A downstate federal judge on Friday ruled that Illinois’ sweeping gun ban is unconstitutional and can no longer be enforced after 30 days.
The ruling comes nearly two years after the ban on certain high-powered guns and high-capacity magazines was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in the wake of a fatal mass shooting during the 2022 Fourth of July Parade in Highland Park.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul immediately appealed the decision from U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn, who was appointed to the bench in 2020 by then-president Donald Trump.
McGlynn cited several U.S. Supreme Court rulings in his decision, which said the ban unconstitutionally deprives law-abiding citizens of their right to arm themselves with “weapons that are in common use” for protection.
“While the Court is sympathetic to those who have lost loved ones to gun violence, such tragedies are not an excuse to restrict the rights guaranteed to the Illinois public by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” McGlynn wrote in his 168-page decision. “Regardless of state governments’ desire to restrict law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights under the guise of crime control, the Second Amendment conclusively protects law-abiding citizens’ right to defend themselves utilizing weapons that are in common use.”
In a statement, Raoul’s office called the decision “disappointing” and said the law plays an important role in the state’s efforts to make communities safe from gun violence. Pritzker’s office said the law was the result of “hundreds of hours of deliberation between legal experts, legislators, and advocates, and it makes Illinois a safer place for everyone.” The governor said he is confident the law will be upheld.
State Rep. Bob Morgan, a Democrat from Deerfield who was at the parade in 2022 when the shots rang out, said in a text message he was not surprised by McGlynn’s ruling.
“This decision by this conservative judge was expected, and I’m confident our 7th Circuit Court of Appeals will, once again, uphold the Protect Illinois Communities Act,” said Morgan, one of the main sponsors of the measure.
David Sigale, a lawyer representing the Illinois State Rifle Association and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, applauded McGlynn’s decision.
“It is obvious the Court carefully considered the evidence submitted during and outside of the trial of this matter in order to reach the correct result, and Plaintiffs will continue to advance their position protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Illinoisans as long as the State continues to defend its unconstitutional law,” Sigale said in an e-mail.
A four-day trial on the issue in McGlynn’s East St. Louis courtroom concluded on Sept. 19.
A key factor in the case was a constitutional test set by set by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling, which requires gun laws to be historically consistent with laws on the books when the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms was written in the 18th Century.
The attorney general’s office sought to show that the guns subject to the ban. which include AR- and AK-type rifles, “are predominantly useful in military service and unusually dangerous.”
The office also argued there is a historical tradition in the U.S. of regulating firearms that are “dangerous and unusual.” The attorney general’s office also argued that while the plaintiffs employed testimony from witnesses about the purported popularity of AR-style firearms for self-defense, the witnesses acknowledged relying on “anecdotal experiences, personal observations, and feedback allegedly gathered at gun industry trade shows” instead of “empirical evidence” that the banned guns are used for self-defense.
Gun rights proponents, which included the National Shooting Sports Foundation, have cited Bruen’s historical tradition test to contend Illinois’ ban on many semiautomatic guns, which require the trigger to be pulled once per round, is too broad because it prohibits guns that are commonly used by law-abiding citizens.
The NSSF, a firearm industry trade organization, has noted there have been more than 24 million so-called modern sporting rifles in circulation in the U.S. since the early 1990s, including many AR-15- and AK-47-type guns that are subject to the Illinois ban.
In an argument apparently meant to refute the state’s linkage of the banned guns with military use, the plaintiffs, in their Oct. 21 court papers argued “no military in the world is known” to use any of the guns prohibited under the Illinois law.
The plaintiffs further argue the pistols and shotguns subjected to the ban “are not remotely equivalent to machineguns or other military arms.”
“None of the pistols and shotguns that (the law) bans share what is the most ‘critical’ military feature: select-fire capability,” the plaintiffs stated, referring to the ability of some guns to be adjusted to fire in semiautomatic or automatic mode. “None of the pistols that (Illinois) bans can fire rounds anywhere near as quickly as an M16, M27, or other automatic-fire-capable rifle.”
The plaintiffs also said the U.S. military does not issue any of the banned rifles to its general infantry. The ammunition capability of magazines banned by the law — those holding more than 10 rounds for long guns and 15 for handguns — is “far lower than what the military uses,” the plaintiffs said.
In his decision, McGlynn wrote that “regardless of its external appearance,” AR-15s are “not at all the same weapon as the M16 rifle or M4 carbine” used by the military.
“First and foremost, the M4 has semiautomatic, fully automatic, and three-round burst modes of fire available; the AR-15 is only capable of semiautomatic fire,” McGlynn wrote.
He also noted how data on gun-related homicides show pistols are overwhelmingly used in these shootings, “yet we do not ban their use by civilians because of these criminal connections.”
McGlynn also rejected the state’s argument that the lethality of AR-type weapons is a good reason to restrict them.
“Those same features that increase ‘lethality’ also increase the accuracy, portability, and safety of the weapons for use by variously abled individuals,” McGlynn wrote. “The Second Amendment clearly cannot imply that those who are elderly, disabled, or small-statured must only choose a handgun or pump-action shotgun for (self-defense) when other options (like AR-15s) will enable them to defend their homes more easily, safely, and securely.”
McGlynn also wrote that even 30-round magazines “are also in common use and have legitimate self-defense purposes.”
“For magazines, every round matters in a self-defense scenario—reloading takes away significant time during which the defender can be injured or wounded,” McGlynn wrote.
The gun ban has withstood a number of legal challenges since it took effect in January 2023.
In April 2023, McGlynn granted a motion to temporarily block the enforcement of the gun ban. His ruling was overturned later in the year by a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that in a 2-1 vote found “there is a long tradition, unchanged from the time when the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution, supporting a distinction between weapons and accessories designed for military or law-enforcement use, and weapons designed for personal use.”
But the appellate court noted its opinion dealt only with a preliminary injunction from a lower court and does not “rule definitively on the constitutionality” of the state and local laws at issue.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal from gun rights advocates on the 7th Circuit decision, noting the legal challenge at the time was only in the preliminary injunction phase. But Justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the high court’s six-member conservative majority, said the court should take up the full case if it comes back for review and expressed deep reservations about the Illinois gun ban’s constitutionality.
The state’s gun ban prohibits the delivery, sale, import and purchase of more than 100 high-powered guns including semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and handguns. It also prohibits any “device, part, kit, tool, accessory, or combination of parts that is designed to and functions to increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm above the standard rate of fire.”
People who owned guns covered by the ban before the law’s effective date are also required to register them with the Illinois State Police, and violators could be charged with a misdemeanor for a first offense and felonies for subsequent offenses. Many law enforcement officials had already declared that they had no intention of proactively investigating violators of that portion of the law.
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