Judge Cites Constitution in Reversal of Illinois’s Concealed Carry Ban on Public Transit

A law that prevents legal gun owners in Illinois from packing while using public transportation has been deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge.The decision was made recently by a U.S. district judge, Iain Johnston, ruling on a 2022 lawsuit by a group of gun permit holders — three of whom were residents of the Chicago suburbs and another from DeKalb County. They argued that their Second Amendment rights were trampled upon when the state became the last to adopt a concealed carry law, according to the Chicago Tribune.The judge, who was appointed by President Trump in 2020, said the defendants — which include the Illinois attorney general, Kwame Raoul; the Cook County state’s attorney, Kim Foxx; and the DuPage County state’s attorney, Robert Berlin — had “failed to meet their burden to show an American tradition of firearm regulation at the time of the Founding that would allow Illinois to prohibit Plaintiffs — who hold concealed carry permits — from carrying concealed handguns for self-defense onto the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] and Metra [rail systems].”Judge Johnston added in his written ruling that he rejects the argument made by Ms. Foxx, in which she cited case law to show that the state government has the right of exclusion from the Second Amendment if it owns certain properties, in the same ways private property owners are afforded. “Under Ms. Foxx’s argument, demonstrators could be barred from the Daley Center Plaza, despite it being a quintessential public forum,” Judge Johnson wrote. “Ms. Foxx’s position — that government’s powers over public property are equivalent to those of private owners of property — is untenable and was rejected by the Supreme Court long ago.”Judge Johnson also took issue with the defense teams’ choice of citing a law that predated the Second Amendment in an effort to satisfy Bruen’s historical test standard, saying that it did “not serve as an appropriate historical analogue.”Precedent was set during a 2022 Supreme Court hearing in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, in which the Nine ruled 6-3 to overturn the mandate that required proper cause for a concealed carry license under the Sullivan Act of 1911, ruling that violated the 14th Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens the right to self-defense.On Tuesday, at an event unrelated to the case, Governor Pritzker called the ruling a “misguided decision” and said he hoped that it would be overturned.“Well, unfortunately, many of the conservative judges who’ve been appointed have misunderstood what it means to uphold public safety, and we still believe in the Second Amendment. It’s part of the Constitution. You have rights as a result of the Second Amendment. But there are limitations to that,” Mr. Pritzker said.

Judge Cites Constitution in Reversal of Illinois’s Concealed Carry Ban on Public Transit

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