The Illinois CCW license process: meant to drive you nuts!

[SoupOrMan]

First, take the required training course. It will take between 8 and 16 hours of classroom and range time. The cost for the training session will average around $275 in class fees and ammunition. Most classes will require you to bring factory ammunition, no reloads. (A majority of classes are taught by cops and former cops who don't reload.) It's 16 hours with no prior experience, 12 hours of class and range time with a Hunter Safety course certificate, and 8 hours with honorable discharge or completion of the NRA Basic Pistol or Personal Protection In The Home courses. Your course minimum will be 8 hours, so you can't just stock up on stuff and expect to get out for free. I took the full 16-hour course since it was being offered at half price of $100 by my instructor. (It was a group deal, so I couldn't get out of the first 8 hours.) The first 8 hours went over basic gun ownership and safety, including the 4 Rules. These were repeated quite often. The first class ended with training in things such as shoot/no-shoot scenarios, issuing verbal commands and an outdoor shooting session in the midst of a snow shower. The instructor had us go through the qualification course as a warm up for the next session.

The second session went over state laws about unlawful possession & use of weapons in Illinois, how the concealed carry laws modify those laws, more shoot/no-shoot scenarios, other laws regarding use of force and reciprocity with neighboring states. It was followed up with our qualification shoot in ankle-deep mud. You had to get 10 rounds in center mass of a B-21 target at 5, 7, and 10 yards. Once that was finished we got our certificates of completion. The certificates are important for two reasons: they have the instructor and course information on them. You need those for the next part of the process: the online application.

Before you apply online, you have the option of getting digitally fingerprinted and sending those with your application. It costs an additional $75 and reduces the 100-day wait to... wait for it... wait for it... a slim, slender and svelte 90 days. Even the instructors are telling their students to avoid that as a "sucker's tax."

Once you've gotten everything together, now you go online to the website set up by the Illinois State Police. The website uses Java 7, IE or Firefox only. Chrome, Opera and Safari users will likely get "lol your browser is dumb" messages from the ISP website. If you have Java 8, you're SOL. You get a "We aren't Java 8 compatible, use Java 7 like former Governor Quinn would want lol" message. I spent at least 2 hours rolling back Java, hunting down every instance of Java 8 and removing it and finally making sure I had the 32-bit version that fit Firefox. What makes it even more fun? In order to check the progress on my application I have to keep Java 7 running just so I can use the damn ISP website.

So now you've made your computer vulnerable and you need to apply, but WAIT! You now need a digital ID from the state. That also requires Java 7 so if you downgraded, you're set. Go get the digital ID and come back to the ISP website.

Okay, now you have another username and you're at the website and your certificate is in your hot little hands and you fill out the questions (which are the same ones you use to fill out a FOID application or a 4473) and provide... the last 10 years of residential status. So then you have to go digging through all of your old records to see if you have the address of the grubby little suburban apartment you rented when your first job took you to the outskirts of Mordor-on-the Lake, er, Chicago.

Okay, we have the instructor and class numbers punched in, addresses added in and everything is... not done.

They want a photo of you from the last 30 days, face & shoulder shot, neutral expression. Now, this one won't go on the CCL, you'll get your driver's license photo instead. It's there as a supposed security feature, to make sure you really are who you say you are. So, time for a 2am-urge-to-kill-rising selfie, preferably with a few days of facial hair growth and untrimmed mustachery. If you're going to be treated like a potential criminal, you may as well look the part! Oh, and you need to scan your certificate. PDF. Because JPG camera phone photo is the devil or something. (Actually it is but that's another story related to my job.)

Okay, now you're done. You have your files ready for upload. Glee! Joy! Wow much amaze so computer. Time to...

Pay another fee, this time to state of Illinois for license and processing. $150. So you get out the old debit card and... nothing. Illinois doesn't take Visa. Master Card to the rescue. So worldly, so welcome, so appropriate as commentary on the state.

Oh there's also a $3.53 convenience fee! Because fuck you, that's why. We're Illinois. We don't care, we don't have to.

And you'd better check your application status every day, citizen. You'd better check it twice on holidays, too.

The waiting has begun for the license. One day down, 99 to go.

If it wasn't for the job I'd say to hell with all of it and move somewhere else. Maybe Texas, maybe not Texas. (It's really crowded there.) Then again there are also days I think "Why am I not just building my own mortars and other artillery to signal my displeasure with the Chicago and suburbs-dominated general assembly?" Then I remember that such a thing would likely delay the processing on my license application.

So right now it costs on average about $400 for a non-hunter, non-veteran to get a CCL in Illinois between ammo, instruction and licensing costs.

That's not just bureaucracy being slow, that's a state government telling you to pound sand at every step.

At least the range sessions were fun and informative.

[Greg]

You can get one.

[Weetabix]

The training sounds like Missouri, except that we only had 8 hours. They kind of have to assume that everyone's starting at zero, despite all of the protests to the contrary.

Our fingerprinting was local and the response time on that and the background check was less than a week, IIRC. If they don't get it back in less than 30 days (I think), they have to issue you the permit.

All the rest sounds like Illinois issues. Sorry to hear about them.

Our renewals also got so easy I'm not sure why they bother. Stop in with a $50 check and you get a wallet card.

[McClarkus]

Colorado is 4 hrs class, background check through the CBI and the sheriff's fee. About $150 and 90 days wait time. All done with real paper and pens.

[SoupOrMan]

Like I said, it's deliberate. The usual crowd of idiot Chicagoans had to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance. The system is deisgned to piss you off at every step, which is one of the reasons why applications have been far below the expected numbers.

Nothing another 1876-style fire in that town couldn't cure.

[McClarkus]

I used to live there. FOID card and all. You have my sympathies.

[Greg]

Like I said, it's deliberate. The usual crowd of idiot Chicagoans had to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance. The system is deisgned to piss you off at every step, which is one of the reasons why applications have been far below the expected numbers.

Nothing another 1876-style fire in that town couldn't cure.

Yes the system is designed to deter applicants, and punish and infuriate those who do apply. Don't let the bastards stop you. I'd still trade.

[SoupOrMan]

I used to live there. FOID card and all. You have my sympathies.

The FOID is pretty painless, until you get Mumbles McMushmouth as the clerk selling ammo to you.

Me: "I'd like two boxes of .25ACp, please."

Mumbles: "Uh gadda rewaohd cahrd?"

Me: "No. Since when do I need a reward card to buy ammo at Walmart?"

Mumbles: "Ahr cahn' sell ya no ammo widou' a ruwahrd cahrd."

Me: "When did you guys give out reward cards?"

Mumbles: "No, a ruh'woh card! F-O-I-D. Void cahrd."

Me: "Oh, a FOID card. Here."

Mumbles: "Dass whuh I seh."

Me (leaving with ammo): "The fuck you did, sunshine."

[JustinR]

You're always welcome in Texas.

[First Shirt]

Or Alabama.

My SIL (the Token [strike]Jarhead[/strike] Marine) got his while enroute from Hawaii to North Carolina. Took 10 minutes, cost $20. Used our address (which was legit, since they'd had all their mail forwarded to here while traveling), and his military ID card.

I renewed mine last year, cost me $100, but is good for 5 years, and after I turn 65, it becomes a lifetime permit, no renewal required.