It will be months before the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in two challenges to state bans on AR-15s and similar firearms, but the stakes are sky-high and getting higher.
A three-judge panel for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, on a 2-1 vote Thursday in Barnett v. Raoul, upheld Illinois’s “assault weapons” and standard capacity magazine bans.
Illinois gun and magazine ban remains—for now
Two judges concluded, remarkably, that prohibitions on the most popular sporting rifles in the U.S. and on commonly used magazines “are consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.” The obvious question is “how so?”
Chief Judge Michael Brennan gave a scorched-Earth dissent. “Illinois has banned the best-selling rifle in America and its standard magazine.”
Brennan cited 2023’s Bevis ruling, which inexplicably favored the controversial ban, as “perhaps the most comprehensive trial record in any Second Amendment case to date.” The Seventh Circuit relied heavily on that decision Thursday to justify continued denial of fundamental gun rights.
That case saw the appeals court determine that the most commonly held long guns in the nation are not “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” The audacity of that erroneous position must not be lost as the leaves start turning and the weather cools.
It is high time for SCOTUS to reconfirm the right to own modern sporting rifles
That’s where the high court comes in when it reconvenes in the fall. It is difficult to imagine the Supreme Court majority buying into the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning, which upheld the ban while simultaneously ignoring the plaintiffs’ grounded case.
For now, the ruling ends the permanent injunction against the wholly misnamed Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA). That action by U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn in 2024 struck down the controversial law, but the Seventh Circuit just resurrected it.
This may only be a temporary setback.
The Supreme Court took on Viramontes v. Cook County, a separate challenge to Illinois’s gun control apparatus. Justices were wildly inconsistent in defending Second Amendment rights during the last term, but the hope is that the bench will find these arbitrary bans unconstitutional.
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