Illinois Democrats, who enacted one of America’s most stringent laws banning so-called “assault weapons,” will now need to defend their law against two more lawsuits, including against attorneys who have secured last year's landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down state handgun restrictions.
On Jan. 24, the National Rifle Association filed suit in Southern Illinois federal court.
The legal team representing the NRA in the action is headlined by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and appellate lawyer Erin Murphy.
Clement and Murphy led the legal team that argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court that led to the landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen. That decision struck down a strict New York state gun law, and built on the Supreme Court’s holding that the Second Amendment protects the ability of Americans from government regulation of firearms that are in “common use.”
It further forced the government to prove that its regulations are in keeping with the nation’s history on firearms regulation, and is not a new affront to the rights to keep and bear arms generally guaranteed under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
The NRA lawsuit was followed by a complaint on behalf of a coalition of Illinois gun owners’ rights groups, known collectively as the Illinois Gun Rights Alliance. That complaint was also filed in the District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
The lawsuits both generally take aim at the Illinois law’s prohibition on a host of semiautomatic rifles and pistols, as well as ammunition magazines which can hold more than 10 rounds.
The lawsuits assert these bans violate the constitutional rights of Illinoisans to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
They assert the law particularly will crumble when weighed against Bruen and other recent Supreme Court decisions.
In their lawsuits, the NRA and IGRA both argue Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly simply chose to ignore the Supreme Court’s rulings when enacting the Illinois law. Known as HB5471, the law prohibits the sale, delivery, transport and, in most cases, ownership of a long list of many of the most commonly owned and purchased firearms in America.
“… In a clearly unconstitutional attack on law-abiding Americans’ rights, Illinois enacted the Firearms Ban Act, a statute that completely bars Plaintiffs from acquiring, transferring, possessing and/or repairing hundreds of types of commonly owned firearms and various firearms attachments and/or parts that Illinois now pejoratively and inaccurately labels ‘assault weapons,’” the IGRA wrote in their complaint.
“… Fortunately for Plaintiffs, and the average, every day, law abiding residents of the State of Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly taught us that gun laws in this country can only withstand review if they are consistent with a broad and enduring historical tradition of firearm laws regulating certain types of persons, arms, or activities,” the IGRA said.
The NRA leveled similar statements in its complaint.
“The Supreme Court has made clear that when a court confronts a flat ban on possession of a type of arm, the only question is whether the arm at issue is ‘typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,’” the NRA said, quoting the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v Heller, an earlier landmark decision upholding Second Amendment rights.
“If the answer is ‘yes,’ then the ban is unconstitutional, because a state cannot prohibit ordinary law-abiding Americans from possessing what the Constitution explicitly entitles them to ‘keep.’
“… Because modern semiautomatic rifles and the hundreds of other arms banned under HB5471 are arms in common use today, they are protected by the Second Amendment, full stop, rendering Illinois’ effort to flatly ban them flatly unconstitutional,” the NRA said.
While the lawsuit concedes the federal government and states have restricted “fully automatic firearms” since the 1920s and 1930s, they said efforts to ban semiautomatic weapons – which deliver one shot for every squeeze of the trigger – are of a much more recent vintage, and have been generally limited to only a handful of states.
But the NRA notes the Illinois law goes farther than all other laws before it, by prohibiting ownership and sale of a long list of pistols and other handguns, in addition to so-called “assault rifles.”
“In short, there is no ‘enduring American tradition of state regulation’ forbidding the purchase and/or possession of semiautomatic rifles and pistols by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” the NRA wrote, again citing Bruen. “To the contrary, the enduring American tradition is one of protecting the right of the people to possess firearms that, like semiautomatic rifles and pistols, are ‘typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.’”
Both of the lawsuits are seeking court orders immediately barring the state of Illinois from attempting to enforce HB5471.
The NRA is represented in its action by Clement, Murphy and others from the firm of Clement & Murphy, in Alexandria, Viriginia; and by attorneys Gary C. Pinter and Andrew A. Lothson, of the firm of Swanson Martin & Bell, of Edwardsville and Chicago.
The IGRA is represented by attorneys Mark L. Shaw and others with the firm Shaw Law Ltd., of Waukegan; and C.D. Michel and others with the firm of Michel & Associates, of Long Beach, California.
The lawsuits now bring to six the number of actions pending in state and federal court against the gun ban.
Attorney Tom DeVore, former Republican candidate for Illinois Attorney General, filed two lawsuits in state court in southern Illinois. His first lawsuit secured a ruling from Effingham County Judge Joshua Morrison, who issued a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the law against about 860 people and gun shops in Illinois. DeVore has since filed a separate lawsuit in White County, seeking a similar TRO on behalf of 1,690 more people and gun shops.
DeVore’s lawsuits, however, include no claims under the U.S. Constitution. Rather, his suits assert claims under the Illinois state constitution, solely, precluding those lawsuits from landing in federal court and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has appealed Morrison’s ruling to the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court.
Another lawsuit, filed in Crawford County by attorney Tom Maag, of Wood River, asserts claims under the U.S. Constitution. Raoul’s office has removed that action to the Southern Illinois federal district court, as well, where it remains pending. Maag has not sought any kind of emergency order barring enforcement of the law.
And the Illinois State Rifle Association is leading a lawsuit filed also in the Southern District of Illinois, which also remains pending.