In Chicago, reports are that it’s costing about $250 and multiple trips to the police department to get a license for a handgun – more if you have multiple guns to register. It looks like a $215 minimum: $100 for the class, $100 fee to the city for the license, and $15 per gun to be registered. None of that, of course, includes the cost of the actual gun, or the cost of ammunition or range fees for the required live fire session. It doesn’t include the personal time spent jumping through the city’s hoops that could have been spent on other things.
It looks like at least one of the posters at that forum has actually gotten his permit, so they don’t seem to be playing that game like I thought they would.
They do seem to be doing what they can to discourage people by making it difficult and time consuming, though. One poster spent 10 hours between the class and traveling to and from the range, and 3 hours just filling out forms (639 individual information fields) to register 9 guns (plus $135 to register them all).
And all this is just so you can have it in your home, and only in your home. There is still no legal carrying of firearms in Chicago – even on your own back porch.
(h/t SayUncle)
