Re: Denied Illinois FOID card

More | Report Post

However, you all seem to be overlooking the law signed by the President HR 2640.
the NICS Improvement Amendments Act. This ties hand in had with the possession of
a gun, rifle, etc. of persons that have had a "Mental Illness" stigma attached to
their name. According to the law, Federal Agencies must provide "relief from
disabilities", removal of erroneous records, prevents the use of "Adjudications"
when only medical diagnoses without findings that the people involved are
dangerous or mentally incompetent." This means that the use of only purely
medical records or even the report of suspected medical treatments cannot be used
by NICS to deny the use or purchase of firearms. There are many more items of
interest such as the purging of outdated records, allows the awarding of attorneys
fees to applicants who successfully challenge a Federal Agency's denial for relief
in Court.

Ok, so it seems this is all directed at the Federal level. However wait. In
order for a State to have their own programs and run them at a State level, i.e.
Safety, Environmental, Gun Control, the State is mandated to follow the minimum of
the Federal law requiements. They can be stricter, such as making you have a
locking gun case for transportation, however they must follow the Federal Laws
first.

So I am anxious for some of the Lawyerly types to take a review of this law and
take it into the Illinois State Courts in a lawsuit. With the NRA going after
Chicago, now would be a good time to bring this out.

Regards,,

On 7/07/08, friend of NRA wrote:
> On 7/07/08, Greg Holz wrote:
>> You may want to retract this statement after the Supreme Court's recent 2nd
>> Amendment ruling! The Second Amendment not only applies to states but more
>> importantly to an individuals right to keep and bear arms. It is very much
>> about state gun control.
>
> No need for a retraction. What I wrote was the law at the time I wrote it. In
> DC v. Heller the Supreme Court for the first time ever ruled that the 2nd
> Amendment is an individual right. So that is now the law.
>
> However, DC v. Heller does not say that everyone can now own a gun or that
> states may not reasonably place restrictions on gun ownership. FOID cards seem
> to be well within the limits of the DC v. Heller decision. Don't expect for
> FOID regulations to fall in a court challenge. Maybe the Chicago gun ban but
> not FOID. We'll just have to wait and see how far DC v. Heller goes in
> bringing down gun control laws.
>
> In any event, if you have a psyc or criminal history, the Supreme Court made it
> clear in their opinion that you will not own a gun.
>
>
>
>> On 9/28/07, friend of NRA wrote:
>>>> On 9/28/07, DILLER wrote in part:
>>>
>>>> Foid cards in my opinion violate the United States Constitution. You
>>>> have a right to bare arms and shall not be infringed; it says nothing
>>>> about firearm identification cards, or any other requirement. Stop them
>>>> from dismantling the Constitution.
>>>
>>> The applicability of the Second Amendment is often misunderstood. Its
>>> guarantee applies only to the federal government not to state government.
>>> Over the years, much of the US Constitution has been made applicable to
>>> the states by the terms of the 14th Amendment, but still, only certain
>>> parts of it apply to states and the 2nd Amendment is one part that does
>>> not apply to states. For example, the 5th Amendment is now applicable to
>>> the states except for the part where it says "No person shall be held to
>>> answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment
>>> or indictment of a Grand Jury[.]" That part does not apply to the
>>> states. The 5th Amendment has been applied to states piece by piece over
>>> the last 150 years. Believe it or not, it was not until 1969 that the
>>> double jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment was applied to state trials by
>>> the decision in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, and the self-
>>> incrimination clause did not apply to state trials until the early
>>> twentieth century. Likewise, the first sentence of the 7th Amendment
>>> says "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
>>> twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved[.]" That
>>> does not apply to states. As I said above; none of the 2nd Amendment
>>> applies to states. Don't confuse your federal US constitutional rights
>>> with your rights under state law regarding firearms.
>>>
>>> I make no judgment about your opinion on gun control but want to point out
>>> that the US Constitution does not forbid any type of gun control by the
>>> states, thus, the Illinois FOID card can not be a violation of the 2nd
>>> Amendment. The framers of the Constitution were concerned that the
>>> federal government not take away the right to bear arms from the citizen
>>> militias created by the states. They were not at all concerned at the
>>> time the 2nd Amendment was written about state gun control. It is
>>> unlikely that the Supreme Court will ever hold that the 2nd Amendment
>>> applies to states.