The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently consolidated a number of high-profile cases related to controversial and unconstitutional Illinois state laws attempting to ban firearms and magazines.
The court consolidated four cases from the Southern District of Illinois with two cases from the Northern district.
The four cases from the Southern District of Illinois are:
The two cases from the Northern District of Illinois are:
- Bevis v. Naperville (also referred to as the NAGR case)
- Herrera v. Raoul
The new schedule calls for briefs throughout the month of June with oral arguments scheduled for June 29.
It’s no coincidence that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is both moving quickly to consolidate these cases and expedite the briefing and hearing schedule. For starters, the district courts have reached dramatically different decisions in cases with similar matters, some in direct opposition to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision.
The aggressive schedule is also the result of direct scrutiny from the Supreme Court itself. Recently, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees the Seventh Circuit, demanded that the lower court explain itself in reversing a pro-Second Amendment ruling from a district court judge with a one page order that offered no explanation.
The cases at hand all deal with the ban of firearms and magazines in common use, including popular semi-automatic rifles and the standard capacity magazines with which they are sold. According to Bruen, any such arms in common use are protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment and the nation’s history and tradition (or lack thereof) of firearm regulation.
There are many such cases making their way through the court systems throughout the country, but the Illinois cases have garnered atypically high levels of attention due to their blatant unconstitutionality and the courts’ belligerent stance against the Supreme Court.
We will continue to cover this story.
