Update on the FOID card renewal process

ILLINOIS (WIFR) - If you’re an Illinois resident and you own a gun, several changes are on the way about the firearm identification program and how the state handles your license. State officials say this process is safer and more efficient.

The new criteria are as follows. As FOID cards are replaced, new cards will be printed without expiration dates and whenever a new FOID card is issued, if the cardholder possesses a valid concealed carry license or CCL, the cardholder will be issued a combined FOID and CCL card.

When a FOID card is suspended and the card holder has a CCL, the CCL will be suspended until the FOID card is reinstated. Once the FOID card is reinstated, so will the CCL card. Essentially, now instead of two different cards, buyers and dealers have to keep track of there’s only one, which means there’s only one cost to cover.

Illinois State Police hope this will eliminate a lot of extra hoops that dealers and buyers have to go through. Crazy Horse Guns and Archery owner Randall Sutton tells me some of his customers have been waiting for their FOID approval for over a year. He says he hopes this will help alleviate some of the backlogging problems that they have been excessively experiencing, but he’s not going to hold his breath.

“I mean anything they can make less complicated has got to be a better thing, but there’s a lot easier things that they could do in order to solve the same problems. We’ll just have to see how it turns out,” Sutton states.

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