My Grandpa lived in Illinois and had to have an FOID card. It's not only licensing and registration of where the guns are, but it's a particularly useful tool for the government to discourage firearms ownership and to create conditions whereby owners can innocently find themselves in trouble. If you don't have it with you and you have a gun, even locked in the trunk and disassembled, you're in trouble and they can take all your guns. If you forget to renew it, you're in trouble and they can take all your guns. Simply do nothing, and in a couple of years you automatically become a criminal.
Remind me to never visit Illinois. (not that I would anyways).
We don't even have stuff like that here in the Soviet of Washington.
Thank you for your thoughtful response...as compared to others here. Ultimately, you are correct, but in practice, not an issue. I know a number of fellow hunters who have run afoul of these regs. No tickets issued, no confiscations, just a stearn word to get in compliance. The game wardens can check to see if your hunting licence is registered to the person standing in front of them.
For hunters, like myself, the FOID has pushed poaching way down in this state. The only confiscations I know of are against poaching of deer, turkey and other game. Here there is no quarter given. If you are found with no hunting license, or the license you are carring doesn't match the FOID you have...you are going to lose your weapon, and maybe your vehicle too.
As a land owner...(I own a few hundered acres in northwest Illiniois), I catch people poaching on my land occasionally, and I want the wardens to confiscate. I've had horses hit by stray shots, and one hole in my guest house.
If I was out there more, (I live in close to Chicago), it would be easier to get rid of these guys, but there you go. Call me jaded, but there are a number of gun owners out there who really need them confiscated....idiots!