Illinois gun rights groups ask appeals court to review Texas pistol brace ruling

Recent cases challenging weapons laws in other states could have an impact on the case pending against Illinois’ gun and magazine ban.

The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that includes Illinois still has the consolidated cases challenging the state’s gun and magazine ban under review. A three judge panel heard the case June 29.

Since then, Ninth Circuit rulings in August out of Hawaii against butterfly knife prohibitions and in September out of California against magazine bans have been entered. Tuesday, a Fifth Circuit federal appeals court in Texas ruled against the ATF’s pistol brace rule.

Gun rights advocate Todd Vandermyde said these stack up as supplemental authority for their Illinois challenge.

“They said ‘in common use.’ They said ‘these are not dangerous … and unusual.’ They talked about how gunsmithing is. All these things we have been arguing, the state has been arguing the opposite side of it,” Vandermyde told WMAY. “And we have a federal judge that basically validated all that we put in our lawsuit against the state of Illinois and eviscerated the state argument.”

Plaintiffs have asked the appeals court judges to take note of the Texas case. The state has yet to respond to that filing. Similar notes have been filed requesting they consider the Hawaii and California cases.

“I think that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals knows what they have to do,” Vandermyde said.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office filed with the appeals court that the Ninth Circuit has already stayed the California magazine ban decision Duncan v. Bonta, “which conflicts with every decision addressing laws restricting large-capacity magazines following New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.”

For the Hawaii butterfly knife case Teter v. Lopez, Illinois as defendants in the Seventh Circuit said that dealt with blades. Illinois’ law deals with firearms.

“Here, the plain-text analysis must focus on whether accessories (large-capacity magazines) are “arms” and whether specific types of firearms (assault weapons) fall within the plain text. Barnett State Br. 16-17. Teter sheds no light on either question,” Raoul’s office said in a court filing.