The "fanny pack carry" issue came to light in about 2001. Some were advocating that it was legal, some didn't think it was, most didn't know for sure. My agency was getting called many calls everyday from the public and other LEAs/LEOs asking for an opinion on the legality. I personally fielded a lot of such calls. In order to get a statewide interpretation of how the law was applied and intent of the law we contacted the IL AG. The AG at the time was Jim Ryan who was running for governor. His office refused to give an opinion and deferred to each of the 102 states attorneys. We contacted each of the states attorneys. We got answers ranging from "it's illegal and I'll prosecute" to "it's legal and there is nothing to prosecute". The most common answer was "make the arrest, seize the firearm as evidence, then bring me the case and I'll decide on each case whether to prosecute." Not much guidance was it? What we ended up with was in 1 county fanny pack carry would not be prosecuted, cross the road into another county and the person would be prosecuted, then cross the road into a 3rd county and the person would be arrested and wouldn't know if they're going to be prosecuted until after the SA decided. It wasn't any help to the citizen or LEO. It all depended on the particular SA and court.
Since then the AG has changed and so have a lot of the SAs. However I believe if we did the survey again the results would most likely be about the same statewid
