By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Eight days after filing a federal lawsuit challenging Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” and their standard-capacity magazines, the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in the legal action have filed a motion for preliminary injunction in the case.
The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by attorney David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill. The original lawsuit was filed Jan. 17 in the same court.
Joining SAF in the lawsuit and this new motion are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel, for whom the case, known as Harrel v. Raoul, is named. The 22-page motion was filed Wednesday morning.
In their motion, plaintiffs note to the court, “The Supreme Court has now repeatedly said that the Second Amendment ‘protects the possession and use of weapons that are in common use at the time.’ The firearms and magazines Illinois recently banned certainly qualify for protection under this standard. The firearms include many of the most commonly owned firearms in the country and the magazines are integral for the operation of common firearms.”
Recent gun bans and proposals have relied on a “means-end” justification which was rejected last summer by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Bruen decision as “one step too many.” Henceforth, gun bans must have some historical context, but as SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb noted, no such context exists.
“Thanks to last summer’s Supreme Court decision in the Bruen case,” Gottlieb explained, “the defendants—in this case the State of Illinois—must justify the ban …as being consistent with historical tradition rooted at the time the Constitution was ratified. They can’t possibly do so because the Bruen ruling clearly established there is no tradition of banning commonly possessed arms, and modern semi-auto rifles are owned by millions of citizens across the country.”
In the motion, attorney Sigale observed, “the Second Amendment protects the right to ‘keep and bear Arms’ and ‘Arms’ facially covers ‘all instruments that constitute bearable arms.’ The Magazine Ban impacts that right no less than the Firearms Ban. Just as the First Amendment would not allow the government to ban the ink used to print newspapers, the Second Amendment does not permit it to ban triggers, barrels, magazines, or any other component integral to an operable firearm.”
Several county sheriffs in Illinois have announced they will not actively enforce the new law, infuriating Pritzker.
“Gov. Pritzker calls the banned firearms ‘assault weapons’ based on a term invented by the gun prohibition lobby, and for no other reason,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “These are firearms in common use across the country for home and personal protection, hunting, competition, predator control, and an array of other legitimate uses, and the governor has no justifiable reason to ban their possession and use by law-abiding, peaceable Illinois citizens.”
At the time the lawsuit was filed, Gottlieb accused Pritzker and those who backed the gun ban of using the firearms and their owners as “scapegoats” in an effort to convince Illinois citizens they are doing something about violent crime in the state, when really nothing is being done.
“It’s an effort to distract the public from the fact that these same lawmakers have been unable or unwilling to crack down on criminals responsible for violent crime,” Gottlieb said.
