A three-judge panel of the Illinois 4th District Appellate Court ruled on April 29 that the Illinois Firearms Owner Identification card scheme, required to purchase or possess a gun in the state, is constitutional.
In the case Guns Save Life v. Kelly, two of the three judges on the court somehow managed to miss the point that there is no historical precedent for being required to have a special permission card to purchase a firearm, a requirement set down by the 2022 Bruen decision.
In the ruling on the case, Judge Thomas Harris seemed to indicate that some laws back during the founding bore a faint resemblance to the FOID requirement, so all is well with Illinois’ restrictive scheme.
“In short, if we follow the guidance of Rahimi that ‘[t]he law must comport with the principles underlying the Second Amendment’ but that ‘it need not be a dead ringer or a historical twin’, we can glean a relevant principle from the loyalty oath statutes: the government may screen its citizens for entitlement to possess arms by having them sign a statement that they do not fit into a category of individuals whose possession of firearms would threaten the safety of the community,” the ruling concluded. “The FOID Act is an implementation of that principle.”
In a lengthy dissent, Judge Craig DeArmond meticulously analyzed the majority’s case, highlighting its insufficient consideration of the Bruen standards.
“My colleagues fail to recognize the unique nature of a constitutional challenge under the Second Amendment,” DeArmond wrote. “In doing so, they ignore the historical framework within which the Second Amendment was enacted and the clear direction we have been given by the United States Supreme Court when considering a Second Amendment challenge. The special concurrence denies awareness of ‘any Supreme Court precedent characterizing a challenge under the Second Amendment as unique in nature.’ The inability of the special concurrence to recognize how the landscape surrounding constitutional challenges has dramatically changed post-Bruen, even after reading the four foundational cases I discuss below, is not a limitation on the unique nature of Second Amendment challenges.”
Judge DeArmond concluded: “The founders understood almost everyone had the right to keep and bear arms, unless and until there was some basis for removal. The FOID Act presumes no one has the right to keep and bear arms, unless and until the right holder proves otherwise. This is the definition of unconstitutional.”
Interestingly, the ruling came only two months after another case, State of Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown, in which a federal judge ruled that the state law requiring citizens to have a Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card to possess a firearm in the home for personal protection is unconstitutional.
In the ruling on the case, White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb wrote: “The Defendant’s possession of a .22-caliber rifle within the confines of her home, even without a valid FOID card, falls squarely within the protections afforded her by the Second Amendment.”
The case revolves around defendant Vivian Claudine Brown and a rifle she owned. According to court papers, in March 2017, Brown’s husband called the police and said she was firing a gun inside their home. When officers arrived, they found a rifle beside the bed that Brown owned for self-defense, but found no evidence it had been fired. Additionally, Brown denied firing the gun, and other occupants of the residence denied hearing any shots.
Shortly thereafter, the state attorney charged Brown with possession of a firearm without having an FOID card, a class A misdemeanor under Illinois state law.
In his ruling, Judge Webb said everything about the case pointed toward the unconstitutionality of the FOID requirement.
“After analyzing all the evidence in this matter, this court finds that the Defendant’s activity of possessing a firearm within the confines of her home is an act protected by the Second Amendment,” Judge Webb concluded. “Additionally, there are no historical analogs to the FOID Act as required in Bruen. Finally, the court finds that any fee associated with exercising the core fundamental Constitutional right of armed self-defense within the confines of one’s home violates the Second Amendment.”
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