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FIRST ON FOX: The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed a lawsuit against Illinois officials Tuesday over the state’s Firearm Owners Identification Act, also known as the FOID Card Act, a state law that requires Illinois residents to apply for and carry an identification card at all times in order to possess any firearm or ammunition.
The civil complaint, which Fox News Digital obtained exclusively, challenges the law as unconstitutional, arguing it “entirely deprives everyone of the right to keep and bear arms – including the basic right to possess a firearm for self-defense in the home – unless and until they seek and receive the State’s permission.”
NCLA is challenging the law’s constitutionality, contending that FOID violates both the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, particularly the latter amendment’s Due Process Clause.
NCLA is suing Illinois State Police Director Brendan F. Kelly, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, seeking injunctive relief on behalf of three plaintiffs.
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Two of the plaintiffs, Christopher Laurent and Kim Dalton, would like to obtain firearms for self-defense but haven’t done so because they “refuse to submit to the state’s unconstitutional procedure, and are unwilling to subject themselves to criminal prosecution by violating the law,” the complaint reads.
The other, Justin Tucker, did obtain a FOID card but doesn’t want to have to continue to renew it or to carry it with him at all times, which state law requires if one wants to retain their right to bear arms in Illinois.
“The police can approach you and demand you ‘show your papers’ to prove you’re allowed to exercise this right, otherwise, you are committing a crime,” NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel Jacob Huebert, the lead attorney on the lawsuit, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
“Some people may have an urgent need to obtain a firearm for self-defense in their home because of a threat they face, yet they absolutely cannot do that. They have to file the application, go through the process, and wait as long as the state wants to take,” Huebert explained.
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“At every step of the way, the burden of proof is on the citizen to be allowed to exercise their rights. You go through the first round, and if they deny you, you can do an internal appeal within the Illinois State Police, which has a review board. If you lose at all those stages, you can go to court, but even then, the burden of proof remains on you to show that you’re entitled to exercise your Second Amendment rights,” he continued.
“In our view, that is the exact opposite of how constitutional rights are supposed to work. A right means that you are presumed allowed to do something unless the government has a sufficiently good reason to stop you. Normally, if the government wants to disarm a particular person, they have to go to court, get a restraining order, and present evidence showing why that person shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun. But in Illinois, everybody is treated as guilty until they prove themselves innocent,” he told Fox News Digital.
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Illinois enacted the FOID law in 1967, and the constitutional legitimacy of the statute has been challenged multiple times in the decades since. In the 2020 decision People v. Vivian Brown, an Illinois state trial court ruled the law unconstitutional. However, state trial court decisions apply only to individual plaintiffs and don’t serve as precedent.
By filing its suit in federal district court in Chicago, NCLA is seeking to force the court to set a precedent that would in effect nullify the law, Huebert explained.
“Once the federal courts weigh in, that will be the definitive law,” he told Fox News Digital. “If a federal court orders the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Attorney General, and the Cook County State’s Attorney not to enforce this law anymore, then they can no longer enforce it,” Huebert said.
Illinois ranks as the state with the second-strongest gun laws on the books behind California, according to a 2026 ranking composed by Everytown For Gun Safety. Despite the stringency, however, Illinois ranks 13th in the nation in gun homicides, averaging 8.2 deaths per 100,000 residents on an age-adjusted basis, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
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Fox News Digital contacted the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for comment on the lawsuit.
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