By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the ban on so-called “assault weapons” by the State of Illinois in a case known as Harrel v. Raoul, but while anti-gunners are cheering, their glee might be short-lived as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments this fall in a challenge to the Cook County ban.
That case is known as Viramontes v. Cook County, brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition. The high court has granted certiorari to this case, along with a second case challenging the statewide ban in Connecticut, in a case known as Grant v. Higgins. It is likely these cases will be consolidated.
Reaction has been predictable from both sides. ABC News in Chicago quoted a statement from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office: “We will not back down from defending Cook County’s long-standing ban on assault weapons. These weapons of war are designed to inflict the maximum amount of carnage and destruction and have no place in our communities. Countless victims have already endured the devastating impact of gun violence. We will defend this lawful ordinance before this nation’s highest court to continue protecting the people of Cook County.”
Anti-gun Democrat Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, boasted on social media that the ruling is “a victory in the fight to end gun violence.”
On the other hand, FPC President Brandon Combs declared Thursday, “Today’s decision is exactly what we’ve come to expect from courts desperately contorting themselves to keep failed gun-control theories alive. While the opinion is unquestionably atrocious in both its legal reasoning and moral foundation, the good news is that today’s opinion is not the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence but the death rattle of the failed gun-control era—the last gasp of a dying authoritarian legal movement that has spent years engaging in judicial jiggery-pokery, inventing exceptions, rewriting history, misrepresenting reality, and treating the Second Amendment like a second-class right.”
Attorney William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law, released a video in response to the ruling.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation said it is “disappointed” in the decision and “respectfully” disagreed. In a statement published Friday at The Outdoor Wire, NSSF said it is “confident that the U.S. Supreme Court’s holdings in Heller and Bruen are clear and those precedents plainly vindicate the challenges to similar laws that will be argued before the Supreme Court in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins in the next session.”
NSSF agrees with Chief Judge Michael Brennan’s dissent, in the strongest terms, in which he wrote, “Now, with perhaps the most comprehensive trial record in any Second Amendment case to date, this court repeats its error. Our Nation’s enduring traditions forbid governments from prohibiting firearms commonly owned for self-defense. Because the people have overwhelmingly chosen the AR-15 rifle and its magazine as their weapon of choice, they are protected by the Second Amendment.”
