The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed a district court permanent injunction against Illinois’ Protect Illinois Communities Act in the case of Barnett v. Raoul. You can read the court’s ruling here. The PICA law bans the manufacture, sale, and possession of semi-automatic weapons (including AR-15-style rifles) and standard capacity magazines, with grandfather clauses for prior owners.
The court rejected broad facial challenges, narrowing review to AR-15s and 30-round rifle magazines. Assuming these forbidden items qualify as protected “arms” under Bruen step one (per Bevis, which should have been considered dead-letter law, but wasn’t), the panel held the restrictions satisfy step two. Legislatures may regulate “particularly dangerous” weapons.
Nevermind that Bruen specifically prohibited “interest balancing” tests. Key historical analogues argued were 19th-century Bowie knife laws (carry bans, concealed-carry rules, sales taxes/bans). Because, of course, Bowie knife laws are just like gun control laws.
Further, the state leaned on earlier decisions targeting “exceedingly destructive” arms while leaving other weapons available. It’s almost like they couldn’t read the text of the Bruen decision that the judges are bound to uphold. The PICA law, Judges Easterbrook and St. Eve wrote, imposes only a “modest burden” on self-defense as expert evidence showed rifles are used in ~4% of defensive incidents and firing more than 10 rounds is extremely rare. The court upheld the restrictions on these items.
Looking Forward
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. The two gun-ban cases will be argued before the high court in the fall. Barnett is quite vulnerable under the Wolford v. Lopez restatement of Bruen. Wolford stressed that step-two historical analogues must be “relevantly similar” in “how and why” they burden the right to carry, judged by principles underpinning the tradition rather than identical matches.
Furthermore, Wolford restates Bruen such that when laws violate the plain text of the Second Amendment, it’s the Government’s burden to prove historical analogues exist. The majority rejected rigid or result-driven applications. The dissents accused the Court of misapplying the test while defending property-based limits on carrying firearms. And Jackson’s dissent in Wolford simplifies the Bruen test even further.
Barnett’s heavy reliance on a “military-like” distinction, Bowie-knife analogues, and rarity-of-use data clearly injects means-end balancing and improper historical analysis—precisely the flaws that Wolford and Rahimi caution against.
The Supreme Court appears poised to clarify that common semi-automatic rifles are protected “arms” and to demand a tighter historical fit, likely narrowing or striking broad bans on hardware. Fingers crossed.
A slapdown is long overdue.