Second Amendment Shoots Down the Illinois Bureaucracy

D’Andre Bradley was a Marine veteran who served his country honorably for five years. But when he wanted to defend his Chicago-area home and family amid widespread violence and looting, the state of Illinois’ bureaucratic apparatus deprived him of his constitutional right to bear arms.

Two years later, Chicago still has a tragic violent crime problem. But thanks to a lawsuit filed on D’Andre’s behalf, the state government will no longer be able to use excessive bureaucratic delays to stop law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Illinois has a long-standing requirement that residents who want to purchase or even possess a firearm of any kind must first obtain what’s called a Firearm Owners Identification, or FOID, card. And under state law, Illinois State Police are also required to grant or deny a FOID card application within 30 days. The problem is, officials have for years treated the 30-day rule like more of a suggestion than a mandate, ignoring the deadline, and taking inordinate amounts of time to process FOID card applications. In fact, as of late 2020, the average wait time to receive a FOID card was 122 days, more than quadruple what the law mandates. For many law-abiding citizens, it was even worse, stretching from months into years.

Read the rest of the op-ed at Townhall.

Joe Setyon is the Communications Manager at the Goldwater Institute.

Timothy Sandefur is the Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute.