Overview
- The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a federal complaint Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction against the state's Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Act.
- The suit represents three Illinois residents — two who refuse to apply for FOID cards and one who objects to renewal and carry requirements — and asks the court to stop state officials from enforcing the licensing rule.
- NCLA argues the FOID Act violates the Second Amendment by conditioning gun possession on prior government permission and violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections by placing the burden on citizens to prove fitness to possess firearms.
- The complaint names Illinois State Police Director Brendan F. Kelly, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke as defendants, and state offices have declined or not yet provided substantive comment on the new litigation.
- The FOID law, enacted in 1967, requires a state-issued card to possess firearms or ammunition and carries misdemeanor and felony penalties for violations; the group aims for a federal ruling to create binding precedent beyond prior state trial-court rulings that applied only to individual plaintiffs.