“Whether Illinois’ categorical ban on millions of the most commonly owned firearms and ammunition magazines in the nation, including the AR-15 rifle, violates the Second Amendment.”
“A gun rights group representing over two million members and activists has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Illinois’ strict rifle ban is constitutional,” Fox News reports. “Gun Owners of America (GOA) and its sister organization, the Gun Owners Foundation… filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court in their challenge to the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA). The groups, representing Illinois gun owners, argue the law imposes an unconstitutional, sweeping ban on hundreds of commonly owned and lawfully used rifles and ammunition magazines.”
“These bans took effect in January 2023, and GOA quickly filed suit and secured an injunction from Judge Stephen McGlynn,” GOA explains. “As Judge McGlynn put it, the Illinois laws in question ‘seem to be written in spite of the clear directives in Bruen and Heller, not in conformity with them.’ Frustratingly, the anti-gun 7th Federal Circuit quickly blocked Judge McGlynn’s ruling, leaving Illinois gun owners with no choice but to request relief from the nation’s high court.”
The petition for Gun Owners of America, Inc. and Gun Owners Foundation, Petitioners, v. Kwame Raoul, Attorney General of Illinois, et al., Respondents presents one question: “Whether Illinois’ categorical ban on millions of the most commonly owned firearms and ammunition magazines in the nation, including the AR-15 rifle, violates the Second Amendment.”
Answering that question requires exposing the deliberately dishonest judicial contortions the Seventh Circuit had to go through to uphold the Illinois gun ban after the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision to reach a fabricated “conclusion” that “the Second Amendment’s two clauses have no relation to one another” and “ that millions of common arms are ‘similar’ enough to ‘military weapons’ that they fall on ‘the military side of that line’ and thus are not ‘Arms’ at all.”
By David Codrea
