I had a friend once tell me that the Illinois FOID system would never be used to try and establish semi-legitimate reasons to deny law abiding citizens gun ownership. Now, I know he was trying to defend “reasonable restriction”, but in Illinois the anti-gun bureaucracy has run wild, and is trying to deny a retired cop a renewal on his FOID:
Because he still owns the guns, it came time last month for Fitzpatrick to renew his state firearm owner’s identification card, an ID that he has held ever since the law went into effect in 1968.
And that’s when Fitzpatrick, now 73 and living in Roselle, got a surprise.
Instead of a new FOID card, the Illinois State Police sent Fitzpatrick a letter informing him he had some explaining to do.
The required criminal background check had turned up the fact Fitzpatrick had been arrested on a charge of malicious conversion, a lawyerly term for theft.
Before he could get his card renewed, Fitzpatrick would need to provide court records showing the disposition of the case. A conviction could disqualify him.
This struck Fitzpatrick as odd, considering that the arrest was from May 1, 1956.
Here’s the wild part – as I mentioned, Fitzpatrick is a retired cop. He’s had his FOID since ’68. His prior arrest (when he was in the service) did not disqualify him from being a Chicago cop for 30 years, or from renewing his FOID every five years since 1968.
If I didn’t know better, I would think that the Illinois State Police was looking for reasons to deny firearms ownership to people. Oh wait.