Decision on state ban expected soon in Southern District as Cook County prepares for 7th Circuit arguments

By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
[email protected]

SPRINGFIELD – Attorneys from the offices of Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx made similar arguments in recent court filings as they both defended gun bans assault and high-capacity magazines against constitutional challenges.

In separate cases at different levels of the federal court system, the two offices are trying to argue that the challenged laws — a state law enacted in 2023 and a county ordinance dating to 1993 — fall within the bounds of the Court’s jurisdiction Supreme Court of the United States. most recent interpretation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Raoul’s office filed its final written arguments Monday, Oct. 21, in the Southern District of Illinois, where an in-person trial was held in September on multiple state’s rights challenges. Illinois Community Protection Act. It’s about the gun ban that lawmakers passed in 2023 following a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade the previous summer in Highland Park.

Learn more: State concludes lawsuit challenging assault weapons ban

Foxx’s office made its case in briefs filed with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel will hear oral arguments Nov. 12 in a challenge to the gun ban. assault on the county.

First passed in 1993, this law was strengthened in 2006 and again in 2013. It is now known as the Blair Holt’s Assault Weapons Bannamed after a Chicago teenager who was killed in a 2007 shoot while protecting a high school classmate.

The two cases are among numerous challenges to ban assault weapons that have been filed in recent years in Illinois and elsewhere. These cases come as state and local governments seek ways to control the proliferation of increasingly deadly weapons on their streets, while a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court takes an increasingly broader protection of gun rights under the Second Amendment.

The court’s current standards for trying Second Amendment cases are set forth in the 2008 decision. District of Columbia v. Hellerand the 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

The Heller case concluded that the right to bear arms is an individual right, not a collective one, and that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own and bear weapons such as handguns commonly used for firearms. self-defense and other lawful purposes.

In Bruen, the court went further, saying that for a gun control law to be constitutionally enacted, the government must demonstrate that the law is consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” fire” of the country.

In the two current cases, plaintiffs’ attorneys say the weapons banned by the laws are among the most popular firearms in the United States and are commonly used for self-defense and other legal activities such as hunting. and target shooting.

Attorneys for the state and Cook County, however, argue that the assault weapons covered by the laws are modern variants of weapons first developed in Nazi Germany during World War II, the Sturmgewehr 44. The design of this weapon was later adapted and modified by the United States Army into a weapon known as the AR-15, which was later “renamed” the M-16 rifle.

The briefs filed in both cases also offer graphic descriptions of mass shootings in which assault weapons were used to illustrate how their lethal power is many times greater than that of smaller weapons like a 9-inch handgun. mm.

Cook County’s brief, for example, begins with a description of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed by a man. brandishing an AR-15.

“Subsequently, a pediatrician observed that the children “had been pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated”, that their “flesh had been torn” to such an extent “that the only clue to their identity was still their clothes bloodstained cartoons. clinging to them,” the county brief states.

The Cook County filing also includes a list of 17 mass shootings in the United States involving assault weapons between 1984 and 2022, as well as the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

The state’s brief begins with a description of the Highland Park mass shooting, noting that “in less than 60 seconds, the shooter fired approximately 83 shots at families and community members gathered to celebrate the nation’s birthday. Seven people died and 48 others were injured.

The state and county argue that the military origins of assault weapons, combined with their deadly impact when used in mass shootings, place them in the category of “dangerous and unusual” weapons, which the ruling says Heller, fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment. protection.

The state and county also argue that there is a long historical tradition of regulating weapons that pose particular threats to public safety. They both cite laws from the first half of the 19th centuryth century banning Bowie knives, as well as later laws regulating pistols, revolvers and Tommy guns.

The plaintiffs in both cases, however, argue that there is a fundamental difference between assault weapons banned by state and county laws and the type of weapons used in the military – namely that the laws prohibit the weapons “semi-automatic”, which fire only one bullet. with each pull of the trigger, while the military uses weapons that can fire in semi-automatic or fully automatic mode, meaning they fire continuously with a single trigger pull until the trigger is released or the ammunition is exhausted.

In earlier proceedings, Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, who is presiding over the case in the Southern District of Illinois, issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, saying the plaintiffs were likely to win on the merits of the case.

But the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case at that point, choosing instead to send it back to the district court for full proceedings. The trial in the case concluded Sept. 19, and McGlynn is expected to issue his decision soon.

In the case challenging Cook County’s order, U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer ruled March 1 in favor of the county, noting that the 7th Circuit has repeatedly ruled that gun bans assault were constitutional, including in an earlier challenge to the Cook County law. The plaintiffs are now appealing this decision. The appeals court will not release the names of the three judges assigned to hear the case until the morning of oral arguments on November 12.

Both lawsuits have the support of national gun rights organizations such as the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Federal Firearms Licensees and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

National gun control advocates, such as Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, have also filed briefs in support of gun bans.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service that distributes coverage of state government to hundreds of media outlets across the state. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.