I'll be going to visit a friend in Ill. later this week. Alright to bring a gun? Illinois gun law websight says if you are coming to hunt you may bring a weapon if it is unloaded, in the trunk, in a case, broken down, ect. ect. I can't seem to find anything about a pistol and being a nonresident. I'm probably ok if it is unloaded and in the trunk, anybody know for sure?
Thanks, David

I'm sorry I did not mention that I will not be in Chicago or surrounding suberbs.
Thanks

If you do, cased and locked in the case, with the case locked in your trunk, is about as close as you will get to getting by; at least it takes a lot of work to get in to the trunk and case (warrant, generally). Illinois is as hostile as it gets. I no longer recall their non-resident stuff, but downstate we regularly refused to charge on silly crap like this when I was a prosecutor there.

Best advice I can give you is lock unloaded pistol in one container and lock ammunition in another container. Don't open them for anybody until you are on private property.

Now, IL law does not specify that the ammunition be locked up, but some, umm... law enforcement gentlemen...are taking the view that unless they are locked apart, the gun is considered loaded. Some area are also charging the felony for simple possession instead of misdemeanor possession.

Sure, you can probably get a lawyer and beat it, but do you want the grief?

An IPSC competitor going to IL to shoot competition was stopped for speeding and asked if he had weapons in the car. He said yes, opened the trunk on request, and got his competition gun confiscated because his range bag had both an UNLOADED gun with boxes of ammo in another pocket. He hired a lawyer and they returned his $2000 rig.

There are several lessons to be learned from this.

okay, my in-laws live in the communist state of illinois, albeit far south from the liberals in chicago.

my advice... buy a small gun safe to keep the gun in... buy another small safe for the ammunition... leave both safes at home while you drive unarmed across the border...

no just kidding. keep everything very separated, just in case you get stopped, and use common sense. i'd like to hear how your trip was when you get back. i don't want to hear about how a gun owner was killed because his gun was left unloaded in the trunk of his car due to stupid laws.

hopefully heller vs DC will migrate to chicago and other parts of illinois

I travel thru the state occassionally to pick up grandkids from Ohio. Its one of those unfortunate situations where you either break the law "a little bit", or increase the risk. My priority is to protect the children, and my wife-so we are careful to obey traffic laws. We have, at times taken out magazines or unloaded cylinders-and place everything where it was seperated-but we could still get to it-but that increases the risk. Once we hit East St. Louis and the Missouri line-its condition yellow-we're packing.

To legally transport thru IL all you need to do is unload the gun and put it in a case. Ammo can be carried in the same case as the gun. Mags can be loaded and in the same case as the gun but the mags cannot be in the gun.
A case is defined by statute as "a container specifically designed for the purpose of housing a gun or bow and arrow device which completely encloses such gun or bow and arrow device by being zipped, snapped, buckled, tied, or otherwise fastened with no portion of the gun or bow and arrow device exposed."
Owning and transporting a gun in IL is not the bugaboo that many of the uninformed would have you believe. They're the same ones that spread the false rumors about transporting in IL and the same ones who have never bothered to research it. They just keep repeating rumors and adding to them.

(double tap)

Don't believe everything you think you know. You probably don't even know who the head of the State Police is and you sure don't know what he thinks.
You're also way off base on the ISP policy since there is no policy to "push" anything, either written, unwritten or otherwise.
Thanks for providing another example of what I was saying about people spreading rumors when they don't know what they're talking about.

Well, Capt, if you say all the problems have been solved and all the districts are now following the state gun regulations, it must be so. My info is 2 years out of date.

By the way, if you want to delete that erroneous "double tap" posting you put in above, on the "edit" page (select the center icon) there is a button to delete the post completely.

Stay safe out there........

I (shudder) live in Illinois. The south is different from the north is different from Chicago. You can carry an un-concealed (holstered) handgun when you're not in town. I have hunted here for 40 years and only saw a cop once, but that was in the central part of the state.

Read the law over the net. It says you're guilty UNLESS your gun is unloaded and securely encased. That law about a specific gun case is part of a separate hunting code to keep guys from carrying pistols, like, in their lunch bag, and applies to bows, etc.

"Fanny pack" carry unloaded (no mag in gun, no round in chamber) has a recent precedent because a bold young man tested the law, got arrested, won his lawsuit, and was awarded 50-thousand bucks! Way to go!!! This was around Rockford, about 50 miles from that accursed Chicago.

I won't comment on car carry, but unloaded and securely encased in the trunk is definitely legal. If you're still nervous, put on a sports-coat and tie to drive. If you look like a decent fellow, the cops won't mess with you. If you look like some mope, they might get interested. 95% of Illinois cops are scholars and gentlemen. I did work with one Neanderthal, but the rest of the guys were the salt-of-the-earth types. You'd like them.

Everyone agrees Chicago's Mayor Daley is a bright fellow. He has to preside over a few million culturally-deprived (depraved?) people whose kids do battle with handguns regularly, and then the parents march in the streets decrying violence. And then they blame Daly because their kids are killing each other. So Daly says "If we could get rid of all those bad guns, things would be fine, but they won't let me, so it's not my fault. Vote for me." If guns disappeared tomorrow he'd be in a terrible fix, because the violence would go on unabated, and then the populace would blame him.

One night my buddy Steve was working real late on a job, and he and the janitor went to an all-night burger place for a break. A guy with a sports bag came in with two girls. He dumped the bag on the table and it was filled with guns. Steve said there was a real nice out-of-production High Standard Derringer there he would have loved to have.

The guy was a gangbanger salesman trying to sell the girls a gun. Being a former LEO and not a Chicagoan, Steve made a quick call, and soon a couple of Chicago cops walked in. They saw the guns, then told the guy to put them back in the bag and scram.

Steve said after the banger was gone he told the cops he was a "former" and asked if they were on the take or what. He told me the LEO said he had to work there every night for quite a few years yet, and had to get along with everybody. He didn't want the gangbangers to be taking pot-shots at him every night as he patrolled.

And recently a Chicago alderman forgot to re-register his guns on time, so he changed the law to extend the time limit.

Such is life in the Land O' AlCapone.

KeithCarter
NRA Life

Avoid Chicago (even though Mayor Daley's beloved ban is about to go down in flames) and all should be fine. Keep the gun in the trunk, cased and unloaded and you will be fine. And if you get stopped for a traffic violation, just remember you can say "no" when officer friendly asks if he can search your car.

Done that twice in my life so far. No consent means no search.

quote:

Originally posted by OKFC05:
Well, Capt, if you say all the problems have been solved and all the districts are now following the state gun regulations, it must be so. My info is 2 years out of date.

Yeah, right. Whatever you want to believe.