Today, an NRA-ILA backed lawsuit challenging Illinois’ semi-automatic and magazine bans that were signed into law earlier this month was filed in federal court. In the land of Lincoln, these newly banned arms are now incorrectly labeled “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines.
These misnomers aside, the Supreme Court was very clear in District of Columbia v. Heller: “A state may not ‘prohibit[] … an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [a] lawful purpose,’” the lawsuit alleges. “Yet that is precisely what Illinois has just done.” The lawsuit points out that Americans own approximately eight million more semi-automatic rifles than they do F-150 pickups, which are the most commonly owned vehicles in the country. And there are over two-and-a-half times as many sold in a given year (roughly 2 million) than there are New York Times print subscribers (roughly 760,000). The newly banned magazines are also common. “‘[A]pproximately half of all privately owned magazines in the United States’—roughly 115 million in total—are capable of holding ‘more than 10 rounds of ammunition.’” There is no question that these arms are commonly owned for lawful purposes. There is no question that they cannot be banned under the Second Amendment.
Illinois, however, is not the only state banning these lawful arms and disregarding both the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s rulings. Nor is this the first case of this type that NRA-ILA has brought. Just last month a lawsuit was filed challenging Oregon’s newly passed magazine ballot initiative. In September, a lawsuit was filed challenging Delaware’s new magazine and semi-automatic bans. And just last summer, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded two other cases that the NRA-ILA brought challenging similar magazine bans in California and New Jersey.
NRA-ILA will continue to hold these states liable and vindicate our members’ rights in the courts.
The case is captioned Barnett v. Raoul. It was filed in the Southern District of Illinois on behalf of individual plaintiffs and the National Shooting Sports Foundation and financially supported by the NRA.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights.
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