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.
They did with with Heller and Bruen.
They know they’re going to lose so they double, triple and quadruple down on their nonsense.
Expect to see more crazy legislation from blue states, more blue bench rulings supporting them and long, dragged out lawyer enriching, taxpayer funded battles that everyone knows is just delaying the inevitable.
That in itself should be a crime. It’s no different than kickback schemes or outright embezzlement.
Its almost time for ‘civil disobedience’ of these unconstitutional anti-gun laws. Let’s see what happens in SCOTUS next term first though.
Quoting a person I knew who once said …”The gun control tyrants still exist and do their crap only because we haven’t dragged them out back and hanged them yet.”
Illinois anti-gun is trying desperately to build hype and a fake narrative to keep their bans in place: This Is The Dumbest AR-15 Claim I’ve Heard Yet.
“Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker went on the news and claimed the AR-15 can fire **60 bullets per second**.
Not per minute.
Per second.
That gun does not exist.
A real fully automatic M4 runs roughly 12 to 16 rounds per second.
An AK-47 on full auto is around 10.
Even a Glock with an illegal switch is nowhere near 60 rounds per second — and those are already nearly impossible to control.
So when Pritzker says Americans don’t need a weapon that can fire 60 bullets in a single second, he is not describing an AR-15.
He is describing a fantasy rifle.
A space gun.
A made-up monster used to sell a real ban.
And nobody at the news desk corrected him.
That’s the problem.
A politician can say something completely false about the most popular rifle in America, and millions of people who have never touched one will believe it.
Now they think an AR-15 is basically a handheld minigun.
But if a gun really fired 60 rounds per second, it would be a terrible weapon for a mass shooter.
A standard 30-round magazine would be empty in half a second.
The gun would climb off target immediately.
You would not hit anything.
The nightmare gun Pritzker invented would actually make an attacker worse.
But he needs that fake version of the AR-15 because the real one doesn’t scare people who understand it.
The real AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle owned by millions of law-abiding Americans for home defense, sport, training, and protecting their families.
And here’s the question anti-gun politicians never answer:
If the AR-15 is too dangerous for regular citizens, why do police get an exception?
The rifle does not become safer because a badge is holding it.
And the citizen is the one facing the threat first.
This AR-15 ban fight is heading to the Supreme Court.
And if the arguments are built on fake gun math like “60 bullets per second,” every gun owner needs to pay attention.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agX1x_66gok
At Real Clear Investigations: Gun Safety: Violent Crime Drops as More Americans Pack Heat.
ht* tps://crimeresearch.org/2026/06/at-real-clear-investigations-gun-safety-violent-crime-drops-as-more-americans-pack-heat/
Preserving the future left winger and left winger trans murderers ability to kill defenseless prey: New Jersey Lawmakers Scramble to Defend ‘Gun-Free Zones’ After SCOTUS Decision.
ht* tps://bearingarms.com/john-petrolino/2026/07/09/new-jersey-lawmakers-scramble-defend-gun-free-zones-after-scotus-decisions-n1233116
[note: mass or single or limited killing for the sake of individual personalized violence reasons as applied in mass/school-killing, is a subset part of a liberal far-left wing ideology called ‘Social murder’. A subset of the ideology in its liberal nature of killer decision and execution focused on a ‘vulnerable’ (or perceived to be vulnerable) as in ‘defenseless’ (or perceived to be defenseless), or vulnerable to violence-domination, population demographic or segment or group or people-occupied-location – executed due to the killer(s) internally personalized violence reasons. ‘Gun-Free Zones’ enable this execution by providing just what the mass/school-killer demands to satisfy their internally personalized violence reasons – a ‘vulnerable’ (or perceived to be vulnerable) as in ‘defenseless’ (or perceived to be defenseless), or vulnerable to violence-domination as in defenseless, population demographic or segment or group or people-occupied-location. Thus mass/school-killers are specifically attracted to ‘gun free zones’ as they offer the best chance of a defenseless thus vulnerable victim demographic – thus ‘gun free zones’ are in reality providing basically a ‘legally designated prey hunting grounds’ for these mentally ill killers and ‘legally’ specifically attracting them.]
These YouTubers Helped Bring Down a $65 Million Multinational Fraud Ring – And We Should Commend Them.
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The YouTubers in question are Scammer Payback and Trilogy Media. Most of the time, they keep an eye open for scammers and try to catch them in the act. And they’ve inspired other YouTube channels to do the same, stopping these fraudsters before they can hurt actual people.
But according to the United States Attorney’s Office, these two uncovered the scheme, which has since led to convictions across the board. The report reveals that, with the information from these two, 28 … members of a Chinese organized crime ring have been charged in four federal grand jury indictments.
…”
ht* tps://pjmedia.com/michael-a-letts/2026/07/09/these-youtubers-helped-bring-down-a-65-million-multinational-fraud-ring-and-we-should-commend-them-n4954832
’cause bowie knives and other stuff they made up: Federal Appeals Court Upholds Illinois AR-15 Ban. Here’s What They Said.
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SCOTUS Wire
@scotus_wire
🚨 In a 2-1 vote, the Seventh Circuit upheld Illinois’s ban on AR-15-style rifles and large-capacity magazines, reversing a federal judge who had struck down the state’s Protect Illinois Communities Act after trial.
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The majority said the ban survives the Supreme Court’s Bruen test because America has a historical tradition of restricting particularly dangerous weapons, likening AR-15s and 30-round magazines to weapons historically subject to special regulation, such as Bowie knives.
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Chief Judge Brennan dissented, arguing Illinois has banned ‘the best-selling rifle in America and its standard magazine’ despite overwhelming evidence they are commonly owned for lawful self-defense, saying the ruling cannot be reconciled with Heller’s ‘common use’ test.
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Not the best ruling for sure, but it offers a glimpse of what the anti-gun Left will argue before the Supreme Court. The AR-15 rifle isn’t a rare firearm; it’s commonly owned by civilians. These aren’t bazookas, and Bowie knives? Are we serious here? It’ll be picked apart.
…”
[note: given the SCOTUS decision in Wolford v. Lopez, the seventh circuit 2-1 reasoning and that of Illinois is already doomed at SCOTUS in the next term.]
ht* tps://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/07/10/federal-appeals-court-upholds-illinois-ar-15-ban-heres-what-they-said-n2679173
That Gay Cruise Turned Away by Turkey Was Denied Docking in a Second Country.
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Why event organizers tried to dock a gay cruise in two different Islamic nations is beyond us. This writer was in Egypt last month, and it’s a heavily Islamic country. When she booked her flight, she was warned by the airline that Egypt would not accept a passport that had a nonbinary gender marker on it.
…”
ht* tps://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/07/10/egypt-turns-away-gay-cruise-denied-by-turkey-n2679159
[note: Its a pretty routine thing for Islamic countries to reject ‘LGBTQ+’ ideology. The left wingers started embracing the violent Islamic nature and adopting it as their own. Islamic nations people have historically executed those of the, what we call today collectively, LGBTQ+ and in some Islamic countries still do. But when the left wingers started embracing the violent Islamic nature and adopting it as their own, it forced the ‘a little more tolerant at times’ Islam nations of Turkey and Egypt to ‘re-evaluate’ and realize how much the left wingers had started to destroy their society ‘Islamic moral center fabric’ – thus maybe last year the cruise had no problems generally (but still had problems because there were places the LGBTQ+ cruise participants could not go else they suffer being thrown off a roof top) but this year its different as these countries are quietly purging its self of this left wing influence subverting and destroying their ‘Islamic moral center fabric’ by the left wing embracing the violent Islamic nature and adopting it as their own.]
Left wing violence: Suspect arrested in firebombing attack on 2 NYC churches. [has links to other such church attacks in NYC being investigated that have not yet made the news.]
ht* tps://thepostmillennial.com/suspect-arrested-in-firebombing-attack-on-2-nyc-churches?utm_campaign=64470
Weapons of war is a farce reason they give. PICA still allows Gatling guns, M1 Garand’s, M1903’s, Spencer and Henry Rifles, Cap and Ball, flintlock and matchlocks. All of which were used for war.
It’s not about the weapons, it is control that would make us subjects instead of citizens.
The historical precedents they quote all had to do with black and Indian codes in the past. The Democratic Party still hasn’t got over losing their slaves.
Today’s Democratic Party has taken a turn back to the 1800s . There was a time when they were actually patriotic, that time is gone. Now they are turning to far left ideologies that also includes far right ideologies like State control and eugenics.
There’s a pretense that 1938 Miller ruling was the opposite of what it was – Americans can own military weapons.
That the short shotgun might not be a military weapon was sent back to the lower court for a decision that never came because the case was moot.