Illinois State Police are still drafting assault weapons registration rules as deadline nears

Officials at the Illinois State Police said Tuesday they are working to finalize rules for registering assault weapons and other items that are now tightly regulated under the state’s new assault weapons ban as a Jan. 1 compliance deadline approaches.

ISP attorney Suzanne Bond told the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a bipartisan panel that oversees administrative rulemaking, that the agency just completed another round of public hearings this week and is now in the process of trying to answer all the questions it received from the public.

“They were well-attended by the public and various organizations,” she said of the hearings. “Those groups have committed to sending us their questions in writing. To the extent possible, if we had answers, we did provide them. We pointed them to relevant FAQs on our website, which have been updated.”

The registration requirement is part of the state’s new assault weapons ban, known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which lawmakers passed in January. It bans the sale, purchase, possession, and distribution of a long list of firearms defined as “assault weapons” as well as various firearm attachments, large-capacity magazines, and certain kinds of ammunition.

The law also states that people who owned those items before it took effect are allowed to keep them, as long as they register them with the Illinois State Police before Jan. 1.

As that deadline approaches, however, ISP is still in the process of finalizing administrative rules that will spell out exactly what items must be registered.