crime in Chicagoland.

Wow.

 

[boofus]

That's almost as bad as the NFA hoops!

Heck it could arguably be considered worse. At least with NFA devices you just get the transfer approved and pay the tax once. That chicago nonsense you gotta do every year...

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

You're probably heard it before---but you really need to MOVE!!!

 

[Thefabulousfink]

Wrong! He doesn't need to move. We need to move, all of us, to Chicago and kick out this crook of a mayor and all his cronies. The way I hear it is still run like it was in the 1920's. The only way to get a job with the city is if you have 'connections'. All the civil services (police, fire, garbage) are run like racketeering rings and often use minor extortion tactics to gain revenue.

We need to flush this place down the John and build from a clean start.

 

[grimjaw]

No registration in Washington state. To buy herre:

1. Go to store, pick out gun.
2. Fill out form 4473, wait for phone call.
3. Give money to cashier, go home with gun.

If it's a handgun and you don't have a CCW license, you have to wait 5(?) days to pick it up. Ohio didn't have that provision when I left in August: you could go home the same day with long guns or handguns.

Friends of mine are trying to get me to move to Maryland, specifically Annapolis. I really don't want to do it, but I'm still doing research. I'd *never* move to Illinois, and I'd just as soon not even visit Chicago.

jmm

 

[Thefabulousfink]

I have to go there in September for a wedding and I won't be able to carry I assume that I'll still be able to carry my knife because I am Italian (I think there is something about it in their town charter)

Other than that, you couldn't pay me enough to move me to Chicago (or SoCal, NYC,or DC).

 

[anotherinkling]

Yeah...I enjoy my visits to southern Indiana.

Oh, FYI about knives in Chicago. You can carry them but, technically, they can't have blades any longer than 2.5". As long as you keep your nose clean, longer blades shouldn't be an issue. I carry Leathermans/Leathermen, and almost all of those have 3" or more. Just don't go picking your teeth with an Arkansas toothpick on the El train.

 

[Bix]

"3) Fill out each form (one per gun) ......"

Actually, in some cases you may need more than one form per gun. Last year, I had an application rejected because in the "barrel length" box on the form, I included both the 18" and 28" barrels for my shotgun. The City returned the form and later explained that they wanted one registration card per barrel.

AI, have you ever had any issue registering? As detailed in other posts here at THR, I had my first application denied and wound up in front of the mayor's licensing commission. Good times.

[edited for clarity]

 

[wmenorr67]

So now in Chi town if you have mulitple barrels for a firearm you have multiple weapons. Man what a crock-o- ! :banghead: I am glad I live in a state that you fill out 4473, wait for phone call, pay money, go home with said weapon.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

so glad you complied, Comrade anotherinkling!

 

[anotherinkling]

Good grief—that’s even worse. I’ve had a few problems but never anything requiring my appearance before throne.

I've had a few applications get "lost" in the mail, even when sent by Priority Mail. I filed reports with the USPS but never heard anything. My assumption is that they got misplaced on the receiving end.

They're really not working with knowledgeable people down there. I called once to ask if I could own and register a Ruger Police Carbine. I described it to the woman and she said, “I don’t see any reason why not.” Apparently it would be legal, but there are plenty of very similar models (Hi-Point Carbine) which I can’t have. Makes me tired to even go into it…

On another occasion, they were backlogged and hadn’t gotten my approved registration card back to me before the old one expired. I called about it, and it took a while for them to track down my form. When it was found, the woman told me, “We’ll get it out to you in a couple weeks. Technically, though, you have an illegal firearm right now, so don’t go anywhere with it.” What?!!!!

I wrote the Superintendent of the CPD and told him what a wasteful and inefficient program the Gun Registration Program was. You can’t even go onto the City’s site and find anything about it. Try it—you really have to hunt elsewhere for info. I got a reply from an underling half-heartedly defending the program but said that it was ultimately a City Council thing and they were only administrators.

Oh well, I’ll keep doing what I can.

 

[El Tejon]

*snaps fingers* I knew there was SOMETHING I forgot to do when I lived in Chicago.

 

[geekWithA.45]

That's what happens when you allow weasel words like "subject to the power of police" into your state constitution.

 

[anotherinkling]

Comrade anotherinkling...

Consider me part of the resistance.

Seriously, though, I've debated the whole issue of compliance. I know some folks can justify carrying illegally, but I'm still trying to work within the (ludicrous) law.

I pester my local papers on a regular basis, as well as my legislators. I've also started a small group to introduce my city friends to the joys of shooting. Several have gotten their FOID cards, and I've taken a couple to local ranges to teach them how to shoot. Many more are planning to go in coming months. I figure if I'm going to be here for awhile, I'll try my best to multiply myself and make some shooting buddies in the meantime.

 

[Baron Holbach4]

Just re-registered my guns here in Chicago

Is this what the Founders had in mind when they included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights?

 

[DonP]

Forgot the final step

Step 8:

Go to church on Sunday and pray that Daley doesn't decide to ban the specific guns you registered and and send the CPD CAGE unit to your house to confiscate them for his next big photo opportunity with Governor Dumbass and some local, neighborhood ministers.

(I have become such a cynic in my old age)

 

[pharmer]

Even if thousands of gun owners moved to Chicago or DC or NYC, nothing would change. Crooks run things and non-productive-victim types keep 'em in office. Joe

 

[Thefabulousfink]

Pharmer, you may be right.

Ok, change of plans. We move there, with our guns, and kick out all the crooks.

The Police and Government are not above the law. When they break the law and go unpunished it is the duty of the people to enforce the law.

 

[PJR]

I’d rather you just take a grateful pause that you (hopefully) live somewhere where your rights are respected.

I will because until I read your post I never believed I lived in such a place. In contrast I now know I do. It's called Canada.

 

[halfgone]

Man, I am so sorry.

My parents live in NW IL, and they asked me if I would ever move out to chi-town with them. I was silent on the phone, and I didn't even know you had to register them.

Frick that makes me sick.

HG

 

[Rexrider]

I have to say it boggles my mind how processes like that ever manage to be put in place. It was not all that long ago how ignorant I was about laws in other states and cities.

Having been born and raised in PA, then moved here to AZ, I never encountered such BS.

I am sorry you have to go through all that for something you have a right to own. But I am glad you posted that information. I always hear from hunters, non-enthusiasts (and sometimes enthusiasts), or people who never owned a firearm ask why registration is a bad thing. Or refers to registration as a "common sense" approach to gun control. They always say it does not stop you from buying guns.

What you have demonstrated is once registration is put in place, it can be changed, modified, tighten, and fees increased to the point of criminalizing an honest citizen. They put so many hoops and barriers in place it is simply no long feasible to own something you have a right to own in the first place.

Registration is confiscation by attrition.

If anyone ever asks why registration is a bad thing. Print a copy of anotherinkling's post and have them read it. If they can't figure it out after that, they never will.

 

[Thefabulousfink]

The problem with registration as "common sense" gun control is that it is never common sense. Every registration system that I have seen has been so complicated and/or expensive that it discourages people to own guns.

On top of that, the people who push for registration the hardest have stated their goal as the elimaination of all privately held firearms. These are not the type of people that gun owners feel comfortable having know what guns they own. If we lived in a place like Switzerland where everyone owned a gun and the idea of gun confiscation was rediculous, then we might not be any more opposed to the government knowing what guns we owned than what cars we owned.

[Flame suit on]

 

[Standing Wolf]

Where does it say all that in the Second Amendment?