Hearing on Illinois Gun Ban Offers Gun Rights Groups a Hint of Hope

If Illinois has ever been friendly to guns and gun owners, I sure don’t remember it. It’s always been an anti-gun paradise, complete with gangland murders throughout the Chicagoland. Those prompt further gun control actions, which don’t do anything, which prompt more, and so on. Then, lawmakers blame Indiana for the problem, even though Indiana doesn’t have the same issues, but the voters buy it, and the cycle continues.

It’s boring.

Especially since every bit of gun control gets challenged in court. At some point, you’d think they’d get tired of being in court all the time, but apparently not.

And while there’s not a slam dunk against them in their latest case, there’s reason for gun rights groups challenging the state’s gun ban to have hope.

With Illinois’ gun ban now in the hands of a three judge panel of the federal appeals court, some are plotting out what’s next.

Monday’s oral arguments featured challenging questions from Judge Amy St. Eve for both sides.

“Why haven’t you waived or forfeited that legislative fact argument by not raising it until your reply brief?” St. Eve asked the attorney defending the state law during oral arguments.

“You said 14 to 18 million legally own them for legal purposes, self-defense. But there are also these statistics on the other side. Does that factor in with the nuanced approach or the societal concerns?” St. Eve later asked plaintiffs arguing against the law.

St. Eves is new to the panel after Diane Wood, who ruled against the plaintiffs in 2023, retired. The other judges on the panel split in 2023, Judge Michael Brennan with the plaintiffs and Judge Frank Easterbrook with the state.

Gun rights advocate Todd Vandermyde said it’s hard to tell which way the case goes with St. Eve on the panel.

“We went in there expecting to lose. We walked out of there with hope that, you know, that St. Eve was being reasonable and honest in her questions,” Vandermyde told The Center Square.

You can’t always tell which way a case is going based on the questions being asked, but most of the time, you can get a good idea of where it’s going. This isn’t a slam dunk that they’ll get the ruling they want–this entire part of the judicial process is mostly there so it can go further up the food chain–but it’s still nice to know that there’s a chance.

The fact that the Department of Justice argued on behalf of the plaintiffs likely didn’t hurt, either. I’m mostly bothered by the fact that their doing so was so historic. The DOJ should be in the business of defending gun rights, just as it’s in the business of defending freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizures.

We’ll have to wait and see if the hope is misplaced or not, but even if it is, this will hopefully continue up the chain until the Supreme Court takes it, then spikes this stupidity like a volleyball. The restrictions are unconstitutional, and we all know it. Let’s just put an end to them once and for all.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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