The Illinois Supreme Court delivered a win to Second Amendment advocates in the Prairie State, striking down stringent gun control laws last week in favor of the right to bear arms.
The state’s Supreme Court handed down a 7-0 ruling in the case People v. Aguilar late last week, holding state laws prohibiting citizens from carrying firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment. The laws previously barred Illini from carrying a gun outside of their home or business and were deemed unconstitutional.
“…in concluding that the second amendment protects the right to possess and use a firearm for self-defense outside the home, we are in no way saying that such a right is unlimited or is not subject to meaningful regulation,” the court wrote in its opinion. “That said, we cannot escape the reality that, in this case, we are not dealing with a reasonable regulation but with a comprehensive ban. … In other words, [the statute] amounts to a wholesale statutory ban on the exercise by the United States Constitution, as constructed by the United States Supreme Court.”
According to the case, Alberto Aguilar, 17 at the time of his arrest, was found in possession of a firearm when police officers apprehended him and several comrades in the backyard of a friend’s home. Despite conflicting reports from police officers, Aguilar and his friends, the teen was accused of violating Illinois’s stringent firearm laws.
The court cited the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, which struck down statutes prohibiting citizens in both cities from keeping a firearm in their homes. The high Court ruled the laws violated the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, delivering a blow to gun-control advocates nationwide.
Illinois’s Supreme Court also cited a ruling from the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in the case Moore v. Madigan. The court held the Second Amendment right extended beyond the home, granting citizens’ the right to carry a firearm in public. Using the precedent set in this case, Illinois’s firearm laws served to the contrary and were therefore unconstitutional.
“Accordingly, as the Seventh Circuit did in Moore, we here hold that on its face, the [statute] violates the right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the second amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Illinois Supreme Court wrote in its decision.
Illinois is known for its strict gun control laws, especially since falling under the leadership of Govs. Rod Blagojevich (D) and Pat Quinn (D). According to Breitbart, it is unknown whether or not Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
