U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn has been assigned to preside over a motion seeking a statewide preliminary injunction enjoining Illinois state officials from enforcing the ban on semiautomatic firearms and magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
“Not only are [the plaintiffs] likely to succeed on the merits, but the constitutional violation of restricting plaintiffs’ freedom to use their existing firearms and magazines for self-defense, to acquire new firearms and magazines, and to supply their customers with additional firearms magazines, is irreparable, and public interest always favors the injunction of unconstitutional laws,” Wheaton attorney David Sigale wrote in the motion filed Jan. 25.
Sigale also asks McGlynn to advance a trial on the merits, consolidating it with the preliminary injunction hearing. In the alternative, he asks the court to construe the motion as one for summary judgment.
“In this case, none of the material facts can be reasonably disputed. The firearms at issue are in common use and so the Illinois Firearm Ban and Magazine Ban are unconstitutional, full stop,” Sigale wrote. “Because the issues in this case are purely legal, there is no reason to delay and final judgment should be entered in plaintiffs’ favor.”
The “assault weapons” ban was initiated when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed HB 5471 on Jan. 10, creating Public Act 102-1116, also known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act. The law makes it illegal to manufacture, deliver, sell, import, purchase or possess certain handguns, shotguns, rifles and firearm accessories.
“Even firearms that are already owned are strictly curtailed by the law,” Sigale wrote, “which requires owners to register them in order to comply with the law and permits possession of registered firearms in a very limited set of locations.”
Sigale filed the motion for preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on behalf of the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition Inc., Second Amendment Foundation, Marengo Guns Inc., C4 Gun Store LLC and St. Clair County veteran Dane Harrel.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, Sigale argues that the complaint is likely to succeed on the merits. He wrote that the Second Amendment ‘elevates above all other interests the right of law abiding, responsible citizens to use arms for self-defense” and that the traditions of the American people “demands our unqualified deference.”
Sigale argues that Bruen established that there is no tradition of banning commonly possessed firearms
“In this case, Illinois has passed a new law that is irreconcilable with the traditions of the American people,” Sigale wrote. “The law, which bans common firearms and ammunition magazines, is unconstitutional and its enforcement be enjoined.”
Specifically, the law bans some of the most commonly owned firearms in the country, many of which utilize “high capacity” magazines holding more than 10 rounds.
“There are tens of millions of banned firearms and hundreds of millions of banned magazines in circulation in the United States today. As such, there is no possible justification for Illinois’ unconstitutional ban,” he wrote.
Sigale adds that according to Bruen, only “dangerous and unusual” firearms can be prohibited.
“In the context of bans on bearable arms, in other words, the Supreme Court has already done the historical spadework - and the only restrictions of this kind that it has deemed consistent with the historical understanding of the right to keep and bear arms are restrictions limited to dangerous and unusual arms that are not in common use,” he wrote.
“This court’s task is therefore a simple one: it must merely determine whether the banned firearms are ‘dangerous and unusual,’” he continues.
In determining if a weapon is unusual, the Supreme Court held that practices of the modern American people nationwide must be taken into consideration, not just in a single state.
In other words, the Second Amendment doesn’t just apply to weapons available at the time it was drafted, Sigale argues.
“Furthermore, courts and legislatures do not have the authority to second-guess the choices made by law-abiding citizens by questioning whether they really ‘need’ the arms that ordinary citizens have chosen to possess,” Sigale wrote.
In determining if a weapon is in common use, Sigale argues that the courts must rely on statistics.
The AR-15 is just one of the banned firearms and is considered America’s “most popular semi-automatic rifle” with more than 24 million AR-15s in circulation in the U.S.
“AR-style rifles are commonly and overwhelmingly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” including target shooting, home defense and hunting, the motion states.
Sigale recognizes that AR-15s have been used in “rare but high profile crimes,” including the Highland Park mass shooting in July 2022. However, he argues that the banned semi-automatic rifles “are used extremely rarely in crimes of any type, underscoring that they are commonly possessed for lawful purposes.” He adds that they are not mechanically different from other similar semi-automatic firearms, so “there is no reason to think the few crimes committed with them are made worse due to their use.”
“Even in the counterfactual event that a different modern semiautomatic rifle had been involved in each rifle-related murder from 2015 to 2020, an infinitesimal percentage of the approximately 20 million modern sporting rifles in circulation in the United States during that time period—around .01 percent—would have been used for that unlawful purpose,” Sigale wrote.
Sigale also argues that the magazine ban is unconstitutional under Bruen. He wrote that firearm accessories, such as magazines, are covered on the same footing as firearms themselves.
“Just as the First Amendment would not allow the government to ban the ink used to print newspapers, the Second Amendment does not permit it to ban triggers, barrels, magazines, or any other component integral to an operable firearm,” he wrote.
Sigale adds that both the Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit have likened Second Amendment claims to those brought under the First Amendment, arguing that it is not a “second-class right.”