Plaintiffs challenging Illinois’ gun owner ID law plan to appeal ruling

[July 20, 2023]  By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – After an Illinois circuit court judge sided with the state that the Firearm Owners Identification card is constitutional, the plaintiff plans to appeal.

The FOID card was enacted in the 1960s and has gone through various reforms since. The ID issued by Illinois State Police for a $10 fee is required for Illinoisans to buy or possess firearms and ammunition. Illinois is one of four states that require a state-issued permit to buy or own a firearm and ammunition.

John Boch with the organization Guns Save Life filed the lawsuit challenging the FOID card in 2019. Boch argues the law violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and that the fee is "exorbitant."

A hearing in the case was held in Springfield last month. Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Ascher granted Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly’s motion to dismiss the case with a final judgment. Boch said to expect an appeal.

“The FOID card is destined to the dustbin of history because after all there were no FOID cards in 1791, and that’s the standard by which the judges and the courts are supposed to rule today,” Boch said.

Ascher did take into account the U.S. Supreme Court case from 2022 in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

“In particular, the standard for analyzing the scope of the Second Amendment ‘requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding’ through a two-step process,” the judge wrote. “At the first step, a plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the ‘Second Amendment’s plain text covers’ the regulated conduct.”

The judge noted that Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly in his defense of the FOID card used Fordham University history professor Saul Cornell's analysis of historic firearm regulation.

“There is ample historical evidence supporting the constitutionality of the FOID Act, and GSL’s facial challenge fails as the historical record demonstrates that laws ‘relevantly similar’ to the FOID Act have been part of American legal history from the Founding Era to present day,” the judge wrote.

Among the historical analogs the judge said are sufficient are disarmament laws from the founding era “preventing dangerous or ‘unvirtuous’ people from being armed,” including “oath of loyalty” pledges and those “who refused to pay taxes.”

The judge even points to a 1777 law in the state of Pennsylvania that prohibited people, including Protestant Christian Quakers, from owning firearms unless they swore an oath to the government and paid a fee.

“For religious reasons, Quakers did not comply with the Test Act and thus had their firearms confiscated en masse,” the judge wrote.

Among others, another historical analogy the judge used were militia laws.

“Thus, the Founding generation understood the scope of the Second Amendment at the time of its ratification as given broad power to state governments to regulate the possession of firearms, even to the extent of tracking who possessed firearms, mandating that individuals obtain and maintain military quality firearms,” the judge wrote.

Boch said the state is going to have to square up arguments he said the judge rubber stamped from the state’s proposed order.

“About how military grade firearms were supposed to be owned by individuals back in the founding times, and yet we’ve got the lawsuit, [Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s] Protect Illinois Communities Act declaring that these military-grade firearms are just horrible and we’ve got to ban them,” Boch said.

Cases against the state’s gun and magazine ban are pending in both state and federal courts.

Boch said if the challenge to the FOID card fails in state court, his group will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.