An employee of Verano Holdings allegedly took the marijuana on a commercial flight, the suit filed in Colorado says. Verano calls the claims “totally false and absurd.”

Verano Holdings, a Chicago weed firm worth roughly $3 billion, was sued Monday in federal court as part of a sweeping racketeering complaint that accuses the company of illegally trafficking marijuana from Illinois to Arkansas.

The lawsuit filed in Colorado alleges a complicated conspiracy that allegedly included the company and Harvest Health & Recreation, an Arizona firm that attempted to acquire Verano for $850 million in March 2019.

The plaintiff, Nicholas Nielsen, worked for a cultivation center in Newport, Arkansas, that was owned by Natural State Wellness Enterprises and managed by Harvest as the company worked in lockstep with Verano as the acquisition was pending. The deal fizzled, however.

The suit hinges on Nielsen’s arrest last January in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where police raided his home after uncovering 28 harvested pot plants in his garbage can, the Van Buren County Democrat reported. Nielsen was then arrested and charged after the cops found two more plants inside the home along with other pot products and paraphernalia.

However, the suit claims those plants were actually being cultivated for the Newport greenhouse while it was awaiting approval from state officials.

The cultivation center’s chief grower previously said agents with the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division showed up there during the raid and learned plants at the facility came from Nielsen’s home, according to the local news report.

The suit claims the plants at Nielsen’s home were allegedly grown from clippings brought to Arkansas by Michael Frontier, a Verano employee who was indicted in federal court in Chicago in October 2019 for allegedly running an illegal gambling business in an action unrelated to his work in the pot industry.

In April 2019, Frontier — who was still an employee of Verano — was introduced to Nielsen as Harvest’s central regional cultivation manager, the suit states. Two months later, Frontier was allegedly “instructed by his employer” to take young cannabis plants from an unnamed Verano facility in Illinois and transport them to Arkansas.

Frontier allegedly hid four different pot strains in Whole Foods salads and took the weed on a commercial flight from Chicago to Memphis, the suit contends. From there, Frontier allegedly rented a car and drove the marijuana to Nielsen in Arkansas.

In the suit, Nielsen claims Harvest initially told him that it was legal to grow the plants at the makeshift cultivation facility in his home, which the company allegedly financed. But following the raid, the suit notes that Nielsen was fired by Harvest “as a result of his arrest.”

Nielsen now faces felony counts of manufacture of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Frontier has not been charged in connection with the allegations, nor has anyone else listed in the lawsuit. Nielsen’s attorney, Matthew Buck, said his client hasn’t reported anyone else to law enforcement, though he said Nielsen “would definitely testify against all of them” in a criminal case.

The suit includes dozens of co-defendants, including Verano CEO George Archos and other company executives. And it also targets individuals tied to Harvest and Natural State Wellness, as well as various investors and a credit union in Colorado accused of laundering money in connection to the alleged trafficking scheme.

All the parties engaged in an illegal interstate drug enterprise in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the suit claims. The complaint was filed in Nielsen’s home state, where some of the defendants also live and do business.

The suit comes just weeks after Verano began trading publicly in Canada with a valuation of nearly $3 billion, making it one of the biggest weed firms in the U.S.

In a statement, Buck said Verano and its board of directors “wantonly violated Illinois State law, as well as federal law, when they had their employee traffic marijuana from Verano’s cultivation facility to Arkansas.”

“It’s unconscionable that low-level employees take the fall while Verano’s board continues to make money off of their illegal conduct,” Buck said.

Buck said his client intends to ask for more than $6 million from the defendants as a group under RICO, as well as the same amount from each individual defendant.

Pot firms push back against claims

Verano claimed the allegations in the suit “are completely and totally false and absurd.”

“The plaintiff and his lawyer have turned an employment dispute between a former Harvest employee and his employer into a sensationalized and imagined series of events aimed at a company like Verano with a proven track record of compliant operations,” spokesman Dennis Culloton said in a statment. “Verano and its affiliates are proud of their strict compliance with and adherence to state laws and regulations, and any insinuation to the contrary is completely fictional.”

Harvest also claimed the lawsuit is “replete with inaccuracies,” saying it amounts to “nothing more than a thinly veiled shakedown.”

“Knowing his client was legally bound to take any dispute to binding confidential arbitration, Mr. Nielsen’s lawyer threatened to unleash a smear campaign by filing a lawsuit filled with damaging false information unless we paid him millions of dollars,” spokesman Terry Fahn said in a statement. “He went so far as to threaten what he believed the headline emanating from the lawsuit would be.”

Fahn noted that Harvest has filed a motion to compel arbitration, and both firms vowed to fight the suit in court.

Frontier’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Here’s Monday’s news on how COVID-19 is impacting Chicago and Illinois.

News

9:10 p.m. Student mental health struggles intensify as high schools remain closed year into pandemic

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

When the coronavirus pandemic first closed schools last year, one Chicago mother watched as her son — then a freshman at a public school on the North Side — became hyper-focused on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s daily briefings, spurring disappointment every time he announced a delay in reopening schools.

As Chicago Public Schools remained closed for the rest of the year and did not reopen in the fall, the mother said her son’s anxiety and depression manifested more severely as he became too angry to function.

He remains “emotionally miserable,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “He’s in therapy, he’s taking medication. This has never been true before.”

High school students in CPS still have no idea when they will return in person this school year, even as kindergarten through fifth graders returned to classrooms last week and 6-8 graders return Monday. CPS officials on Friday said high school students could opt-in for in-person learning possibly later this spring, but no deal has been reached with the Chicago Teachers Union, and no details of how schools would look if they open their doors have been released.

Now nearing a year of schools being closed, students are suffering from more intense symptoms of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, according to mental health experts.

Nationwide, the number of children’s mental health-related emergency department visits increased steadily from April to October 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For children ages 12-17, the number of visits increased by 31% compared to 2019.

At Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, from September 2020 to January 2021, the rate of emergency department visits for mental health concerns doubled compared to the year before, rising from 2.4% to 4.2% of all cases. While the pandemic more than halved the number of emergency room visits overall, the number of mental health visits remained about the same as the prior year.

Dr. Jennifer Hoffman, an emergency room physician at Lurie, said although there was a hesitancy to visit the emergency room during the pandemic, mental health concerns for some children were so high that families deemed the risk necessary.

Keep reading Clare Proctor’s story here.

4:06 p.m. Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says

NEW YORK — Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.

The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way — in a single household — with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday.

The guidance is designed to address a growing demand, as more adults have been getting vaccinated and wondering if it gives them greater freedom to visit family members, travel, or do other things like they did before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world last year.

“With more and more people vaccinated each day, we are starting to turn a corner,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

Read the full story here.

12:51 p.m. Health officials report 1,182 new COVID-19 cases, 5 deaths

Illinois public health officials announced 1,182 new cases of the coronavirus Monday as well as five deaths — the lowest daily fatality count in nearly six months.

The new cases come from a batch of 39,636 tests. As of Sunday night, 1,178 people with COVID-19 were reported to be in the hospital. Of that number, 266 patients were in intensive care units throughout the state; 118 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

The state’s preliminary seven-day statewide case positivity is 2.3%.

The last time the state saw a daily death toll this low was Sept. 14, when the state logged five deaths. Illinois hasn’t seen a single-digit daily death rate since early Oct. 11, when health officials announced nine deaths.

The deaths reported Monday bring the state’s total COVID-19 toll to 20,767 people.

Health officials also reported 3.38 million vaccines have been administered so far, with an average of of 90,135 doses administered daily in the past seven days, slightly less than the 93,183 rolling average of shots reported Sunday.

Read the full story from Rachel Hinton here.

1:07 p.m. CPS welcomes back middle school students Monday

Chicago Public Schools reached a milestone of sorts Monday, with all elementary school grades open districtwide for in-person learning — even though most parents continued to keep their kids at home in remote learning.

The district welcomed back sixth through eighth grade students Monday.

“It never gets old seeing kids come back to school — some of them excited, some of them not so excited about it. But at the end of the day, we know it’s the best place for them,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, speaking to reporters outside Robert J. Richardson Middle School, 6018 S. Karlov.

Just before Jackson spoke, students lined up — socially distanced — outside the school, as a staff member with a laptop quizzed them about any recent sickness and out-of-state travel, among other questions.

Staff at Richardson were expecting 185 out of 1,083 students to return for the current quarter.

Overall, about 18,500 students in sixth to eighth grades were expected to return to their classrooms Monday. That’s on top of the 37,000 K-5 students that went back last week. About 145,000 elementary students will continue learning remotely through at least April.

Jackson said that, to date, CPS has offered coronavirus vaccinations to about 25,000 school employees — about 60% of the total.

She said the district has received many questions about the levels of in-person staffing.

“After one week of instruction with K-5 back last week, we don’t have any reports of widespread staffing shortages,” she said.

Read the full story from Stefano Esposito here.

11:45 a.m. Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says

Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.

The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way — in a single household — with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday.

The guidance is designed to address a growing demand, as more adults have been getting vaccinated and wondering if it gives them greater freedom to visit family members, travel, or do other things like they did before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world last year.

Read the full story here.

11:10 a.m. Sox, Cubs, can have fans attend games, mayor says

The Cubs and Sox will play before real fans, instead of cardboard cut-outs.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave both teams the go-ahead to sell 20% of the seats at Wrigley Field and Guaranteed Rate Field citing the “remarkable” progress Chicago has made toward containing the coronavirus and vaccinating its residents.

“As a diehard sports fan myself, I’m personally excited to have Chicago take its first, cautious steps toward safely reopening our beloved baseball stadiums to fans this season,” Lightfoot, a Sox season ticket holder, was quoted as saying in a press release.

“We’re able to do that thanks to the commitment of our city’s two great baseball franchises who continue to work in close partnership with Chicago’s public health officials to find solutions that are not only safe, but offer a path forward toward safely increasing stadium capacity as we move closer into our COVID-19 recovery.”

Guaranteed Rate has a seating capacity of 40,000. The city’s gradual reopening plan will limit the crowd to 8,122 fans with at least six feet between parties, starting with the home opener on April 8.

Wrigley Field has a capacity crowd of 41,374. There a 20% rule will allow the Cubs to sell 8,274 seats, beginning with the home opener on April 1.

The reopening of both ballparks will start at 20% “with additional restrictions and potentially open to more fans as vaccination and recovery efforts continue,” City Hall said.

Get the full story from Fran Spielman here.

9:50 a.m. Polar Plunge goes virtual amid COVID-19

Every year for the last two decades, thousands of people ascend to North Avenue to dive into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan to raise money for Special Olympics Chicago and Special Children’s Charities.

In 2020, nearly 5,000 people charged into the lake, raising a record-setting $2.2 million during what turned out to be one of the last major events in the city to take place before the pandemic uprooted life as we knew it.

But that wasn’t the case this year. Like so many other traditions, this year’s Polar Plunge was forced to take place virtually, with Sunday marking the final day of the weeklong event.

Many participants got creative with the reimagined Polar Plunge.

Some still made the trip to the lakefront to take a dip in Lake Michigan, while another group constructed a homemade dunk tank that they set up in an alleyway. On Saturday, students and teachers at St. Patrick High School hosted a fun-filled event outside on the school’s football field and raised about $10,700.

Find out how others participated in the Polar Plunge this year.

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New cases

• State health officials reported 1,068 new probable and confirmed COVID-19 cases Sunday, the fewest new cases recorded in a day since July 21. Sunday’s cases were found among the 68,094 tests processed by the Illinois Department of Public Health, for a daily positivity rate of roughly 1.6%.
• Illinois’ daily caseload has surpassed 2,000 only twice in March, 10 times in the last month and twice in March. Because of this, the state’s seven-day positivity rate has dropped close to an all-time low. On Sunday, that figure, which experts use to gauge the spread of the virus across the state, was 2.3% — down a full percentage point from one month ago.
• Officials also announced 14 virus-related deaths, marking the smallest daily pandemic death toll since October. Five of those fatalities were reported in the Chicago area.
• Statewide hospitalizations have returned to pre-peak levels, too. As of Saturday night, 1,141 beds were occupied statewide by coronavirus patients, with 255 of those patients in intensive care units and 112 on ventilators, officials said.

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The National Women’s Hall of Fame inducts a new class every other year in Seneca Falls, the site of the first women’s rights convention.

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Former first lady Michelle Obama and soccer star Mia Hamm have been chosen for the National Women’s Hall of Fame as part of a Class of 2021 announced Monday that also includes former PepsiCo Chief Executive Indra Nooyi and retired Brig. Gen. Rebecca Halstead.

Halstead commanded in combat as the first female commanding general at the strategic level in Iraq.

NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who died last year, also will be inducted during an Oct. 2 ceremony, along with the late author Octavia Butler, Native American artist Joy Harjo, abolitionist Emily Howland and artist Judy Chicago.

The National Women’s Hall of Fame inducts a new class every other year in Seneca Falls, the site of the first women’s rights convention. As in other years, this year’s ceremony will be in person, hall officials said, but tickets will not be available until April or May, when there is a better understanding of COVID-19 protocols for live events.

The ceremony also will be livestreamed.

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There are things you can say and things you can’t.

Knowing the line that separates the two is critical for anybody in the media, even if that line shifts like a wind-blown sand dune. Actually, knowing the line is critical for anybody with a job, media or elsewhere.

”Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech or of the press,” the First Amendment says.

But guess what? That’s our government, not regular, private-sector businesses and employers. All you chatty, opinionated working folks, take note.

When popular Chicago sportscaster Mark Giangreco was suspended — with his ouster soon to follow — by ABC7 after making a joking on-air suggestion that news anchor Cheryl Burton could ”play the ditzy, combative interior decorator” on the fantasy DIY television show he was envisioning, you wondered about a lot.

Is ”ditzy” one of those words?

Is intent more important than language?

Was this how the irreverent sports anchor who had worked in Chicago TV for 39 years — 27 of them at ABC7 — was going to ride into the sunset?

I thought of former Chicago sports-radio host Dan McNeil and former Cubs and Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman, both of whom were let go last year for making what were deemed to be offensive comments, even though McNeil’s was a tweet and Brennaman’s was a comment picked up by a mic he assumed was off.

I also thought of the trouble ESPN college basketball analyst and Indianapolis-based radio host Dan Dakich recently got into for what was seen as a misogynistic tweet. After being talked to by management, Dakich was able to skate past the mistake and stay employed. He did dump his Twitter account, however.

Highly respected and non-controversial WGN-TV sportscaster Dan Roan even came to mind. After Illinois’ loss to Michigan State on Feb. 23, Roan tweeted that a Spartans player was a ”thug” for elbowing Illini star Ayo Dosunmu in the face, giving him a concussion and breaking his nose.

This provoked a firestorm of criticism from Michigan State fans, and Roan quickly apologized, even though the player he had criticized was given a flagrant foul and ejected from the game.

What Roan found out is that ”thug” is no longer a term you can apply to a Black person without it being perceived as racist. This illustrates the evolving nature of words, the frequent duality made obvious, for example, when President Joe Biden called the white horde that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 ”a mob of thugs.” Biden meant it and offered no apology.

Old-timers even might recall that late rapper Tupac Shakur had ”THUG LIFE” tattooed across his belly, with a bullet for the ”I.” No matter. Some people can say certain things others can’t. That’s reality. That’s our world.

The thing about the above-mentioned sports guys is that I know them all, consider each a friend — or someone I would greet and talk to with familiarity — and wonder whether they ever thought their careers would be marked in this way.

In the case of Giangreco, there are those who wonder why Burton simply didn’t confront him and work out her issues with him in private.

Former news anchor Joan Esposito, who worked with Giangreco for years, asked that exact question in a post on media critic Rob Feder’s website. Then she wrote: ”Do you know how many times on air he alluded to me having a plentiful rear end? I thought he was funny, like a snot-nosed younger brother. I was never offended, but I know if I had been, he would have felt awful. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. It would be tragic if his career ended over this.”

Yet it looks as though it will. Of course, Giangreco always could pick up a lesser gig somewhere, perhaps in radio. He started in radio back in Dayton, Ohio, and is a gifted and entertaining talker.

The thing that strikes all of us in the media business when we see such turbulence — we white males probably most of all — is this: Will I someday make a written or verbal mistake that ends my career?

Trying to be funny, sarcastic, edgy or cool could be your undoing these days. I sure wouldn’t want to be a comedian, for instance. I’ve thought about that. All I could safely tell would be white-man jokes. Boring? OMG.

Common sense, caution, sensitivity, awareness of the immediacy and ubiquity of electronic communication — all can help when choosing words. Knowing how the world changes might be the biggest thing of all.

That’s a job in itself.

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An employee of Verano Holdings allegedly took the marijuana on a commercial flight. At least one company targeted in the suit filed in Colorado denies the claims.

Verano Holdings, a Chicago weed firm worth roughly $3 billion, was sued Monday in federal court as part of a sweeping racketeering complaint that accuses the company of illegally trafficking marijuana from Illinois to Arkansas.

The lawsuit filed in Colorado alleges a complicated conspiracy that allegedly included the company and Harvest Health & Recreation, an Arizona firm that attempted to acquire Verano for $850 million in March 2019.

The plaintiff, Nicholas Nielsen, worked for a cultivation center in Newport, Arkansas, that was owned by Natural State Wellness Enterprises and managed by Harvest as the company worked in lockstep with Verano as the acquisition was pending. The deal fizzled, however.

The suit hinges on Nielsen’s arrest last January in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where police raided his home after uncovering 28 harvested pot plants in his garbage can, the Van Buren County Democrat reported. Nielsen was then arrested and charged after the cops found two more plants inside the home along with other pot products and paraphernalia.

However, the suit claims those plants were actually being cultivated for the Newport greenhouse while it was awaiting approval from state officials.

The cultivation center’s chief grower previously said agents with the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division showed up there during the raid and learned plants at the facility came from Nielsen’s home, according to the local news report.

The suit claims the plants at Nielsen’s home were allegedly grown from clippings brought to Arkansas by Michael Frontier, a Verano employee who was indicted in federal court in Chicago in October 2019 for allegedly running an illegal gambling business in an action unrelated to his work in the pot industry.

In April 2019, Frontier — who was still an employee of Verano — was introduced to Nielsen as Harvest’s central regional cultivation manager, the suit states. Two months later, Frontier was allegedly “instructed by his employer” to take young cannabis plants from an unnamed Verano facility in Illinois and transport them to Arkansas.

Frontier allegedly hid four different pot strains in Whole Foods salads and took the weed on a commercial flight from Chicago to Memphis, the suit contends. From there, Frontier allegedly rented a car and drove the marijuana to Nielsen in Arkansas.

In the suit, Nielsen claims Harvest initially told him that it was legal to grow the plants at the makeshift cultivation facility in his home, which the company allegedly financed. But following the raid, the suit notes that Nielsen was fired by Harvest “as a result of his arrest.”

Nielsen now faces felony counts of manufacture of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Frontier has not been charged in connection with the allegations, nor has anyone else listed in the lawsuit. Nielsen’s attorney, Matthew Buck, said his client hasn’t reported anyone else to law enforcement, though he said Nielsen “would definitely testify against all of them” in a criminal case.

The suit includes dozens of co-defendants, including Verano CEO George Archos and other company executives. And it also targets individuals tied to Harvest and Natural State Wellness, as well as various investors and a credit union in Colorado accused of laundering money in connection to the alleged trafficking scheme.

All the parties engaged in an illegal interstate drug enterprise in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the suit claims. The complaint was filed in Nielsen’s home state, where some of the defendants also live and do business.

The suit comes just weeks after Verano began trading publicly in Canada with a valuation of nearly $3 billion, making it one of the biggest weed firms in the U.S.

In a statement, Buck said Verano and its board of directors “wantonly violated Illinois State law, as well as federal law, when they had their employee traffic marijuana from Verano’s cultivation facility to Arkansas.”

“It’s unconscionable that low-level employees take the fall while Verano’s board continues to make money off of their illegal conduct,” Buck said.

Buck said his client intends to ask for more than $6 million from the defendants as a group under RICO, as well as the same amount from each individual defendant.

Harvest: ‘Thinly veiled shakedown’

A spokesman for Verano didn’t respond to a request for comment. Neither did Frontier’s attorney.

In a statement, a spokesman for Harvest claimed the lawsuit is “replete with inaccuracies” and amounts to “nothing more than a thinly veiled shakedown.”

“Knowing his client was legally bound to take any dispute to binding confidential arbitration, Mr. Nielsen’s lawyer threatened to unleash a smear campaign by filing a lawsuit filled with damaging false information unless we paid him millions of dollars,” said spokesman Terry Fahn. “He went so far as to threaten what he believed the headline emanating from the lawsuit would be.”

Fahn noted that Harvest has filed a motion to compel arbitration, adding the company “intends to vigorously defend itself against these claims and expects the case will be dismissed in due course.”

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The lawsuit alleges the state police “routinely” exceed the 90-day requirement to issue or deny a Concealed Carry License for applications with fingerprints and 120-day requirement for those without fingerprints. The Illinois State Police countered that it “is a time consuming and deliberate process.”

SPRINGFIELD — The state’s top gun lobbying group filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, accusing the Illinois State Police of undermining a “fundamental right” by dragging their feet on approving licenses to allow people to carry concealed firearms — taking more than a year for some gun owners.

The Illinois State Police countered that the paperwork and background checks for Concealed Carry Licenses “is a time consuming and deliberate process,” and they often need longer than the legally mandated 120-day maximum to preserve Illinois residents’ “safety and security.”

Applications for the licenses have spiked during the pandemic, along with gun sales. At the end of last year, 343,299 licenses had been issued, compared to 90,301 in 2014, according to state police figures.

The Illinois State Rifle Association’s lawsuit alleges the state police “routinely” exceed the 90-day requirement to issue or deny a Concealed Carry License for applications with fingerprints and 120-day requirement for those without fingerprints.

“The delays are unacceptable and a lawsuit at this point seems to be the only way to get them stopped.” said Richard Pearson, executive director of the firearms owners’ rights organization.

Brian Rich/Sun-Times file

The average waiting time to get a license is 145 days, according state police figures from last December. Pearson says he has heard from Illinois gun owners who have had to wait longer than a year. He pegs the average waiting time at 180 to 200 days.

“There are a lot of people worried about their own defense. And they’ve gone through all the training, they’ve gone through numerous background checks, and yet they can’t get their concealed carry card,” Pearson said.

The Illinois State Police declined to comment on the lawsuit specifically, but a spokeswoman defended the agency’s handling of Firearm Owner Identification Cards, which are required to possess guns, and Concealed Carry Licenses, which allow the holder to carry the firearm in unrestricted locations.

“Ensuring that FOID cards and concealed carry permits are promptly issued to Illinois’ citizens lawfully entitled to them is a priority for the Illinois State Police,” said Mindy Carroll, an agency spokeswoman. “For the safety and security of Illinois residents, it is imperative that all FOID and concealed carry applications are reviewed thoroughly and that all relevant background information is rigorously verified and researched.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file.

“This is a time consuming and deliberate process. At times, the review process is lengthened due to the volume of applications, background verifications, and other operational considerations.”

Carroll noted that the Illinois State Police has added 25 Firearms Eligibility Analysts since March of last year to process these applications and seven more staff members starting this month.

The lawyer who filed the lawsuit Monday says the agency is firing blanks.

“There’s a state mandate to meet the deadlines. And the courts have said that concealed carry is a fundamental right. And it’s a right that’s being denied to Illinois residents just basically due to bureaucratic inefficiency,” said David Sigale, an Illinois State Rifle Association lawyer.

“So, to just say, ‘Well, too bad, we don’t have the manpower,’ that’s not right. Manpower and funding is not an excuse to deny people’s rights. And I can’t think of any other circumstances where people would allow that.”

The gun lobby’s lawsuit joins a similar case filed last summer in federal court accusing state police of failing to timely address FOID applications, the permit that allows Illinoisans to own a gun in the first place.

“The FOID card issue and the concealed carry issue are two sides of the same coin,” Sigale said. “The right for self defense in public versus in self defense in your home. Both are fundamental.”

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In more than a dozen states, lawmakers have introduced legislation to nullify new federal laws designed to reduce gun violence. Some of the bills would even penalize police officers who enforce such laws.

There is a glimmer of hope for stronger federal laws to reduce gun violence, but many states are working actively against it. That puts everyone in every state in greater peril.

Organizations working to reduce gun violence are optimistic about getting a bill requiring universal background checks on gun sales through Congress this session. The bill, reintroduced on March 2, would expand background checks to cover private sales at gun shows and over the internet.

Among the leading backers of the bill, which is hardly controversial among the vast majority of Americans, are U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill.

“People support background checks for gun sales by an overwhelming margin — more than 90% in some surveys,” said Durbin, who co-sponsored the Senate version of the bill, titled the Background Check Expansion Act, as well as a related bill, titled the Background Check Completion Act. “We’ve seen where lax laws in other states contribute to the flood of guns on the streets of Chicago, with police officers recovering nearly 900 guns in January alone.”

Penalizing the police

But in more than a dozen states, lawmakers have introduced legislation to nullify new federal laws designed to reduce gun violence. Some state bills would even penalize police officers and others who work with federal law enforcement or dare to enforce the federal laws.

That’s a problem for every state, given how guns later connected to crimes flow across borders. In Illinois, 60% of guns that turn up at crime scenes are traced to sources outside the state.

Lawmakers in Illinois are trying to close loopholes in Illinois laws, as they should. Bills to do so have been reintroduced in the Illinois House and Senate. But Illinois can’t control the actions of lawmakers in other states.

Last year, gun violence increased by 52% in Chicago, and 65% more women were killed in acts of gun violence. Domestic violence increased by 16% in Illinois, and the risk of homicide in domestic violence incidents is five times higher when a gun is present. Nationwide, more guns were sold last year than ever before, and Illinois led the pack, as measured by federal firearms background checks, with more than twice as many as the second most state, Kentucky. Illinois continued to lead the nation through Feb. 28 this year.

A record number of people in the United States — at least 19,223 — were killed by guns in 2020.

“We’re trending in the wrong direction,” said Kathleen Sances, president and CEO of the Illinois Gun Violence Prevention PAC.

According to the Associated Press, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wyoming, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Iowa and Utah are considering gun nullification laws. Texas Greg Abbott has called for his state to become a Second Amendment “sanctuary.”

Attempts by states to overturn federal gun laws probably would fail in court because of the Supremacy Clause, which holds that the U.S. Constitution, and federal laws in general, take precedence over state laws and even state constitutions. But what is particularly egregious about the bills now under consideration in state legislatures is the penalties they would impose on police officers and others who comply with the federal laws.

Gun shop owners who run a background check as they ring up a gun sale, for example, could be held civilly or even criminally liable by their states. Police officers who enforce the federal ban on felons carrying guns also could face civil penalties or criminal charges. The laws would have a chilling effect on the enforcement of federal gun laws.

Irresponsible neighbors

State laws nullifying federal gun regulations have been introduced in various states in the past, but such efforts had died down in the past four years. Now, with a Democratic president and Congress, there is a renewed push by Republican-led state legislatures to get those laws on the books.

Gun violence is a scourge in America. Irresponsible neighbors make the problem all the more deadly.

Send letters to [email protected].

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The two men, 20 and 22, were on the sidewalk in the first block of East 119th Street when someone fired shots, striking them both, Chicago police said.

Two men were fatally shot Monday in West Pullman on the Far South Side, police said.

They were on the sidewalk about 5:30 p.m. in the first block of East 119th Street when they heard shots and felt pain, Chicago police said.

One man, 20, was pronounced dead on the scene, according to police. The other man, 22, was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where he was later pronounced dead.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet released information on the fatalities.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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