Federal court rules Illinois transit gun restrictions constitutional

A federal appeals court approved Illinois’ ban on carrying firearms on public transit, reversing a lower court ruling that found the gun restrictions passed more than a decade ago violated the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals handed down its decision on Tuesday, with Judge Joshua Kolar writing for the majority that the ban “is comfortably situated in a centuries-old practice of limiting firearms in sensitive and crowded, confined places.”

“The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to self-defense. It does not bar the people’s representatives from enacting laws—consistent with our nation’s historical tradition of regulation—that ensure public transportation systems remain free from accessible firearms,” Kolar wrote.

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“We are asked whether the state may temporarily disarm its citizens as they travel in crowded and confined metal tubes unlike anything the Founders envisioned,” the judge continued. “We draw from the lessons of our nation’s historical regulatory traditions and find no Second Amendment violation in such a regulation.”

Last year, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois sided with four plaintiffs who claimed that restricting people from carrying guns on public buses and trains was unconstitutional.

The district court relied on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, in which a new standard to determine whether a gun restriction is unconstitutional was established. To meet that standard, the government must show there is a “historical tradition of firearm regulation” that supports the law. The court said there were no analogous conditions justifying the gun restrictions on public transit.

But the appeals court found the ban was constitutionally protected.

“Our concern is whether the law aligns with the nation’s tradition,” the majority opinion reads. “We hold that [the law] is constitutional because it comports with regulatory principles that originated in the Founding era and continue to the present.”

The case, started by several Illinois gun owners and backed by gun rights groups, is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

While plaintiffs argued that the transit restrictions flouted the high court’s 2022 Bruen decision, the Seventh Circuit said the state had shown a sufficient historical basis for treating crowded public transport as a “sensitive place.”

The public transit firearm ban was implemented in 2013, when Illinois became the last state in the country to approve carrying concealed weapons in public.

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On top of prohibiting guns on buses and trains, the measure restricted gun possession in hospitals and some other public spaces.

Kolar, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, was joined in the majority opinion by Judge Kenneth Ripple, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan. Judge Amy St. Eve, who was selected by President Donald Trump during his first term, wrote a separate concurring opinion.

“I write separately to highlight a difficult jurisdictional question that today’s opinion prudently reserves for a future case: how to assess redressability where a plaintiff defines her injury as the inability to engage in protected activity—not the threat of prosecution for doing so—and an unchallenged law also prohibits that precise activity,” St. Eve wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.