Gun Crimes

Gun laws are different from state to state, so it can be difficult to keep up with them. In Illinois, any person who is in possession of a firearm must also possess a firearm owner’s identification card (FOID), which verifies that the person may legally possess the firearm. You can get into serious trouble if […]

The United States has historically been a gun-toting nation. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that 1,300 children die each year due to firearm-related reasons and another 5,790 are treated for injuries. In response to this, laws called child access prevention laws have been established in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

When you get pulled over by a police officer, you may not realize that the officer probably feels as tense as you do. The officer has no idea whether you are a law-abiding citizen or an armed criminal who poses a serious danger. Nobody wants to see a routine traffic stop for something like a

Guns have been a hot topic in recent years in American politics. According to the Gun Violence Archive, which is a nonprofit organization that provides information about gun violence, there have been 256 mass shootings—defined as four or more people being shot or killed during a single incident—in the United States since January 1, 2018.

The City of Chicago has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons again. While 2018 began with a hopeful stretch of months in which the rate of gun violence dropped across the region, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse. In a single weekend in early August, for example, 74 people

One of 2018’s hottest political debates has centered around the question, “How do we reduce gun crimes and shooting deaths in the U.S.?” The topic initially rose to the top of legislative agendas in response to the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, which took the lives of 17

A college student was shot by three police officers July 12 after he was repeatedly told to lower his weapon. The man, a student at the University of Illinois, was shot in the leg after he pointed what was at the time thought to be a handgun at police and was given multiple warnings to

How to legally travel with their firearms, particularly their concealed carry handguns, is a serious concern for thousands of Illinois residents and visitors. Roughly 1.5 million Illinois residents have a Firearm Owners ID (FOID) card, and over 243,000 now hold a Concealed Carry License (CCL). Nationwide, over 16 million concealed carry permits have been issued.

Gun regulation has become a hot topic in recent years following the multiple mass shootings that have occurred in the United States, such as the Las Vegas shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Parkland shooting. Many states have taken action to reform current gun laws, especially those regarding assault-style weapons. In response to these

All Illinois firearm owners should be aware that, under specific circumstances, they could be charged with a crime if they leave a firearm accessible and a child injures someone with that firearm. One such incident happened in Chicago on March 10, 2018, when a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot his 9-year-old cousin in the arm with

Some firearms laws are complicated and hard to decipher, particularly as you travel from city to city and state to state. But there is one gun law that should be obvious to everyone: you should never try to carry a firearm through a TSA checkpoint, into a secured area of an airport, or onto a

A February 2018 ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court has declared one of the state’s gun laws unconstitutional. The law in question appears in Chapter 720, Article 24, of the Illinois Criminal Code. Under this law, carrying a firearm on a public street without a concealed carry permit is designated a Class A misdemeanor. However,