Sen. Durbin Talks Keeping Schools and Streets Safe with Stateline Leaders

Rockford- Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is on a mission to bring information about Illinois gun crimes and those who commit them back to Washington.

Durbin says "we have reached a point in America where we have to ask hard questions when the criminals those who are mentally unstable are better armed than our police that are just unacceptable."

He's referring to the Sandy Hook School shooting and Aurora, Colorado movie theatre tragedy as examples. Durbin also mentions there needs to be laws in place to make it harder to buy an assault style weapon.

Durbin says "you could have people that have committed a felony you could have people that have a serious mental illness and they can go to gun shows and buy whatever is for sale"

Rockford leaders brought up the 272 guns recovered in the city in 2012. Mayor Larry Morrissey says all guns need to be accounted for.

Morrissey explains "I would be supportive of a national registration system similar to the way we monitor the sale of automobiles. Titles of vehicles have to be monitored and subsequent sales of used cars have to be monitored and recorded the states keep track of those records you can access that data nationally."

As far as illegal guns on the streets there is federal data about where they're coming from. The problem is there's limitations to accessing it.

Durbin says "there is little information available and a lot of that is because of federal efforts by some to suppress this information, so we don't know. And that is mindless."

The data city leaders have seen show a majority of illegal guns off the street are coming from other states not Illinois. The state has started entering mental health adjudication information into the FOID database.  It's just one measure lawmakers hope will help guns from ending up in the wrong hands.