The attorneys in Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office burned the midnight oil after a federal court judge blocked enforcement of the new Illinois Firearm Ban Act. At a couple of minutes shy of midnight, they filed a motion to stay the injunction with Judge Stephen McGlynn.
First off, clearly they expected the injunction to be issues. There’s no way they wrote that motion to stay the injunction in the span of eight to ten hours. It is our belief that they spent quite some time on it ahead of time then tweaked it for the specifics found in Judge McGlynn’s ruling.
Here’s the actual motion as filed by Kwame’s team.
Here is our first-passing analysis, done over a case of bacterial conjunctivitis (thanks boys) and three fingers of yummy Bulleit bourbon. Yeah, Todd’s favorite rocket fuel is Jack Daniels. Mine is Bulleit Bourbon.
Page 2:
The Court’s Preliminary Injunction Order is inconsistent with two prior rulings from two
different judges in the Northern District of Illinois rejecting requests to preliminarily enjoin the
Act on materially indistinguishable Second Amendment claims. See Bevis v. Naperville, No. 22-
cv-4775, Dkt. 63, 2023 WL 2077392 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 17, 2023); Herrera v. Raoul, No. 23-cv-532,
Dkt. 75, 2023 WL 3074799 (N.D. Ill. April 26, 2023).
Here’s where we have attorneys who file challenges to the new gun and magazine ban that are thinly researched and not-so-well fleshed out. “It’s easy,” they think. These attorneys have visions of fame an fortune for being the ones to win a landmark civil rights case. They think that just because they staple a copy of the Bruen decision to the back of their thin filing that the federal court judges (more than a few of which are NOT fans of gun rights – shocker, I know) are going to bow down and submit.
And now, these less-than-stellar attorneys and their less-than-stellar filings are causing genuine problems for the “Big 4” cases that have been consolidated. Really, it’s the big two – the NRA/NSSF case, the FFL-IL/GSL case – plus the Maag case. Tom’s done a great job on a couple of issues and is working well with Paul Clement’s people and our people including Chuck Michel’s firm out of California.
The fourth case among the big four – the ISRA/SAF suit isn’t a strong player. Frankly, the ISRA/SAF case almost seems like it’s there mainly as a fundraising tool for the ISRA so they can claim they’re challenging the law and solicit legal donations. Yes, ISRA was first to file and their pleading showed it… one attorney said something to the effect that the ISRA’s filing “showed the kind of work you see when someone just has to be first to file”.
enjoining
the Act inflicts irreparable harm on the public by allowing the weapons preferred by mass
murderers to continue to proliferate
So we should allow a handful of mass murderers to curtail freedoms for almost 300 million Americans? Where in the Constitution is that exception mentioned? Why, that’s almost like allowing the terrorists to win, is it not?
Page 3. “ARGUMENT”
The Preliminary Injunction Order should be stayed because Plaintiffs’ Second
Amendment claims will fail.
The Court should stay the Preliminary Injunction Order because the State Defendants are
likely to defeat Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment challenges to the Act. The Court’s conclusion to
the contrary misapplies New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111
(2022),
Uh, no it doesn’t.
and District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), while functionally overruling
Seventh Circuit precedent. See Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015);
Wilson v. Cook Cnty., 937 F.3d 1028, 1032–33 (7th Cir. 2019).
Emphasis added. So, I’m trying to type with one eye open while laughing out loud… The IL AG is trying to claim the pre-Bruen, interest-balancing tests struck down by Bruen should remain as precedent? That’s like driving a semi loaded with steaming bovine excrement off a cliff – more than enough energy upon impact to splatter anyone within 50 feet with a lethal dose of fecal matter.
The
Bevis and Herrera courts were correct that the Act does not infringe the Second Amendment as
interpreted by Bruen and Heller. See Bevis, 2023 WL 2077392, at *9–17; Herrera, 2023 WL
3074799, at *3–13.
Really? There were correct? They were not. Those decisions were written by gun-hating ideologues that were utterly inconsistent with Bruen. We won’t beat the horse any further about the lawyers who staple Bruen to their filings and expect anti-gun federal judges to worship them.
What about these cases SCOTUS reversed and remanded back for reconsideration consistent with the findings in Bruen (thank you TTAG)?
Bianchi v. Frosh — Challenges Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban under Heller’s common use language.
ANJRPC v. Grewal — Challenges New Jersey’s “high capacity” magazine ban for violating the Second Amendment, the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Duncan v. Bonta — Challenges California’s “high capacity” magazine ban as violating the Second and Fifth Amendments as well as the two-step interest-balancing process explicitly repudiated in the Bruen ruling.
Back to Kwame’s filing, brought to you in part by a local marijuana dispensary there in Chicago…
Under Bruen’s “plain text” threshold step, assault weapons and large capacity magazines are not
the type of “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment because they are not in “common use”
for self-defense—the “‘central component’” of the Second Amendment right. 142 S. Ct. at 2135
(quoting Heller)
Let’s go back to Heller and see just exactly what Kwame’s people quoted… if it was accurate or not:
From page 3:
Respondent argues that it
protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Or maybe this from page 52:
The traditional militia was formed from a pool of
men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful
purposes like self-defense.
For lawful purposes, such as self-defense.
Or “for lawful purposes like self-defense”
NOT, as Kwame’s people claim, “they are not in ‘common use’ for self-defense — the ‘central component’ of the Second Amendment right.”
Back to Kwame’s semi-load of fecal matter.
Neither the Seventh
Circuit nor the Supreme Court has said that Friedman and Wilson were abrogated by Bruen.
Without mentioning Friedman or Wilson, this Court has effectively overruled them through its
Preliminary Injunction Order
Really? From Bruen:
In the years since, the Courts of Appeals have coalesced around a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. . . . Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.
SCOTUS didn’t have to say Friedman and Wilson were abrogated, but that doesn’t prevent you from pretending otherwise. Sort of like how some attorneys for the state pretended Brown v. Board of Education didn’t really end school segregation back in the 1950s.
Page 5.
Pouring more fingers of Bulleit.
Plain Text. The Preliminary Injunction Order improperly construes “Arms” to extend
beyond any interpretation recognized by the Supreme Court or the Seventh Circuit and in doing
so sweeps in large swaths of non-essential firearms accessories, including those not sought by
Plaintiffs.
Todd Vandermyde has covered this… there are at least a couple of cases that have ruled that the Second Amendment covers more than just the firearm. I believe Ezell 1 and Ezell 2 discuss these in particular. And there’s another case in Illinois covering right to sell… These cover accessories, and the ability to buy gun and ammo and the ability to practice, and to repair. But it doesn’t hurt for Kwame’s people to have selective amnesia and to throw another semi-load of fertilizer off the cliff hoping something sticks somewhere…
Page 6.
The Act restricts large capacity magazines that carry far more ammunition than is
actually used in self-defense situations. See Hanson, 2023 WL 3019777 at *10 (citing multiple
studies finding that the average number of shots fired in civilian self-defense incidents was 2.2,
and that “figure has remained exceptionally stable over time”). Because large capacity magazines
are not necessary to operate arms in common use for self-defense, they are not “Arms” protected
by the Second Amendment. Heller, 554 U.S. at 624–27, 629.
So the State of Illinois is arguing that the Bill of Rights is now the Bill of Needs?
You don’t need more than one Bible in the household. Or to attend church more than once a month.
Page 7.
In assessing whether the State Defendants have met this newly created burden, the
Preliminary Injunction Order improperly focuses on the sheer numerosity of AR-15s and large
capacity magazines, referring multiple times to “common use” without any consideration of the
nature and purpose of that use. See, e.g., Dkt. 101 at 11, 21–24. But in distinguishing between
different types of weapons that are protected “arms”—handguns—and others that are not—
machine guns, “M-16s and the like,” and short-barreled shotguns—Heller made clear that weapons
must be in “common use” for a lawful purpose, namely, self-defense. Compare 554 U.S. at 624–
27 (describing military uses of machine guns and M-16s, and criminal misuse of short-barreled
shotguns) with id. at 629 (describing specific attributes of handguns that make them the
“quintessential self-defense weapon”).
No, they most only be in “common use” for a lawful purpose – SUCH AS, not “namely” self-defense.
The State of Illinois is trying to revise history and re-write Heller. Shame on them.
And conflating machine guns and M16s with semi-auto rifles commonly held by everyday Americans is quite shameful as well.
Page 8.
This is painful. Watching them spin facts, rewrite history and simply make believe is nauseating.
Order ignores how the State Defendants provided ample evidence that this tradition evolved to
encompass bans on the purchase, sale, and possession of machine guns and, in some instances,
semi-automatic weapons with high round capacity
That’s because there is no historical analogue for any of it.
7. The Court’s approach in this case
should have been “more nuanced” given that the Act responds to both “dramatic technological
changes” and “unprecedented societal concerns,” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132.
Anytime you read the state – any state – claiming that gun laws should be evaluated in a “more nuanced” fashion, that roughly translates to “let us bring back the two-step, interest-balancing test that Bruen struck down.”
By the way, we don’t revisit the First Amendment today just because we have “dramatic technological chances” like the Internet, high-speed printing presses and social media. “Unprecedented societal concerns” is not text that can be found anywhere in the US Constitution.
Page 9.
Pretty much all the state trying to rely on outlier criminal acts to limit freedoms of all Americans.
Page 10.
More red herrings. The inability to purchase and possess the most popular, most effective guns available for self-defense is “great harm” to anyone who needs them.
Page 11.
“Please let us bring back the two-step, interest-balancing test” and if you won’t let us do that, then turn this into an “as applied” injunction that only applies to members of the parties in the cases (a la Tom DeVore’s state-level cases).
I’m going to bed.
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