State Appeals to 7th Circuit to Reverse District Court Ruling
As we previously covered, a federal district court judge in the Northern District of Illinois had previously ruled that the Illinois statute covering firearms that included a provision that bans anyone, regardless of whether they have a license to carry a concealed firearm, from bringing their firearms onto public transportation was unconstitutional in light of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen. Recently, arguments were held in the State’s appeal of that decision at the 7th Circuit of Appeals in which the State claims that the restriction on firearms on public transportation has a historical precedent from the time of the passing of the Second Amendment. Alex Hemmer, the deputy solicitor general for the state of Illinois, argued that, “The restriction descends directly from a tradition of restricting access to firearms that are loaded and unsecured on passenger railroads in the 19th century, which itself descends from a tradition of restricting access to firearms in crowded spaces.” In addition, he compared the restriction in a public transportation setting to that of a restriction in a “sensitive space” such as schools, which the Courts have previously ruled can be subject to such firearm restrictions. The plaintiff’s attorney who brought the initial suit against the regulation argued this was incorrect and that the Bruen decision only noted three sensitive locations: legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses, with each of these being secured by checkpoints, security guards, etc. that are not present at every stop on the Metra and CTA that are covered by the Illinois firearm restriction. It is a difficult job to know how a panel of judges will rule in any case, let alone in an area that has seen a recent seismic shift such as the ability for government to regulate guns given the recent Supreme Court rulings, but in either case it is highly probable that a ruling for either party will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Those interested in such matters should be paying close attention to not just the laws and rulings in Illinois, but across the country as the various courts weigh in on the limitations of governments at every level to regulate access to firearms.
