The arguments for new penalties for illegal gun possession have been driven by a narrative that Chicago’s existing gun possession laws are not leading to enough arrests, charges or convictions, or that the current Cook County state’s attorney is “soft” on guns. These narratives are simply false. On the contrary, Chicago is aggressively policing and prosecuting unlicensed gun possession.
The recent Sun-Times editorial states that the board has been told that “many cops aren’t even bringing cases of unlawful possession of guns because they believe the cases won’t result in charges.” That claim is roundly contradicted by publicly available data. First, Chicago police arrest data shows that gun possession arrests are at the highest rate they have ever been; despite the fact that arrest rates overall have fallen during the pandemic, arrests for gun possession offenses were 80% higher in 2022 than in 2019. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office’s publicly available data also shows that gun possession charges referred by police were approved for prosecution 88% of the time in 2022, and 79% of gun possession charges resolved in 2022 resulted in convictions.
