Whether Illinois' sweeping ban on common and long-lawful arms violates the Second Amendment

QUESTION PRESENTED In 2015, a divided Seventh Circuit panel held that “states ... should be allowed to decide when civilians can possess” firearms that they deem, in their discretion, to be “military-grade,” so long as they leave their citizens with other “adequate means of selfdefense.” Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 408-10 (7th Cir. 2015). The future author of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), lambasted that decision as “flout[ing]” this Court’s “precedents” and “relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.” 136 S.Ct. 447, 449-50 (2015) (Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari). Yet after Bruen seemingly interred the reasoning of decisions like Friedman and Illinois responded not by conforming existing law to Bruen but with defiance—banning upwards of 1,000 previously lawful rifles, pistols, and shotguns, plus their respective parts and common magazines—a divided panel of the Seventh Circuit (that included Friedman’s author) resurrected Friedman, declaring its approach not only “basically compatible with,” but more “useful” than Bruen, which it derided as “slippery,” “circular,” and not “very helpful.” App.1921, 37-38. The majority then took its disregard of Bruen one giant step further, concluding that Illinois’ sweeping ban does not even implicate the Second Amendment. Not surprisingly, that decision drew a sharp dissent—and created a circuit split to boot. The question presented is: Whether Illinois’ sweeping ban on common and long-lawful arms violates the Second Amendment.