Illinois lawmakers advance ‘Karina’s bill’ to remove guns from domestic violence situations

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — It’s been 18 months since Karina Gonzalez and her 15-year-old daughter Daniela were shot and killed on Fourth of July weekend at their Chicago home, allegedly by her husband.

Gonzalez had filed for an order of protection from her husband just two weeks before her death. That order caused his Firearm Owner’s Identification card to be revoked, but law enforcement never removed the gun he owned from his possession.

After more than a year of negotiations, the Illinois General Assembly passed “Karina’s Bill” on Tuesday with bipartisan support. It clarifies that local law enforcement must temporarily remove guns from a person who has an order of protection against them when the alleged victim successfully seeks firearm removal as a remedy in court.

“We are talking about people who are abusing the people that they claim to love, that are threatening them with harm, that are shooting them and killing them,” bill sponsor Sen. Celina Villanueva, D-Chicago, told the Senate Monday night.

Read past coverage: Advocates renew push to tighten firearm laws aimed at protecting domestic violence victims | Stalled bills: ‘Dignity in Pay Act,’ Prisoner Review Board changes fail to move

Gonzalez’s son, Manny Alvarez, who survived the 2023 shooting, joined Rep. Edgar Gonzalez Jr., D-Chicago, on the House floor for the bill’s final passage. It needs only a signature from Gov. JB Pritzker to become law.

Current law allows people asking a court for an order of protection to request a “firearm remedy” that would lead to law enforcement removing guns from the alleged abuser’s possession. Karina’s bill seeks to close the loophole that made it unclear who was responsible for removing the gun from the situation.

Under the bill, the person who seeks an order of protection can also ask the court to issue a search warrant that will allow local law enforcement to seize firearms from the alleged abuser. The petitioner or state’s attorney must demonstrate probable cause that the alleged abuser poses an immediate threat to the petitioner. Law enforcement would then be required to execute the warrant within 96 hours of it being issued.

The bill ran into road blocks, including that lawmakers wanted to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a similar federal case.

Read more: Advocates say SCOTUS ruling paves way for law ensuring abusers have guns confiscated

The nation’s high court upheld a federal law last June that prohibits people with domestic violence-related restraining orders from having guns. Though Karina’s bill had previously passed through the House, senators delayed action while waiting for the decision. The court’s ruling “gave us far more elbow room than I would have expected to tackle this issue,” Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said in a Senate committee Monday.

Illinois law enforcement organizations also had concerns about their ability to carry out the law, including where police agencies would store the confiscated firearms and the logistics of carrying out search warrants against alleged abusers. Stakeholders came to agreement over those logistics, including giving police 48 hours to research the situation behind the order of protection so they can properly execute the search warrant.

However, some Republicans expressed concerns that small sheriff’s departments in rural districts would continue to struggle to carry out the law with limited resources.

“We don’t have the people to do these things,” Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said.

But supporters of the bill said the state needed to strengthen its laws to support victims of domestic violence and prevent deaths like Gonzalez’s.

“Our current laws are confusing for victims and judges and the result is that victims aren’t getting what they need: their abuser’s guns taken away,” Villanueva said in committee Monday.

Domestic violence shooting deaths were up 63% from 2019 to 2023 and were responsible for three times as many gun deaths in 2023 as non-domestic violence incidents, Amanda Pyron from The Network, an anti-domestic violence organization, told the Senate committee.

“The emergency order of protection stage is the most dangerous moment and the time a survivor is most likely to be killed because it is when an abuser realizes they’re losing power over a survivor,” Pyron said.

But gun rights lobbyists expressed concerns the bill undermines due process afforded to people accused of crimes. They argued taking guns away from a person with an order of protection against them assumes guilt on criminal charges and violates their constitutional rights. Orders of protection are filed in civil court.

The bill received bipartisan support in the legislature, but some Republicans echoed the concerns of the gun rights groups.

“There is not another amendment in our Bill of Rights that you have to petition a court to get your right back before you’re convicted of something,” Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, said in the Senate Monday.

Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser told the Senate committee she believes the bill will withstand any court challenges. Mosser, who officially took a neutral position on the bill, said due process is honored because the guns are temporarily confiscated, and the person can file objections if the guns were taken away permanently.

The measure, House Bill 4144, passed 43-10 in the Senate and 80-33 in the House.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.