Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, was appointed to the court by former President Donald Trump. He just saved Illinois, temporarily, at least, from the “assault weapons ban” recently passed by the state legislature. He did so by issuing a preliminary injunction against Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban on Friday.
In his opinion, he noted that Illinois already has a plethora of gun laws on the books, saying that it needs to take those laws seriously and enforce them before further restricting the rights of its citizens with an assault weapons ban.
The case in which he issued that injunction was Barnett v. Raoul. It was a consolidated set of suits brought against the Illinois assault weapon ban, called the “Protect Illinois Communities Act.” The plaintiffs sought an injunction to block enforcement of the law until there is a ruling from a higher court on its constitutionality.
McGlynn granted that injunction, relying in his ruling on the 2022 Bruen decision from the Supreme Court, in which SCOTUS ruled that a New York firearms law was unconstitutional because it infringed on the right to keep and bear arms.
Discussing that ruling and the reasoning for it in his decision, McGlynn said, ‘Amongst other things, the Bruen Court reaffirmed that ‘the right to ‘bear arms’ refers to the right to ‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’” 142 S. Ct. at 2134 (quoting D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 584 (2008))“
Continuing, he explained the test from Bruen, saying that there the court “adopted a single step test ‘rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history’ under which the ‘government must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.’ … Under this framework, ‘the Second Amendment protects the possession and use of weapons that are ‘in common use at the time.’ Id. at 2128 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 627).“
Continuing, he pointed to the Independence Day shooting that was used to justify the assault weapons ban and asked whether the reprehensible acts of a select few can be used to justify restricting the constitutional rights of the law-abiding majority. He also questioned whether the law was congruent with the SCOTUS Bruen decision, saying that the answer is “likely no.” In his words:
As Americans, we have every reason to celebrate our rights and freedoms, especially on Independence Day. Can the senseless crimes of a relative few be so despicable to justify the infringement of the constitutional rights of law-abiding individuals in hopes that such crimes will then abate or, at least, not be as horrific? More specifically, can PICA be harmonized with the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and with Bruen? That is the issue before this Court. The simple answer at this stage in the proceedings is “likely no.”
Concluding, he granted the injunction and noted that there is already “a wide array of civil and criminal laws that permit the commitment and prosecution of those who use or may use firearms to commit crimes. Law enforcement and prosecutors should take their obligations to enforce these laws seriously.”
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