Well....duh.
Now Mark, I've read your posts for a long while; do you really think Pat Quinn would sign concealed carry into law? What does Rahm have to do with the State? (Just curious, not meant to be argumentative)
If you get heat on anything in the future please reference the following quote.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Mark Twain
bump
Nice.
If they charged $100 for the permit, it would be a source of revenue for the State. As much as that would rankle people like myself who reject the idea that rights cannot be licensed to free citizens for a fee, the political reality is that some votes in the legislature, maybe enough votes, would be swayed on this important (shall) issue.
In the case of Missouri, when the CCW law was proposed as an ballot initiative, the reason that some Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs gave for pushing back against it was that the proposed fee was too low, and it would “divert” resources.
Indeed, the anti-gun Kansas City newspaper was happy to highlight the statements from the chief Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) of Johnson County that it would divert urgent resources because the proposed fees could not cover his $75 cost of processing the application. The ballot initiative failed in that county and in the two counties that comprise St. Louis, and thus failed state-wide.
A few years later when the law was being worked through the legislature, the fee was set at $100 (for 3 years) exactly to allow it to be a profit center for every LEO in the State. The logic was that it was more important to have a shall-issue CCW law in effect than have a low fee, because it would be a lot easier to tune the fee later. In any case, a lot fewer LEOs were publicly against the bill that time. Even so, it passed by a one vote margin, and that vote was cast only by through heroic efforts.
Those advocating CCW in Illinois would be politically wise to allow a little profit in the administration of CCW licenses to grease some of the local-level wheels in the process. You need all the votes you can get. If you eventually are successful, the fight to lower the fee or extend the license term will be nothing compared to what it took to get a decent CCW law.