Calling the law passed by Gov. JB Pritzker and his fellow Democrats an "unconstitutional affront," a southern Illinois federal judge has declared the state's ban on so-called "assault weapons" unconstitutional.
On Nov. 8, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn struck down the law, officially known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA).
"After an exhaustive review of the statutes and arguments provided by the Government, the Court holds that the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation does not support a statute as far-reaching as PICA," McGlynn wrote in his decision.
U.S. District Stephen McGlynn
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"... The Government has raised concerns about public safety and about mass shootings that are worthy of careful thought and consideration. However, such concerns do not rise to the level of eliminating constitutional rights present since the time of the founding," McGlynn added.
The 168-page ruling comes as the latest step in a long and winding path through the courts for Illinois gun owners and Second Amendment advocates seeking to overturn the firearms bans and other restrictions imposed by the state law.
The PICA was signed into law by Pritzker in January 2023, and took effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
The law includes several provisions banning a long list of semiautomatic firearms and so-called "large capacity magazines," which the state defined as ammunition magazines which can hold more than 10 rounds.
Pritzker and other supporters of the law say it is needed to reduce future mass shootings, such as the massacre carried out by a lone gunman possessing an "assault rifle" at the 2022 Fourth of July parade in suburban Highland Park.
Second Amendment rights supporters, however, say the law is a blatant violation of the Second Amendment, particularly as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent decisions known as District of Columbia v Heller and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen.
In those decisions, the Supreme Court created tests for states and courts to use when evaluating if such restrictions are constitutional. Those tests require courts and lawmakers to evaluate if the weapons being banned are both dangerous and unusual, and if the restrictions are in keeping with U.S. history and tradition dating back to the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
Attempts to block the law have failed to this point.
Illinois gun store owners, gun owners and Second Amendment rights advocacy organizations filed suit quickly after the law was signed, seeking court orders declaring the law unconstitutional. They also sought injunctions preventing Pritzker and the state from enforcing the law while their overall challenges played out in court.
McGlynn granted such an injunction in the cases pending before him.
However, federal judges in Chicago rejected similar injunction requests in cases pending before them challenging both the Illinois law and similar gun ban ordinance in the city of Naperville in Chicago's western suburbs.
And on appeal to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel from that court sided with the state, saying they did not believe the law violates the Second Amendment.
In that 2-1 Seventh Circuit decision, Judges Frank Easterbrook and Diane Wood notably said they do not believe the Second Amendment protects the banned weapons at all, because they are too dangerous and too closely resemble "military-grade" weapons. They notably compared the semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to its fully automatic "military-grade" cousin, the M-16. They reasoned that since federal law prohibits ownership of such fully automatic rifles, then states should be free to ban any semiautomatic firearms they deem too similar.
Semiautomatic weapons fire one round for each time the trigger is pulled. Fully automatic "machine gun" weapons can spray numerous bullets each time the trigger is squeezed.
The U.S. Supreme Court, to this point, has also refused to grant petitions for appeal from the plaintiffs in the Illinois gun ban cases.
However, in a noted dissent, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the Bruen decision, blasted the Seventh Circuit ruling, saying the reasoning that semiautomatic rifles cannot be considered to be arms protected by the Second Amendment to be "nonsensical," "contrived" and "highly suspect."
While the Supreme Court hasn't taken up the Illinois case, it is poised to accept a challenge to a similar "assault weapons" ban in Maryland, which could result in a ruling that ultimately decides the fate of the Illinois gun ban.
In the meantime, those challenging the Illinois law have continued to move their cases forward toward a final judgment from the Seventh Circuit that could ultimately tee up a date with the U.S. Supreme Court, pending the outcome of the Maryland case or other similar challenges moving through the courts.
McGlynn's decision now sets the stage for such an appeal.
In the ruling, McGlynn said there is no constitutional reasoning under Heller and Bruen that would allow Illinois' gun ban to stand under the Second Amendment.
While saying he did so with respect, McGlynn said the Seventh Circuit majority decision denying the injunctions was badly wrong.
He said American rights under the Second Amendment should not be treated as a "second class right" compared to the rest of the rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
And McGlynn said appeals to tragedies carried out by armed criminals should not enable the Pritzker, Illinois Democratic state lawmakers and judges to simply ignore the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court's holdings.
"Disarming law-abiding citizens does not also bring about happy endings," McGlynn wrote. "Disarming law-abiding citizens does not inoculate us from the evil, hatred, and psychosis or from the tyranny of others.
"... Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class.
"... The oft-quoted phrase that 'no right is absolute' does not mean that fundamental rights precariously subsist subject to the whims, caprice, or appetite of government officials or judges," McGlynn wrote.
McGlynn agreed to pause the injunction for 30 days to allow time for appeal.
In a statement published by the Associated Press, a Pritzker spokesman vowed to quickly appeal the ruling.
"Despite those who value weapons of war more than public safety, this law was enacted to and has protected Illinoisans from the constant fear of being gunned down in places where they ought to feel secure," said Pritzker spokesman Alex Gough.
Second Amendment advocates cheered McGlynn's decision.
“This decision handed down by Judge McGlynn is welcomed and what we in the firearm industry have known all along: commonly-owned firearms and standard capacity magazines are protected by law-abiding Americans under the Second Amendment,” said Lawrence G. Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at the National Sports Shooting Foundation. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already recognized that semiautomatic rifles ‘traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful,’ and with over 28 million of these rifles in circulation today, they are clearly commonly-owned for lawful purposes, meeting the threshold set by the Supreme Court in its Heller decision.
"Semiautomatic handguns are overwhelmingly the choice of firearm for personal self-defense. This law was clearly unconstitutional and did nothing to punish criminals who choose to break the law. It only deprives law-abiding Americans from being able to exercise their full spectrum of Second Amendment rights.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition also lauded the ruling in statement following the decision.
“We are gratified that the Court properly found that these bans violate the constitutionally protected rights of Illinois residents and visitors. As we clearly showed at trial, PICA fails even under the Seventh Circuit’s misguided test that conflicts with binding Supreme Court precedent,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “We will continue to fight forward until we eliminate every unconstitutional ban like this throughout the country.
"... Gun owners across the United States should be confident that the ultimate victory on these issues is coming, likely soon.”
McGlynn was appointed to the bench in 2020 during the first term of then-President and current President-elect Donald Trump.