Gun Rights Groups Cry Foul Over FOID System Outage
A sample Illinois Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card.
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The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) Tuesday blasted out an e-mail to members accusing the Illinois State Police were violating gun owner rights over a pending outage in the system that allows gun shops to check the validity of Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) cards.
Make no mistake, what’s being labeled as “system maintenance” is a suspension of Illinois citizen’s 2nd Amendment rights. When the issues caused by this shutdown were brought to the attention of the ISP, they decided to continue anyway. It appears that acting Director Brendan Kelly continues to carry water for Governor Pritzker by interfering with law-abiding citizen’s constitutional rights.
If law enforcement announced they were stopping protests for 26 hours, or that they could search homes without a warrant for the next 26 hours, we imagine the Governor might intervene. However, since this suspension of rights involves an amendment that Governor Pritzker has shown nothing but contempt for, it will proceed.
The FOID card has been found to be unconstitutional in Illinois circuit court and this incident goes to show how this unduly burdensome system can be used to take away rights at the whims of Illinois politicians. If rights can be suspended for “maintenance”, one can only imagine what will happen to them the next time an emergency declaration is made.
The ISRA is encouraging Illinois Firearm owners to call their Senators & Representatives about this suspension of rights by the ISP. We also encourage a phone call to the office of acting Director Brendan Kelly at 217-782-7263 and let him know that the ISP needs to keep the FOID portal open for dealers or scrap the FOID program altogether.
State Police said Tuesday they’re doing an upgrade of the computer system that is more than a decade old:
The system ISP uses for FOID is 11 years old and in need of an upgrade. While enhancements have been made over the years, the system will be down temporarily for an overall upgrade that will help us ensure law enforcement, firearms retailers, and residents are able to access FOID information expeditiously. On May 7, 2025, we began alerting users that access will be unavailable from 2 p.m. on May 20, 2025 through 4 p.m. on May 21, 2025 so they could plan to purchase ammunition ahead of time. Firearms sales will still be processed within the statutory time, 72 hours. We appreciate the public's patience while we make this necessary improvement to ensure our system is operating efficiently to provide the best customer service.
