In his May Illinois Bar Journal Article, “FOID Where Prohibited,” Jake Crabbs addresses the intersection of two trends of 2020: 1) a tremendous jump in gun ownership; and 2) the anecdotal rise of domestic violence during shelter-in-place conditions. These two trends intersect in the provisions of the Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986 and the Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Card Act. Prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, family law practitioners, and gun owners should all be aware of the ways these statutes interrelate and the constitutional issues that may arise whenever an order of protection is entered against a FOID cardholder. These concurrent trends may eventually lead to an increase in the total number of petitions for orders of protection against respondents who have FOID cards, Crabb writes, especially when circuit courts finally return to full capacity. This is not to suggest that FOID cardholders are more likely to commit domestic violence, per se; it is simply a plausible result of the two unrelated trends. And when it comes to orders of protection against FOID cardholders, Crabb argues, there is a significant—and constitutionally infirm—gap in the governing statutes.

Read more in the May issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.