Rep. Andrew Chesney | Facebook
Rep. Andrew Chesney | Facebook
State Rep. Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport) recently voted against an overhaul of the FOID law sent to the Illinois House for consideration during a special session on June 16.
According to Chesney's website, proposed amendments to House Bill 562 would create a system that prioritizes Firearms Owner Identification Card (FOID) applications for legal firearms owners who voluntarily submit their fingerprints with their application over applicants who choose not to submit their fingerprints.
"While there were administrative fixes in the original language of House Bill 562, Senate Amendments 1 & 2 went well beyond fixes supported by victim advocacy groups like the ISRA," Chesney wrote in a June 17 Facebook post. “Rather, the new Amendments added massive new bureaucracy under the premise of those who allow state government to violate their Constitutional rights getting to 'cut in line' ahead of those who wish to preserve their rights and who do not wish to have state government collect their biometric data when they have been accused of no crime.”
Chesney has filed House Bill 1770 which would repeal the FOID system in Illinois, but the bill hasn't had an opportunity to be voted on in the House Rules Committee yet.
“Over 40% of residents in my district have FOID cards,” Chesney said. “Why in the world should we want state government collecting fingerprint data on law-abiding residents just for the exercising of their God-given Constitutionally-recognized rights?”
House Bill 562, as amended by Senate Amendments 1 & 2, passed the Illinois House by a vote of 75-40, according to Chesney's web site.
Alerts Sign-up