(The Center Square) – As the debate continues over an Illinois measure to require firearms to be stored in a safe, with a cable lock or inoperable under certain circumstances, the state of Illinois is responding to a ruling that the state’s gun and magazine ban is unconstitutional.
Senate Bill 8 passed the Senate last month. In the House Gun Violence Prevention Committee Wednesday, House sponsor state Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, said the measure seeks to reduce harm.
“Safe storage can reduce unintentional injuries, suicides and intentional harm like school shootings,” Hirschauer told the committee. “About 75% of school shootings are done with firearms accessed at home.”
Josh Witkowski with Illinois Federation for Outdoor Resources said the safe storage element runs afoul of U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
“As applied, that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times, this makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self defense,” Witkowski said.
Witkwoski said he does support a tax credit for people who purchase gun safes.
SB 8 also decreases the amount of time required to report lost or stolen firearms with penalties attached for not doing so. Hirschauer said the lost and stolen reporting provisions are important.
“The reporting measures that we have in this bill will give law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on lost and stolen guns and hopefully end that cycle of violence,” she said.
Gun rights advocate Todd Vandermyde was critical of the penalties related to not reporting lost or stolen firearms.
“Now you’re talking about revoking [Firearm Owner’s ID] cards for mere failure to report a property crime,” Vandermyde said. “This sets a new low.”
The committee didn’t act on the bill. It only held a subject matter hearing.
More than 1,100 people filed in support of the measure. More than 5,500 filed in opposition.
Later in the day in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the state of Illinois filed a reply brief in the challenge to the state’s gun and magazine ban. The ban on more than 170 semi-automatic firearms was enacted in January 2023. Federal lawsuits filed in the Southern District of Illinois federal court were consolidated.
Federal District Judge Stephen McGlynn found the law unconstitutional last summer. The state appealed. In its 267-page response filed Wednesday, the state claims its arguments satisfy the text and tradition test outlined by Supreme Court precedent.
Attorneys for the state said McGlynn’s determination is “incorrect.”
“First, the Act does not restrict conduct within the scope of the Second Amendment’s text because the items it regulates are not ‘Arms,’” they argued. “In addition, [large capacity magazines], assault weapon attachments, .50 caliber cartridges, and accessories used to increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic weapons are not ‘Arms’ because they are “accoutrements” that are unnecessary to operate firearms.”
The state further said the ban’s restrictions are “consistent with the historical tradition of regulating especially dangerous weapons, including the minimal burden that those restrictions impose on the right to self-defense and the justifications for imposing that burden.”
Attorneys for the state also say the gun registration component is constitutional “because the requirement’s no-cost, simple process, and automatic conferral of rights do not ‘necessarily prevent law-abiding, responsible citizens from exercising their Second Amendment right.’”
Plaintiffs file their reply next month. They’ve argued the state can’t ban commonly owned firearms like the popular AR-15.
