Illinois

Much more recently, in June 2018, a Chicago Tribune article reported that Lt. Matthew Boerwinkle, a spokesman for the Illinois state police stated, “You rarely hear an instance where a CCL holder is using their firearm in an unlawful manner. They’re generally law-abiding citizens, and they’ve gone to great lengths to get to where they’re at to have a CCL. And they’ve taken training to get there. And most of them, they understand what the requirements are to use force to defend themselves.” Per John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center , as of 2018, four years into “a right-to-carry law, Illinois has over 310,000 permit holders — about 3.3 percent of the adult population. By July 29, 2014, Illinois had issued 68,549 licenses. From 2014 to 2018, Illinois had an average of over 189,000 active permits. Over that same period, no one has been convicted of committing a crime with his permitted concealed handgun. Five individuals face charges, and four of them may have used their guns in self-defense (details about each case can be found at the above referenced link). It is quite common for arrests to be made in cases of legitimate self-defense, and charges usually end in a ‘not guilty’ verdict when they are even brought. Two of the permit holders listed by theface firearms charges, but not for anything pertaining to concealed carry. So in Illinois, there have been zero convictions for crimes committed with a permitted concealed handgun.”