by William Kirk
Hello again everyone. Welcome to Washington Gun Law tv. I'm Washington Gun Law President William Kirk. Thanks for joining us. Hey, Illinois. Illinois. It's been a long time since we got to talk and it's been even longer since I had any kind of good news to share with you and was doing a little geeking out as gun law Junior was driving me across the state. That's the Columbia River right behind me here in beautiful central Washington. Lo and behold, I heard about a big ruling out of Rockford, Illinois, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, also home of America's hardest working rock and roll ban. Of course, that is cheap trick, but hey, listen, your public transportation carry ban has been struck down as unconstitutional. Now is it going to last forever? Hey, you got the seventh circuit set right over the top, so let's not hold our breath, but Illinois, we do get to actually enjoy a glorious moment and I wanted to share it with you. So today let's spend a few minutes and let's talk about huge ruling strikes down a major Illinois gun control law.
Okay, before we get going too far down the road, we're going down proud to announce that this video is being brought to you by Right to Bear. That's right, legal protection for self-protection. Listen, good lawyers aren't cheap. Cheap lawyers aren't good. You're not truly prepared unless you have right to bear back. You, you will always get an attorney answered hotline, so you will always have a confidential phone call. There are no cap limits for either civil or criminal defense. This covers all forms of self-defense. So from a fist to a firearm, from a fat lip to a dead body, you are covered and you will have some of the nation's most passionate two A attorneys in your corner fighting for you. And right now, if you visit my friends@protectwithbear.com and you use the promo code Wgl L, you'll receive 10% off. Listen, you need to protect yourself so that you can protect them.
Visit my Good friends@protectwithbear.com. Okay, Illinois. Here's the case we're talking about. We're talking about the case of Scho and th v Raul. This is a challenge to Illinois statutes 4 3 0 ILCS, section 66 and 65 a eight, which as you probably already know, means that no matter what your license status is, you may not carry a firearm on any form of public transportation or in a public transportation hub. Okay, now this is important. The court has granted the plaintiff's summary judgment motion on an as applied constitutional challenge, which we'll geek out in a minute and I'll get you all educated, but just so you understand, the ruling of the court is as follows. After an exhaustive review of the party's filings and the historical record is required by Supreme Court precedent, the court finds that the defendants failed to meet their burden to show an American tradition of firearms 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 and Metra.
Now, I want you to understand Illinois, that winning a summary judgment is a big deal for those of you who haven't geeked out on it before. A summary judgment is where one side says, Hey, listen, judge, there is no issue as to the facts of this case, and there is no issue as to what the law is. And when you apply the facts to the law, we win by a simple judgment of law and therefore there's no reason to even have a trial. Now, both sides had asked for summary judgment here, including the state of Illinois, and we're going to spend some time talking about one prosecutor. You guys all know her, Kim Fox, because even though the state of Illinois tried frantically to keep this law in place, nobody came up with crazier or more disingenuous arguments than Cook County attorney Kim Fox. And in fact, she was called out multiple times in this opinion by the court for some of the ludicrous and ridiculous arguments that she made.
Okay. Now, anytime, you know, have a good argument, the government is always going to try to get out of it on a standing, which is basically like, Hey, listen, none of these people have been actually been prosecuted for this. None of these people have actually been victimized by crime. So there's no harm here, no harm, no foul means no standing. Let's just throw the lawsuit out. Obviously the court was not persuaded. Then of course we get into some of the more ridiculous arguments such as, well, the Second Amendment doesn't even apply here. And that's where Kim Fox made a lot of ridiculous arguments including that, Hey, listen, if the government owns the building, then the building should really be treated as if it's private property completely owned by one entity. Of course, that happens to be government. And since we allow private property owners to restrict firearms everywhere, so too should the government, that was actually one of our arguments.
Her argument, which is breathtaking jaw dropping and eye popping is this, the ban applies only to property funded in whole or in part by Illinois. So Illinois has a proprietary interest in what it regulates because governments like private property owners enjoy an absolute right to exclude others from their property. Illinois may exclude whomever it wishes, and then the court unfortunately had to spend several more pages dealing with more of Ms. Fox's completely ludicrous arguments. Now, as you might imagine, there was at least one party who said, Hey, listen, the Second Amendment is not even implicated here because now we're going to get into a brewing analysis and with a brewing analysis, as you know Illinois, we're always going to ask ourselves first, does the plain text of the Second Amendment cover the activity? Well, the activity here is carrying a firearm for self-defense. So clearly it is covered by the Second Amendment, and the state of Illinois was willing to concede that Ms. Fox, however, was not willing to concede that she first argues that the firearms concealed carry ACT's ban does not infringe on plaintiff's right to keep and bear arms.
And so their proposed conduct and its violation of the ban don't fall under the Second Amendment's protection. She compares the definition of infringe and a bridge from the First Amendment, relying on dictionary definitions from 1755 and 1773 to argue that infringe must denote a total destruction of a right more than mere abridgement. Okay, so now that everybody, except for Ms. Fox agrees that the plain text of the Second Amendment covers this activity here, it now becomes the government's job to try to justify these regulations through historical analogs and in typical governmental fashion. Yeah, there's a lot of stretches, there's a lot of creativity, so we'll give 'em an A for effort. But to get to the punchline, I just want you to know that ultimately the court made the following ruling so as not to bury the lead. The court finds that the defendants have failed to meet their burden.
The failure is dispositive, still mindful of the Seventh Circuit's directive to develop a full record in the trial court. The court will address the party's many arguments relating to historical analogs and other possible approaches to analyze the constitutionality of the firearm. Concealed carry acts prohibition against carrying concealed firearms on public transportation. And then the government goes through a lot of the usual suspects and some very unique ones. I have 'em written down here, the statute of North Hampton from 1328. That's one that has been used multiple times, and the brewing court specifically rejected the black Acts. I didn't even know what black acts were. This was the prohibition against running around in the woods with a firearm if your face was covered, concealed carry laws, railways, the prohibition on firearms on railways. So they actually tried to use private entities and their prohibition against firearms on private railways to extrapolate that into allowing for government prohibition.
You can't make this theft up. They went through many of the sensitive places, but again, as we know, when we take a look at what sorts of sensitive places we have a historical tradition of, we're really talking about governmental buildings from places where government actually is conducting business in polling places. Beyond that, there really is not a tradition of banning firearms from what we call sensitive places. This court views the sensitive places doctrine as but one method for demonstrating a historical analog. Earlier the court analyzed the party's arguments regarding whether historical tradition existed and whether the historical regulations part of that tradition were analogous to the firearm. Concealed carry Acts banned today, the Sensitive Places doctrine merely provides a shortcut for the former because the Supreme Court has stated there to be a longstanding tradition of prohibiting firearm in sensitive places. Now, the plaintiffs actually offered a couple of their own hysterical analogues to justify the fact that actually it was almost rather expected that a person would be armed horse drawn omnibus or what we like to call wagon trains and then also public ferries.
And the funny thing is, in both those instances, not only was it permitted for a person to have a firearm, it was almost expected and in some cases actually requested that people have firearms. And what was the reason for it? Oh, to protect everyone's safety. Similar to why a person would carry a firearm onto public transportation. Okay, like I mentioned earlier, the court has granted a summary judgment on an as applied challenge. A facial challenge to a statute is where the plaintiffs would say, listen, under no circumstances whatsoever, there's not any conceivable possibility in which this law could constitutionally be applied. That's not what the plaintiffs are claiming here. What they were claiming is as it relates to these name plaintiffs, and we apply the law to them in these circumstances, the law is unconstitutional. The court has agreed with it remedies, what is the remedy?
We always need a remedy, right? You can't have a ruling unless you have a remedy. The court's ruling is as follows, plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted. In part, the court grants the declaratory relief against Kwame Raul, Kimberly Fox, and Robert Berlin in their official capacities that the firearm concealed carry Acts ban on carrying concealed firearms on public transportation as defined in this statute, violates the Second Amendment as applied to, and then it lists the named plaintiff. So Illinois, does this mean that everybody gets to carry a firearm starting tomorrow on public transportation? No, it does not. It means that these plaintiffs do. Now, does this also mean that this law is likely to crumble? Well, listen, a granting of a summary judgment is normally a very, very good sign. However, we have the seventh circuit sitting right on top of it, and we've already seen what the Seventh Circuit thinks of the Second Amendment.
We've already seen what the Seventh Circuit thinks of lawful and responsible gun owners in the state of Illinois. My prediction here is that this opinion is not going to last, that it will be eventually overturned by the Seventh Circuit. But you know what, Illinois, we don't get to celebrate very often, so let's enjoy it. Why we can. The case once again is show and Tal the Raul. We'll go ahead and link up the court's order down below so that you guys can geek out on it for yourself. Maybe you got an idea for a video we want to be doing around here. If you do, go ahead and click on that link right there and let us know. A lot of the good ideas we have around here are not our ideas at all. Maybe you just want to subscribe to our monthly newsletter. The ability to do that is all down there in the description box. And then finally, and most importantly, let's remember that part of being a lawful and responsible gun owner, like we talk about all the time here, is to know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself from the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. Thanks for watching and stay safe.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJ2vaZu9pA
Credit: William Kirk Washington Gun Law