By GREG BISHOP for the ILLINOIS RADIO NETWORK

SPRINGFIELD, IL. (WJPF) — An Illinois gun rights group plans to sue the state Wednesday over the new gun dealer certification law set to take effect claiming gun dealers still don’t know the rules.

More than half of the state’s 2,351 federally licensed dealers haven’t applied for the state license, according to numbers provided by the ATF and Illinois State Police.

Illinois State Rifle Association Executive Director Richard Pearson said federally licensed dealers in Illinois don’t know the rules because the state hasn’t set up the rules yet.

“They don’t know what they’re getting into,” Pearson said. “They don’t know how much it’s going to cost them. They don’t know what the inspections are going to look like, they don’t know anything. It’s really has a chilling effect on the firearms business in Illinois and it was meant to. That was the idea of the bill.”

ISRA filed the lawsuit Wednesday to block implementation of the law because the rules aren’t clear, Pearson said.

“If you were to build a building and say ‘I’m going to build a building,’ and the state says ‘you can build the building and we’ll tell you what rules we’re going to put in place after the building is built,’ you wouldn’t do it,” Pearson said. “So right now, more than half of the Illinois dealers are not going to have an Illinois license, so they’ll be out of business.”

State Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, who was the chief sponsor of the measure in the previous General Assembly, said he hasn’t reviewed the lawsuit, “although I look forward to doing so.”

“It is my understanding that the State Police are enforcing the law as it was written and signed earlier this year,” Harmon said.

Illinois State Police officials said in a statement that the agency is finalizing and formatting the Gun Dealer Licensing Rules.

“We just wiped out [1,211] businesses in Illinois with the stroke of a pen,” Pearson said. “These are small mom-and-pop businesses that were simply wiped out.”

Supporters of the law have said it is meant to combat illegal straw purchases that put guns in the hands of criminals.

In January, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Firearms Dealers Licensing Certification Act, which requires gun dealers to get a state license on top of a federal one.

Pearson said the lawsuit focuses on the lack of clarity in the rules. The suit seeks to temporarily keep the state from enforcing the law. Pearson said if that’s successful, the group will seek a permanent injunction.