Second Amendment Roundup: U.S. Files Amicus Brief in Illinois Rifle Ban Challenge
The United States has filed an amicus brief in Barnett v. Raoul, the challenge to Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic rifles and standard magazines pending in the Seventh Circuit. This is the first time the Department of Justice has ever argued against such a ban. It defended the federal ban that was enacted in 1994 and expired in 2004.
As the brief recalls, in Bruen (2022) the Supreme Court emphatically reinforced the Heller rule that the Second Amendment protects firearms in common use by law-abiding persons for lawful purposes. “Regrettably, not every State got the message. Just a few months after Bruen, Illinois outlawed some of the most commonly used rifles and magazines in America via a so-called ‘assault weapons’ ban.” And after that, in Bevis v. City of Naperville, the Seventh Circuit overturned the district court’s preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ban on the basis that the plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail.
As the United States argues, Bevis got it wrong even under pre-Bruen precedents. Thereafter, multiple Supreme Court Justices have expressed disagreement with Bevis, and Justice Kavanaugh said that the Court is likely to grant certiorari “in the next Term or two.” (See my post here.) Moreover, the district court in Barnett heard critical, unrebutted evidence in a multi-day bench trial and found that the ban violates the Second Amendment.
The brief covers familiar ground, but does condition some of its statements with an eye toward future defense of federal law. It says that “many” (not all) of the banned firearms, particularly the AR-15, are “Arms” under the Second Amendment, which per Heller “extends, prima facie, to all instrument
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