A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Illinois’ sweeping ban on high-powered guns, rejecting an argument that the law violates the Second Amendment rights of residents.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling is a victory for Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and supporters of a law passed in January in response to the mass shooting at Highland Park’s 2022 Fourth of July parade, which left seven people dead and dozens injured.
Two members of a three-judge appellate panel found the state and municipalities that have banned the high-powered weapons “have a strong likelihood of success” in defending the law. The panel upheld rulings by the federal district court in Chicago that kept the laws in place and overturned conflicting rulings from a federal court in southern Illinois.
However, the majority opinion noted that Friday’s decision deals only with preliminary injunctions issued by lower courts and does not “rule definitively on the constitutionality” of the state and local laws at issue in the case.
“As we know from long experience with other fundamental rights, such as the right to free speech, the right peaceably to assemble, the right to vote, and the right to free exercise of religion, even the most important personal freedoms have their limits,” Judge Diane Wood, appointed to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton, wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Judge Frank Easterbrook, an appointee of President Ronald Regan.
“Government may punish a deliberately false fire alarm; it may condition free assembly on the issuance of a permit; it may require voters to present a valid identification card; and it may punish child abuse even if it is done in the name of religion. The right enshrined in the Second Amendment is no different.”
The dissent came from Judge Michael Brennan, an appointee of President Donald Trump and the third member of a panel that heard arguments June 29 in a case that consolidate a half-dozen federal lawsuits.
In addition to four cases out of the Southern District of Illinois, the panel also weighed arguments from a Naperville gun shop owner challenging a local ordinance along with the state law. The plaintiffs in that case, Robert Bevis and the National Association for Gun Rights, previously asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state and local bans while the case is adjudicated, but the high court declined in May in an unsigned order.
Also part of the consolidated case is a challenge brought against the state, the city of Chicago and Cook County by Chicago emergency room physician Javier Herrera, who argues state and local bans violate his Second Amendment rights. He appealed to the 7th Circuit after a federal district court judge in Chicago declined to issue an injunction.
The federal appeals court’s decision comes as the Illinois State Police has begun the process of allowing anyone who owned guns that were prohibited under the ban before it become law to register those firearms with the state.
Under the law, those owners have until Jan. 1 to register the guns with the state police or face a misdemeanor for a first offense of having an unregistered firearm covered by the ban, and a felony for subsequent offenses.
The ban, which affects specific high-powered guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines, has faced a slew of lawsuits on the state and federal levels alleging that the law violates the state and U.S. Constitutions.
The 7th Circuit decision comes a little less than three months after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the ban in a 4-3 ruling following a lawsuit brought forth by plaintiffs that included Republican state Rep. Dan Caulkins, of Decatur, alleging it violated the equal protection and special legislation clauses of the state constitution.
But the weapons ban is not the only firearms-related case being challenged in the courts. On Aug. 14, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun rights group that was also a plaintiff in the federal case against the weapons ban, filed a separate lawsuit alleging a measure passed last spring that allows people to sue gun retailers or manufacturers for improper marketing ploys that contribute to gun violence is unconstitutional.
more to come