Pritzker: DOJ telling court IL’s gun ban is unconstitutional is
‘wrongheaded’
[June 17, 2025]
By Greg Bishop | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Justice is telling a
federal appeals court that Illinois’ gun and magazine ban is
unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is
accepting briefs in the lawsuit challenging Illinois’ 2023 ban on
semi-automatic firearms and magazines over certain capacities. The
lawsuit comes from the Southern District of Illinois where a federal
judge last fall found the law violates the Second Amendment to keep and
bear arms.
Last month, the state filed its appeal briefs arguing the ban on more
than 170 semi-automatic firearms, including the popular AR-15 platforms,
restricts dangerous firearms and addresses societal concerns about mass
shootings.
The four plaintiffs groups filed their reply briefs earlier this month
arguing there is no historical analog from the country’s founding era of
governments banning commonly owned firearms.
In a filing siding with plaintiffs Friday, attorneys for the DOJ said
the district judge got it right that Illinois’ ban on AR-15s and similar
firearms is unconstitutional because they are commonly owned for lawful
purposes.
“History confirms what the Second Amendment’s text suggests: Possessing
weapons for the common defense was a core aspect of the preexisting
right to keep and bear arms that the Founders codified in the Second
Amendment,” the filing said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker reacted Monday.
“Look, change of administration, that’s their, you know, this is their,
you know, they obviously don’t understand the damage that is being done
across the country where there are no assault weapons bans,” Pritzker
said.
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Pritzker said opponents of the ban don’t accept the positives of
restricting access to firearms, as he says was done temporarily by
the federal government in the 1990s.
“The number of killings went down significantly and so they're’
just, they’re making, they’re just wrongheaded on so many things,
and this is just one of those,” he said.
The DOJ’s filing notes that “mass public shootings accounted for
fewer than 1% of all firearm-related homicides in the United States”
between 1966 and 2023.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that “The Second
Amendment is not a second-class right,” and “See you in court,
Illinois.”
Also Friday, 35 state’s attorneys from across Illinois filed a brief
arguing the ban is unconstitutional.
“As prosecutors, we go to work every day to deter such crimes,
command justice for victims, put those who do harm to our
communities behind bars, and protect our residents by strengthening
the justice system and enforcing the rule of law,” the brief from
the Illinois state’s attorneys argues. “It is in service to that
same rule of law that we urge this honorable Court to support and
uphold the Constitutionally protected rights enshrined in the Second
Amendment – the right of the people to own commonplace firearms so
they can defend hearth and home and live freely with the means to
secure their own and others’ ultimate safety.”
The state is set to file its final briefs in the case in the weeks
ahead, before oral arguments are scheduled by the appeals court. The
case could be the next gun ban challenge to make it to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
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