The Gun Violence Prevention Action Committee (GVPAction) is proud to release its second annual Gun Safety Report Card for 2022. The legislation in the Gun Safety Report Card is the culmination of the work of survivors, public supporters, and gun safety champions who advocated tirelessly for laws that will keep Illinois children, families, and communities safe from gun violence.
Sadly, firearms are the leading cause of death for Illinois children. It is ripping children from their parents, loved ones from their families, and neighbors from our communities. We cannot allow ourselves to be desensitized to this violence. It leaves a wake of trauma across our communities that takes decades or more to recover. Gun violence is a public health epidemic and we must continue to advocate for measures to end it.
After passing critical legislation to require universal background checks for all gun sales in 2021, this year, our priority was to make ghost guns illegal in Illinois. This was in response to a rapid increase in the number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes. In Chicago alone, police recovered 455 ghost guns in 2021 — more than twice as many as in New York City. Assembled from plastic parts ordered online, ghost guns are designed to avoid all gun laws; they are untraceable, unserialized and available to buy without a background check. Proudly, Illinois became the first state in the Midwest to make ghost guns illegal when the bill was signed into law on May 18, 2022.
In an effort to prevent gun suicides and accidental shootings, we supported measures that establish a statewide safe gun storage campaign and allow school districts to include safe gun storage information in schools’ student handbooks. Votes on these bills were considered in this year’s report card grades.
Despite the progress we have made, our work is far from over. After the actions by the United States Supreme Court this year striking down evidence-based gun safety laws, we must continue to pass legislation to address this public health crisis here in Illinois. From Highland Park to Washington Park, mass shootings have traumatized communities across our state. That is why our movement is turning our attention to banning the sale and possession of assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines — weapons of war that only exist to make shootings more deadly. In the first nine months of 2022, Illinois has witnessed 45 mass shootings, and yet mass shootings are only a fraction of the gun deaths we see each year.
Please know that we cannot do our work without the support of people like you. Gun violence affects everyone in our state, and we are committed to achieving an Illinois free of gun violence. Holding our officials accountable is a critical element of this progress to a more peaceful Illinois and it is my hope that you will find this helpful in understanding which of your officials are committed to creating safe communities for everyone.
Thank you for your commitment to ending gun violence in Illinois.
Kathleen Sances
President and CEO,
Gun Violence Prevention Action Committee
To download the report, click on the ⇓ button at the top of the report.
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