Until this year, people in Illinois who were arrested for carrying a gun illegally faced charges with names like “unlawful use of weapons” or “aggravated unlawful use of a weapon,” phrases that seem to describe the firing of a gun. These titles, legal advocates said, create an unfair stigma because they lead potential employers, landlords, and the public to believe that someone committed a violent act, when in most cases, their crime was carrying a gun without the required paperwork.

In January, a new Illinois law changed the names of six weapon possession charges in an effort to better clarify when someone is charged with illegally possessing a weapon as opposed to using one in a crime. While the new law simply changes the names of the charges, advocates say it could help those convicted face less discrimination.

“What we were learning through our criminal defense attorneys is that even in the courtroom, they were encountering judges who were misinterpreting what the defendant in front of them had done because of this inaccurate title,” said Emma Ruth, the policy manager at Cabrini Green Legal Aid in Chicago, a nonprofit that provides free legal support to people involved with the criminal legal system.

The group helped spearhead the law, known as House Bill 4500. “We were really focused on the potential residual impact of somebody having a record with an inaccurate offense title on it, so thinking about the impact on landlords, on employers, on people seeking subsequent opportunities,” she said. “A layperson would see this on their records and really misunderstand or misinterpret the initial offense that led to their involvement in the system.”

Like Ruth, Takenya Nixon, an attorney with the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, also noted that the old weapon possession titles confused judges and jurors, making it difficult for people to avoid conviction in the first place.

Read Next

Illinois Has Passed a Slew of Gun Regulations. Are They Enough to Stem the Tide of Shootings?

Last month’s sweeping law is garnering pushback for its assault weapons ban. But reform advocates have their own concerns about the state’s long-term approach.

“You can see the faces of people on the jury when the judge announces the name of the charge,” Nixon said. “You have a mostly white jury — especially here at 26th Street — and a Black [defendant] sitting next to you, and you just know in the jury’s minds they think that this person actually used it — that they hit that trigger and were firing at someone or something when, in fact, it is just simply possession.”

The title changes arrive amid growing concerns from community advocates and criminal justice researchers about both the growing number of people in Chicago who are incarcerated for gun possession and the fact that these charges disproportionately affect Black communities.

In a 2024 report from the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, researchers found that incarceration for illegal gun possession has been increasing in Cook County over the past two decades. From 2019 to 2023 — a period when 3,097 people were fatally shot in Chicago — for every one arrest involving a gun being discharged, Chicago police made six for gun possession.

“We’re really seeing policing focusing in on gun possession, which is not only a nonviolent charge, but is ultimately a licensure issue, many people are under-licensed,” said Naomi Johnson, Appleseed’s co-executive director.

There are many reasons why people in Chicago choose to carry guns without acquiring the proper paperwork. “The most important thing about this report is why people are carrying guns in the city of Chicago in the first place, and that’s really because most people have true safety concerns…  this is a public health issue,” Johnson said. “We’re meeting it with criminalization as opposed to care.”

Similarly, Michael Harrell, the program manager and director of reentry at Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, a community violence prevention organization, has seen people carry guns without the proper paperwork because they lack information on how to get licensed, or because prior nonviolent convictions made them ineligible to become legal gun owners.

The local response to the increasing enforcement of Illinois’ stringent gun laws comes against the backdrop of the country bracing for the Trump administration’s potential rollback of Biden-era gun restrictions, or the loosening of gun laws that a Republican trifecta in federal government could bring.

Illinois has some of the country’s strictest gun laws, which require residents to obtain two separate permits in order to legally carry a gun in public. People must first acquire a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card to legally purchase a firearm, and then a Concealed Carry License (CCL) in order to take it outside. Both permits require that applicants pay fees and undergo background checks, among other criteria.

Advocates hope that the new title changes will mitigate some of the negative repercussions of jailing more people for illegal gun possession, especially within Chicago’s Black and brown communities. “Common sense would have people believe that ‘unlawful use’ means you used the weapon in another kind of crime like a robbery or you shot it,” said Sharlyn Grace, the senior policy advisor at the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender. “‘Unlawful use of a weapon’ doesn’t translate to you had a FOID card, but not a concealed carry license, and you had a gun in your glove compartment. In what world is that unlawful use?”

Democratic State Representative Kam Buckner first introduced the measure in January 2024, and received some initial pushback from House Republicans who took issue with some of the new titles’ wording. The bill initially made the title changes retroactive, which was also a concern because implementation would have required a significant amount of time and resources from law enforcement and record-keeping agencies. Supporters conceded on that point, and now the changes only apply to new cases starting in 2025. The measure later passed unanimously in the Senate.

Some of the more notable tweaks include changing “unlawful use of weapons” to “unlawful possession of weapons;” “aggravated unlawful use of a weapon” to “aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon;” and “armed habitual criminal” to “unlawful possession of a firearm by a repeat felony offender.”

The law could help formerly incarcerated people as they try to navigate a new normal where their records make accessing essential resources like housing significantly harder, said Harrell, of Precious Blood Ministry. But even with the new titles, he questioned whether the processes that govern background checks and housing applications would allow landlords or potential employers to change the way they treat people with gun possession convictions.

“The potentiality to help is there, but it would require an element of understanding,” he said. “In some cases, there are entities that just ask if you have a felony conviction and the sole fact of having one is huge in prohibiting opportunities.”

Some, like David E. Olson, a professor in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at Loyola University Chicago, view the title changes as “mostly symbolic.” Olson said reforms in how Illinois punishes people for illegal gun possession would have a more positive impact on people’s lives and community safety. He suggests that the courts practice a more holistic approach when sentencing people for gun possession — one that considers all of the motivating factors that lead people to carry guns without the legal paperwork.

“When we find a 20-year-old with a gun illegally, we assume that ‘oh, they’re probably a shooter’ or they’re probably linked to a bunch of homicides we haven’t solved, so if we send them into prison, we’re actually protecting society,’” Olson said. “The chances of that are less than the likelihood that they have a gun because they’re fearful of where they live. If we send them to prison, that doesn’t change any of that because we haven’t eliminated the fear that they face when they get out of prison or the likelihood that they may carry a gun again, because there’s still nothing protecting them.”