Over the past few weeks, the CBS affiliate in Chicago has a run a series of stories on lawful gun owners and concealed carry licensees who’ve been wrongly arrested and charged for carrying without a valid license, and in a somewhat surprising move, a Democrat lawmaker is now vowing to address at least part of the problem uncovered by the media outlet.
State Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth has hardly been a champion of the Second Amendment during her time in office. She voted in favor of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which banned both so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines, as well as giving her stamp of approval to legislation prohibiting home-built, unserialized firearms. But Gordon-Booth is also a proponent of so-called “clean slate” laws, which allow for criminal records for certain nonviolent crimes to be sealed and shielded from public view, which appears to be the main reason why she’s taking an interest in the plight of those concealed carry holders who’ve faced arrest and charges for supposedly carrying without a permit.
Louis McWilliams is one of those individuals who went through the 16 hours of state-mandated training in order to receive his carry license.
So in April 2024, when he was pulled over for a traffic violation, he did exactly what he was taught in class: he told police he had a firearm, and showed them his FOID and CCL card.
“I played by the book. I did things the right way,” McWilliams said.
But it didn’t matter. Even though he handed officers his valid CCL, when police couldn’t find it in the state’s system, LEADS, they arrested him. He was charged with two felonies.
After months in and out of court, prosecutors — who initially signed off on the false charges — eventually determined McWilliams’ CCL was valid and dropped them. It was little consolation.
“No matter how much you follow a system of which they create, they can still deem you wrong,” he said.
CBS News Chicago has tried to find out how often Black gun owners falsely faced charges that were ultimately dropped, but neither the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office nor Chicago police track the cases.
McWilliams is now taking legal action.
“I feel like my rights were violated,” he said.
Even after charges are dropped, concealed carry holders like McWilliams can still face problems with employment, bank loans, and anything else involving a background check because their arrest will show up. National African American Gun Association head Philip Smith told CBS he’d like to see more lawsuits like McWilliams’s filed in court.
“If a police chief has four or five lawsuits, $4 or $5 million with different law enforcement officers, they’re going to get a call from somebody to say, ‘Hey, start treating those people differently,'” Smith told the television station.
That might be a little optimistic on Smith’s part, but I think he’s right that anyone subjected to a wrongful arrest should sue the pants off of any and every government official that can be tied to these practices, which appear to be impacting African American gun owners much more frequently than white gun owners in the Chicago area.
For her part, Gordon-Booth says she’s working on a bill that would automatically expunge any record of arrest or prosecution for those gun owenrs who’ve been wrongly charged once their case has been dismissed.
“It should be removed. Hard stop. They should be removed, and they should not have to pay a lawyer to do it,” she said.
Gordon-Booth said it’ll take time to develop such a bill, but she believes these cases deserve attention because there could be many more like them.
For once, when it comes to a gun issue Gordon-Booth is correct. And while I don’t expect her to suddenly become a stalwart supporter of our right to keep and bear arms, I do hope that Illinois residents who’ve been negatively impacted by the state’s gun control regime will reach out to the lawmaker to share their stories.
If she’s willing to see the problem with arresting concealed carry holders with valid carry permits, maybe she’ll be open-minded enough to listen to those unable to exercise their right-to-carry because they use public transportation or those who’ve had to face dangerous situations unarmed because of the state’s 72-hour waiting period or the even longer wait to obtain a Firearms Owner ID card necessary to keep a gun in the home.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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