by Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
An Illinois Circuit Court judge in that state’s White County has ruled the requirement for possessing a Firearm Owner’s Identification Card to have a firearm in the home is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
The case is known as Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown. Her case is supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association. According to Brown’s attorney, David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill., this is the second time a judge has declared the FOID Card Act unconstitutional, dismissing the charges against Brown, who had a bolt-action rifle in her home, but did not possess an FOID card.
In his 17-page ruling, Judge T. Scott Webb observed, “If the right to bear arms and self-defense are truly core rights, there should be no burden on the citizenry to enjoy those rights, especially within the confines and privacy of their own homes.”
“The FOID Card requirement in order to exercise the constitutionally enumerated right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment clearly goes too far in this case,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.
According to Judge Webb, “It simply cannot be the case that a citizen must pay a fee in order to exercise a core individual Second Amendment right within their own home.”
“For too long,” Gottlieb stated, “Illinois has been treating this right like a regulated government privilege and that needs to stop.”
SAF has successfully sued in Illinois several times, most notably with its 2010 Supreme Court victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago. Then came Ezell v. Chicago, a rights case challenging the Windy City’s hastily-drawn handgun law following the McDonald ruling.
SAF also sued the state, forcing the Illinois Legislature to create a concealed carry statute. Illinois was the last state in the nation to adopt a carry law, and it took a federal court ruling to make it happen. The National Rifle Association had filed a similar lawsuit.
This second ruling on FOID card constitutionality could clear a direct path back to the Illinois State Supreme Court, Gottlieb and attorney Sigale agree.
“The idea that an Illinois resident doesn’t enjoy Second Amendment rights until he or she pays a $10 fee for a FOID card is outrageous,” Gottlieb said. “Nowhere should such a mandate be allowed to stand.”
