(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Justice is telling a federal appeals court that Illinois’ gun and magazine ban is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is accepting briefs in the lawsuit challenging Illinois’ 2023 ban on semi-automatic firearms and magazines over certain capacities. The lawsuit comes from the Southern District of Illinois where a federal judge last fall found the law violates the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms.
Last month, the state filed its appeal briefs arguing the ban on more than 170 semi-automatic firearms, including the popular AR-15 platforms, restricts dangerous firearms and addresses societal concerns about mass shootings.
The four plaintiffs groups filed their reply briefs earlier this month arguing there is no historical analog from the country’s founding era of governments banning commonly owned firearms.
In a filing siding with plaintiffs Friday, attorneys for the DOJ said the district judge got it right that Illinois’ ban on AR-15s and similar firearms is unconstitutional because they are commonly owned for lawful purposes.
“History confirms what the Second Amendment’s text suggests: Possessing weapons for the common defense was a core aspect of the preexisting right to keep and bear arms that the Founders codified in the Second Amendment,” the filing said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker reacted Monday.
“Look, change of administration, that’s their, you know, this is their, you know, they obviously don’t understand the damage that is being done across the country where there are no assault weapons bans,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker said opponents of the ban don’t accept the positives of restricting access to firearms, as he says was done temporarily by the federal government in the 1990s.
“The number of killings went down significantly and so they’re’ just, they’re making, they’re just wrongheaded on so many things, and this is just one of those,” he said.
The DOJ’s filing notes that “mass public shootings accounted for fewer than 1% of all firearm-related homicides in the United States” between 1966 and 2023.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” and “See you in court, Illinois.”
Also Friday, 35 state’s attorneys from across Illinois filed a brief arguing the ban is unconstitutional.
“As prosecutors, we go to work every day to deter such crimes, command justice for victims, put those who do harm to our communities behind bars, and protect our residents by strengthening the justice system and enforcing the rule of law,” the brief from the Illinois state’s attorneys argues. “It is in service to that same rule of law that we urge this honorable Court to support and uphold the Constitutionally protected rights enshrined in the Second Amendment – the right of the people to own commonplace firearms so they can defend hearth and home and live freely with the means to secure their own and others’ ultimate safety.”
The state is set to file its final briefs in the case in the weeks ahead, before oral arguments are scheduled by the appeals court. The case could be the next gun ban challenge to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
