Attorney David Sigale (left) represents SAF in its new lawsuit. He is shown with SAF founder Alan Gottlieb at the Chicago Gun Rights Policy Conference.
By Dave Workman’
Senior Editor
The Second Amendment Foundation has filed yet another lawsuit in federal district court in Illinois, this time challenging that state’s concealed carry law, which was forced – and perhaps hastily written last year – because of an earlier SAF legal action, Moore v. Madigan and a similar action by the National Rifle Association, Shepard v. Madigan.
The SAF lawsuit contends that the statute causes “deprivation of civil rights under color of law” and that the law amounts to a virtual ban on all non-Illinois residents from obtaining a concealed carry license.
That’s unconstitutional, asserted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. He noted that under the existing Illinois law, citizens from only four states currently qualify for non-resident permits under a provision mandating that only residents from states with “substantially similar” requirements to obtain a carry license are allowed to apply for those licenses. They are Hawaii, New Mexico, South Carolina and Virginia.
SAF is joined in the lawsuit by the Illinois State Rifle Association, Illinois Carry, Inc., and ten individual plaintiffs, all residing in other states and who are licensed to carry in those states. However, because none of those states have what Illinois authorities consider “substantially similar” requirements, they are not able to meet the Prairie State’s requirements.
“This lawsuit,” said attorney David Sigale, who represents the plaintiffs, “is brought because it is unfair that otherwise qualified people from states outside Illinois, who work and travel in Illinois are barred from obtaining means to defend themselves in public solely based on their state of residence. We expect to correct that.”
TGM spoke with Sigale via telephone. He has been involved in other SAF cases over the past few years, and was recently honored at the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Chicago.
SAF’s landmark lawsuit, McDonald v. City of Chicago, led to incorporation of the Second Amendment to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s June 2010 ruling nullified that city’s long-standing handgun ban and opened the floodgates for litigation challenging constitutionally questionable laws all over the country.
“Our plaintiffs have qualified for carry permits or licenses in their own states,” Gottlieb said, “which means they have gone through background checks and other requirements that show they are responsible, law-abiding citizens. Yet, because of the current Illinois statute, their self-defense rights are suspended immediately after they cross the Illinois state line.”
SAF is asking the federal court for a declaratory judgment on equal protection and due process constitutional grounds, according to Gottlieb. He is confident that the court will agree.
“It makes no sense at all for Illinois to enforce such a narrowly-defined law that seems to recognize the rights of some non-residents,” he said, “while dismissing the rights of most other non-residents. We can’t allow that kind of discriminatory situation to stand.”
