Seventh Circuit Upholds Illinois AR-15 and Magazine Ban, Setting Up Supreme Court Showdown

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

CHICAGO, IL — The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Illinois can ban the most popular rifle in America.

In a 2-1 decision in Barnett v. Raoul, the panel reversed Judge Stephen McGlynn’s permanent injunction against the Protect Illinois Communities Act. Judge Amy St. Eve wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Frank Easterbrook. The court held that PICA’s restrictions on AR-15s and 30-round rifle magazines are “consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.”

Chief Judge Michael Brennan dissented, just as he did when this court blessed the same law at the preliminary stage in Bevis v. City of Naperville back in 2023.

This ruling caps a case with one of the most developed trial records in any Second Amendment challenge to date. After a four-day bench trial in September 2024, Judge McGlynn issued a 160-page opinion finding that PICA violates the Second Amendment and enjoined the entire law. The Seventh Circuit stayed that injunction almost immediately, which means the ban has stayed in effect this whole time. Thursday’s decision directs the district court to enter judgment for the state.

The majority’s reasoning should concern every gun owner in the country. Rather than apply the common use test from Heller, the panel leaned on 19th century Bowie knife regulations as historical justification for banning a rifle owned by millions of law-abiding Americans. The court acknowledged the Act has no historical twin. It upheld the ban anyway, reasoning that legislatures have long restricted “particularly dangerous” weapons and that AR-15s paired with 30-round magazines represent a dramatic technological change enabling unprecedented societal concerns.

The panel also rejected the plaintiffs’ facial challenge outright, holding they failed to show the law is invalid in every application. And it upheld PICA’s registration requirement, comparing the endorsement affidavit process to a shall-issue licensing regime.

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Chief Judge Brennan’s dissent is worth reading in full. He wrote that the people “have overwhelmingly chosen the AR-15 rifle and its magazine as their weapon of choice,” and that ends the inquiry under Heller. He pointed out that AR-15s are legal in 41 states, that millions are in circulation, and that even one of the state’s own expert witnesses, retired Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey, keeps an AR-15 for home defense. Brennan also accused the majority of inventing a “particularly dangerous weapons” tradition the Supreme Court has never recognized, effectively letting judges rather than the American people decide which arms deserve protection.

There are two important limits on Thursday’s ruling. The panel decided only the Act’s application to AR-15s and 30-round rifle magazines. It expressly left the ban’s application to pistols, shotguns, and handgun magazines open to future as-applied challenges. And the majority itself acknowledged the elephant in the room: on June 30, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, two assault weapon ban cases. The AR-15 question is finally headed to the high court.

Justice Thomas warned after the Bevis cert denial that if the Seventh Circuit ultimately allowed Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, the Court can and should review that decision. That moment has arrived. The Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Illinois State Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the other plaintiffs now have a final judgment to take up.

We’ll keep tracking Barnett v. Raoul out of the Seventh Circuit, along with Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins at the Supreme Court next term.