September 30, 2014 – DENVER, CO. An Ohio woman who travels to Illinois to visit and reside in a friend’s home today was ordered by an Illinois federal district court to file new legal briefs in her suit against Illinois officials in her efforts to have a state law barring her from possessing a firearm or ammunition in Illinois ruled unconstitutional. Ellen Mishaga charges that the law violates her right to “keep and bear arms” and her right to travel; her lawsuit, filed in July 2010, survived an attempt by Illinois to dismiss the case. Ms. Mishaga sued Jonathon E. Monken, Director of the Illinois Department of State Police and the official responsible for issuing Illinois Firearms Owner Identification Cards (FOIDs), which are required to purchase or possess a firearm or ammunition. In April 2010, and again in June 2010, Mr. Monken denied Ms. Mishaga’s application for a FOID on the grounds that she is not a resident of Illinois. The district court today denied a motion for summary judgment ready for a ruling since November 2011 and ordered both Ms. Mishaga and the Illinois officials to brief remaining legal issues.

“We are disappointed issues we believed to be briefed are the subject of new filings, but we are pleased the case is moving forward,” said William Perry Pendley, of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents her.

Illinois requires that individuals obtain a FOID before purchasing or possessing a firearm or ammunition in Illinois. Among the requirements for a FOID is that anyone over the age of eighteen provide an Illinois driver’s license number or Illinois Identification Card number. Nonresidents are exempt from most FOID Act restrictions when hunting, target shooting, or if “licensed or registered to possess a firearm in their resident state”; however, a nonresident without a FOID cannot otherwise possess a functional firearm.

The Illinois Department of State Police must either approve or deny a FOID application within thirty days from receipt and must issue a FOID to any person who qualifies. A $10 fee is required to defray administrative costs; a FOID is valid for ten years.

Possessing firearms or ammunition without a FOID or with an expired FOID is a misdemeanor, although a second or subsequent violation is a felony. It is also a felony to possess firearms or ammunition if a person is ineligible for a FOID, even if a person possessed a FOID issued before he became ineligible. The FOID Act contains no self-defense exceptions.

On June 28, 2010, in a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “the right to keep and bear arms [is] among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” That ruling follows the Court’s affirmance of that right in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.

Mountain States Legal Foundation, founded in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in suburban Denver, Colorado.