A federal judge in southern Illinois has put Illinois' ban on so-called “assault weapons” on hold.
Nearly four months since Gov. JB Pritzker signed the gun ban into law, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn became the first judge to issue a long-anticipated statewide injunction barring Illinois state officials from enforcing the law banning Illinois gun shops and residents from selling or acquiring a long list of firearms and accessories the state has labeled as “assault weapons.”
“In no way does this Court minimize the damage caused when a firearm is used for an unlawful purpose; however, this Court must be mindful of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” McGlynn wrote.
“While (the Illinois ‘assault weapons’ ban) was purportedly enacted in response to the Highland Park shooting, it does not appear that the legislature considered an individual’s right under the Second Amendment nor Supreme Court precedent.
“Moreover, (the ban) did not just regulate the rights of the people to defend themselves; it restricted that right, and in some cases, completely obliterated that right…” McGlynn said.
The ruling is expected to be quickly appealed by the state to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
That court is already slated to consider two appeals of conflicting rulings from two Chicago federal judges in other challenges to the Illinois “assault weapons” ban.
The cases all center on the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act. The law generally prohibits Illinois residents and store owners from selling the prohibited firearms and accessories, and requires Illinois residents who currently own the otherwise-prohibited weapons to register them with the Illinois State Police.
Illinoisans who don’t comply with the law could face fines or imprisonment.
Supporters of the law say it is needed to reduce the use of "assault weapons" commonly used in mass shootings, such as the July 4th massacre in Highland Park in 2022.
Lawsuits have been filed in both state and federal courts, asserting the law violates both the U.S. Constitution and the Illinois state constitution.
The Illinois Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a state law-based case on May 12.
McGlynn’s ruling addressed four cases, all filed in the Southern District of Illinois, and consolidated for the purposes of argument.
Other cases remain pending elsewhere.
That came weeks after her colleague, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, also rejected a request from a Naperville gun shop owner for an order against the state.
In both of those rulings, Jenkins and Kendall sided with the state, saying they believed the Illinois law would ultimately be declared constitutional, because they agreed with the state that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms doesn’t extend to weapons that the state has labeled “particularly dangerous.”
In these cases, they said, the state should be allowed to ban “assault weapons” because mass murderers had used semiautomatic rifles – which the state has called “weapons of war” – to carry out multiple massacres, including the July 4, 2022, massacre in Highland Park.
McGlynn did not address the “particularly dangerous” weapons legal theory advanced by his colleagues on the federal bench in Chicago.
However, in his ruling, McGlynn agreed with plaintiffs that the new law clearly infringes on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, which he said is a fundamental right, particularly as interpreted under two recent pro-Second Amendment decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court.
McGlynn noted the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen still allow states and other governments to prohibit certain kinds of weapons. But he said those weapons, under Bruen, must be “dangerous and unusual” – not merely “particularly dangerous,” as held by Jenkins and Kendall.
McGlynn said the Illinois “assault weapons” ban tramples over that legal line, banning a long list of firearms and accessories that are commonly owned by millions of Illinois residents and commonly used for self-defense, both in and out of the home.
McGlynn said this definition of protected arms should also specifically extend to the rifle known as the AR-15 and others like it. Such weapons are commonly used as examples of “particularly dangerous” “assault weapons” the state says it must ban.
McGlynn noted the state’s reasoning to justify the ban further falls short against a “common use” test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2016 decision in Caetano v Massachusetts. In that case, the high court determined the state could not ban certain kinds of stun guns, because they were in “common use” as arms.
That case dealt with only 200,000 stun guns.
By contrast, McGlynn noted firearms ownership data indicating as many as 24 million AR-15s are owned in the U.S.
“Under the Caetano test, even 1% of the 24 million AR-15 style rifles owned by citizens is sufficient to result in a finding that such arms are in common use,” McGlynn wrote.
He applied similar reasoning to the state’s defense of its ban on so-called “large capacity” ammunition magazines, or magazines capable of holding no more than 10 rounds, before reloading.
He noted data indicating as many as 39 million Americans own firearms with such “large capacity” magazines.
“… Both AR-15 style rifles and magazines with a capacity of greater than 10 are in “common use” and protected by the Second Amendment,” McGlynn said.
While the state has challenged the data cited by McGlynn, the judge said the state has fallen short of proving the banned weapons and accessories should be considered both “dangerous and unusual.”
The judge further ruled gun owners and gun shops in Illinois would be significantly harmed by allowing the state to continue moving toward full enforcement of the law while court challenges to the law would play out in coming months and years.
And the judge said the state has not yet demonstrated how the law will actually allow the state to achieve its goals.
He noted the Illinois Sheriffs Association and a number of Illinois county state’s attorneys have all stated they believe the state law is unconstitutional and “cannot, in good conscience, enforce the law as written and honor their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution.”
“A constitutional right is at stake,” McGlynn said.
Plaintiffs in the case before McGlynn have been represented by a legal team that includes attorneys Erin Murphy and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement. The pair were also part of the team that successfully argued the Bruen case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling, however, is one step on a likely long journey through the courts.
The Seventh Circuit will be the next significant stop in the court fight.
That court recently denied a request from Naperville gun shop owner Robert Bevis for an injunction blocking the gun ban. That court, however, did so in an unsigned order, without comment.
Bevis has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, arguing the reasoning advanced by judges Kendall and Jenkins was “invented” and defies the high court’s rulings in the Heller and Bruen decisions.
Bevis similarly asked Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to issue an injunction barring enforcement of the law until the constitutional challenges are concluded.