“(The Illinois Communities Protection Act) is an unconstitutional affront to the Second Amendment and must be prohibited,” federal Judge Stephen McGlynn wrote Friday in a 168-page document. decision. “The Government cannot deprive law-abiding citizens of their guaranteed right to self-defense as a criminal means. The Court will stay the execution of the permanent injunction for a period of thirty (30) days from the date of this Order.”

Illinois banned the sale and possession of more than 170 semi-automatic firearms and magazines of certain capacities in January 2023. Federal lawsuits were filed in the weeks that followed.

The state argues that the banned firearms are too similar to military firearms, are dangerous and unusual, and their ban is for public safety. The plaintiffs argue that banning commonly owned firearms violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

McGlynn consolidated four consolidated cases in federal court for the Southern District of Illinois in spring 2023. After granting a preliminary injunction against the law in April 2023, the state appealed. McGlynn’s preliminary injunction lasted six days before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stayed McGlynn’s order and then ruled in favor of the state on preliminary grounds.

The case then returned to district court, where McGlynn held a four-day trial in September. After the litigants filed final briefs last month, McGlynn issued his ruling on the final sentence on Friday.

“The Court is also not convinced that weapons like the AR-15 and its relatives are ‘dangerous and unusual,’” McGlynn wrote.

McGlynn also criticized the state’s ban on limiting magazine capacity.

“(T)his Court holds that these devices are also in common use and have legitimate self-defense purposes,” the judge wrote. “For reloaders, every shot is important in a self-defense scenario: reloading takes away a lot of time during which the defender can be hurt or injured.”

When preliminary issues were debated in the appeals court, the majority of the three-judge panel argued that semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 were too similar to military firearms that can switch to fully automatic. McGlynn rejected that with his final sentencing order Friday.

“Therefore, the Court holds that ‘military use’ refers to weapons that are selected, acquired, tested, and issued to military members for use in combat,” he wrote. “With this in mind, none of the weapons, magazines or accessories prohibited by PICA can be considered ‘military grade,’ as they were not issued to the military for use in combat.”

Supporters of the gun ban say the law was necessary to keep people safe from bad actors who might use such firearms in a mass shooting, as was done in Highland Park on July 4, 2022.

“While the Court sympathizes with those who have lost loved ones to gun violence, such tragedies are not an excuse to restrict the rights guaranteed to the Illinois public by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” he wrote McGlynn. “Regardless of the desire of state governments to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens under the guise of controlling crime, the Second Amendment conclusively protects the right of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves using common weapons. “.

Ultimately, McGlynn said the government failed to meet the burden of showing that the history and tradition of firearms regulations support PICA’s “broad sweep,” which covers hundreds of gun models, magazines and accessories used. by tens of millions of law-abiding American citizens. .”

The Second Amendment Foundation praised McGlynn’s ruling.

“This is a major victory for the Second Amendment Foundation and the right to keep and bear arms,” said SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The gun ban lobby and its bought-and-paid-for politicians have just suffered a major defeat.”

An appeal is expected from the state to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.