The Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card program is a colossal wet fart. It’s a complete disaster. Not only does it not stop mass shootings, but it also doesn’t stop crime or anything else. It just slows down law-abiding citizens who want to purchase a firearm, as is their constitutionally-protected right.

Worse, though, is how the state police have used funds set aside for that program and shifted them for other purposes, making a messy program even more of a trainwreck.

Yet there’s a bill that seeks to change at least some of that, and it comes from a Democrat.

State Rep. Monica Bristow (D-Alton) is sponsoring legislation to ensure funds allocated for the processing of Firearm Owners Identification cards are safeguarded to prevent the backlog of applications and speed up the application process.

“The FOID process already places an unnecessary burden on responsible gun owners, so the diversion of funds for the application process is only hurting those that are trying to follow the law,” Bristow said. “My office is constantly getting calls about the delay on FOID card processing, and it’s clear that we need a safeguard on these resources to meet the needs of residents.”

Bristow told Advantage News, “These funds are intended to be set aside for certain services provided by the Illinois State Police, and this legislation will ensure they will be used properly and as they were intended.” She added, “This legislation that I am proposing will help secure the Second Amendment rights of citizens who are simply trying to abide by the law as responsible gun owners.”

Sounds like a fairly pro-gun Democrat, believe it or not.

Of course, this bill isn’t nearly as good as a bill to repeal the FOID requirement might be, but let’s also be honest here. This is about the best you’re going to see in Illinois. Even so, the bill (HB 4754) might still be a longshot in the vehemently anti-gun Illinois legislature. So far, Bristow’s bill has precisely one co-sponsor despite having been first filed a month ago. That’s not a strong opening.

Yet there’s still a chance for this one unlike other pro-gun bills in the state. After all, it shouldn’t be too hard of a sell to require money designated for a certain purpose not be used for whatever else an agency wants to use it for instead. If anything, the concern should be that this bill is too specific and still allows agencies to pull this stuff with other funding.

Then again, this is Illinois. They don’t actually want to make life easier for those wishing to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

However, I do want to applaud Bristow for the bill and for her comments about it. I doubt those will make her popular with her fellow Democrats. Pro-gun Dems are rare enough that we need to treat them like endangered species. We need to cultivate them and protect them whenever we can, simply because they’re rare and we should all want more of them.

After all, if Democrats become pro-gun and Republicans remain pro-gun, then where is the threat to the Second Amendment?