A St. Clair County veteran joined a group of nonprofit organizations and two gun stores in their legal battle against state and local officials for having the authority to enact House Bill 5471, which bans “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines.
Wheaton, Ill., attorney David Sigale filed the lawsuit on Jan. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on behalf of St. Clair County resident Dane Harrel, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns Inc., Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), Firearms Policy Coalition Inc. (FPC), and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).
While two suits have been filed in state court, this is the first to be filed in federal court. It claims the defendants are “responsible for enforcing a statute infringing the right of law-abiding, peaceful citizens to keep and bear commonly possessed firearms and ammunition magazines for defense of self and family and for other lawful purposes.”
The plaintiffs seek an order declaring the weapons ban unconstitutional and enjoining the defendants from enforcing it.
“Governor Pritzker and the legislators who voted for this law did this for self-serving political purposes and are not upholding the United States Constitution,” stated Richard Pearson, executive director of the ISRA. “The 2nd Amendment is fundamentally about self-defense, and the 14th Amendment is about not having our rights infringed. This new law makes criminals out of law-abiding citizens.”
“The real problem is that there are existing gun laws that do not work because they are not enforced,” Pearson added. “We would all be much safer if the police had the resources they need, and there were stronger consequences for the non-law-abiding citizens.”
Plaintiff Harrel is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force and is currently employed as a civil servant for the USAF Air Mobility Command Headquarters in the Operations Directorate. He is a member of ISRA, SAF and FPC.
The suit was filed against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Director of the Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly, St. Clair County State’s Attorney James Gomric, McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally, Randolph County State’s Attorney Jeremy Walker, St. Clair County Sheriff Richard Watson, Randolph County Sheriff Jarrod Peters and McHenry County Sheriff Robb Tadelman.
Sigale wrote that the local defendants named in the suit have the authority to enforce the state’s “flat prohibition” of the manufacture, sale, and possession of “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines commonly owned by ordinary, law-abiding citizens.
However, the sheriffs named in the lawsuit have all declared opposition to the weapons ban.
Tadelman and Peters issued similar statements on Jan. 11 in opposition to HB 5471, calling it a “clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
“Therefore, as the custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement official for McHenry County, that neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the State, nor will we be arresting or housing law abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance of this Act,” they both wrote.
Watson also expressed disappointment in the passage of HB 5471.
“As the chief law enforcement officer of St. Clair County, I am very concerned and disturbed by the ongoing and escalating violence that occurs throughout our state and country,” he wrote. “I am always supportive of new tools, techniques and laws that assist us in preventing and holding accountable those that wage efforts of harm and violence on others. However, I feel that this new law does not do that. I will continue to advocate on behalf of all St. [Clair] County residents and our dedicated law enforcement officers.”
“I understand that our nation has witnessed frequent tragedies involving gun violence and I am in no way attempting to minimize the impact these events have had,” he added. “However, I do not believe we should limit the protections that have been guaranteed to law-abiding citizens in the United States Constitution. I look forward to working with members of the Illinois Sheriff’s Association and our elected legislators to provide common sense laws to address the many issues we face without limiting protections guaranteed in the constitution. Many of our legislators have already promised there will be challenges to this new law and I will be supportive to any constitutional challenges that may occur.”
Pritzker signed HB 5471 into law on Jan. 10, prohibiting anyone within Illinois from manufacturing, delivering, selling, importing, purchasing or possessing semiautomatic “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns. The law exempts current and retired law enforcement officers, government agencies, prison officials, active members of the military and certain private security contractors.
“Any ordinary person in Illinois who legally possessed a so-called assault weapon before the law’s enactment now must register the firearm with the Illinois State Police, can only possess it on a very limited set of locations, and may transport them only to and from those locations, unloaded and in a case,” Sigale wrote in the suit.
Sigale claims the banned weapons are misunderstood and mischaracterized.
“The banned semiautomatic firearms, like all other semiautomatic firearms, fire only one round for each pull of the trigger,” Sigale wrote. “They are not machine guns. What is more, the designation ‘assault weapons’ is a misnomer, ‘developed by anti-gun publicists’ in their crusade against lawful firearm ownership.”
He also argues that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” which grants “responsible Illinoisans” a “fundamental constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear common firearms for defense of self and family and for other lawful pursuits.” He claims the weapons ban denies law-abiding citizens those rights.
Sigale acknowledged that the plaintiffs seek results contrary to Wilson v Cook County and Friedman v City of Highland Park, but argues that those cases have been abrogated by N.Y. State Rifle and Pistol v Bruen.
“In particular, Bruen displaced Friedman’s inquiry in Second Amendment cases into ‘whether a regulation bans weapons that were common at the time of ramification or those that have ‘some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,’ and whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense.’”
He alleges Bruen holds that the government must justify its regulations by showing that it is “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“Here, defendants will not be able to demonstrate any such thing,” Sigale wrote. “Heller and Bruen have already established the only historical tradition [that] can remove a firearm from the Second Amendment’s protective scope - the tradition of banning dangerous and unusual weapons.”
Firearms in common use cannot be considered unusual or dangerous, he claims.
“The rifles that Illinois bans as ‘assault weapons’ are, in all respects, ordinary semiautomatic rifles,” Sigale wrote. “To the extent they are different from other semiautomatic rifles, their distinguishing features make them safer and easier to use. But even if they are considered as a separate group of ‘assault weapons,’ they cannot be banned because they are not dangerous and unusual.”
For example, “AR-style” weapons, which is short for designer ArmaLite Rifle, are among the most popular firearms in the nation.
“A recent survey of gun owners indicates that about 24.6 million Americans have owned AR-15 or similar modern semiautomatic rifles, with the ‘median owner’ identified as owning a single rifle,” Sigale wrote.
In 2020, more than 20 million adults participated in target or sport shooting with semiautomatic rifles like those banned in HB 5471, the suit states.
Sigale also claims magazines holding more than 10 rounds are normal firearm features in the U.S. and are “more accurately described as ‘standard capacity magazines.’” He wrote that as many as half a billion standard capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds have been owned by more than 48 percent of gun owners. In some instances, magazines with more than 10 rounds are the “overwhelming choice,” as more than 75 percent of all magazines used with modern sporting rifles have this feature.
“The ubiquity of standard capacity magazines among law-abiding Americans demonstrates that they are useful for lawful purposes such as self-defense and hunting,” Sigale wrote.
Additionally, Sigale argues that magazines with more than 10 rounds have a solid historical presence.
Firearms capable of holding multiple rounds have existed since the late 15th century, and firearms capable of firing more than 10 rounds without reloading have existed at least since the late 16th century, he wrote.
“Firearms capable of firing multiple rounds without reloading were well known to the founding generation,” the suit states. “In 1777, Joseph Belton demonstrated a repeating rifle that could hold 16 rounds of ammunition to members of the Continental Congress. He also informed them that he could equip his rifle with as many as 20 rounds at a time.”
Sigale adds that Meriwether Lewis carried a Girandoni air rifle, with a 22-round tubular, spring-loaded magazine on his expedition with William Clark.
Around the time of the American Civil War, multi-round rifles had become commonplace, Sigale argues.
The lawsuit also focuses on the “central common use” of semiautomatic firearms and 10-round magazines: self-defense.
Sigale wrote that violent criminals “will not be meaningfully constrained” by the bans and could still acquire them through illegal sales and importation.
“Even if violent criminals were effectively prevented from acquiring banned magazines, they could easily compensate by bringing multiple firearms or magazines with them to the scene of the crime,” Sigale wrote. “Their ability to do so is made possible by the fact that violent criminals, and not their law-abiding victims, choose the time and place of crimes and can plan accordingly.”
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, household members are present for nearly one-third of all burglaries and become victims of violent crimes in more than one-quarter of those cases.
“Studies on the frequency of defensive gun uses in the United States have determined that there are up to 2.5 million instances each year in which civilians use firearms to defend themselves or their property,” Sigale wrote.
According to “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun,” 31.1 percent of firearms owners have used a firearm in self-defense, and more than 100,000 of these annual defensive gun uses were with rifles.
Sigale also provided several examples of how firearm accessories serve lawful purposes. Folding and telescoping stocks aid in safe transportation and storage. Detachable magazines remedy malfunctions. Flash suppressors promote accuracy in target-shooting and hunting.
“By contrast, one use that is not common for so-called assault weapons is crime,” Sigale wrote.
The suit states that 2019 FBI statistics indicate there were 364 homicides committed with rifles, compared to 6,368 with handguns, 1,476 with knives or other cutting instruments, 600 with personal weapons such as hands and feet, and 397 with blunt objects.