Illinois State Police say they've eliminated their lengthy backlog of applications for gun owner identification cards.
ISP spokeswoman Monique Bond tells The Associated Press on Sunday that the department is now caught up processing thousands of applications for Firearm Owners Identification cards that had been waiting months for approval.
Currently, just 3,000 applications need to be approved and all those were submitted within the last 30 days. Previously, tens of thousands of unprocessed applications were backed up.
Clearing that backlog comes as state police also prepare to grapple with applications for conceal-carry permits. Legislators have said they expect state police to have to handle 400,000 conceal-carry applications in early 2014.
Bond says the addition of new staff in the FOID application unit helped state police process applications faster.
