Javier Herrera v. Kwame Raoul

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-1353

ROBERT BEVIS, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY OF NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS and JASON ARRES,

Defendants-Appellees,

and

THE STATE OF ILLINOIS,

Intervening Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:22-cv-04775 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge.

___________________

No. 23-1793

JAVIER HERRERA,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

KWAME RAOUL, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

2 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:23-cv-00532 — Lindsay C. Jenkins, Judge.

___________________

No. 23-1825 1

CALEB BARNETT, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

KWAME RAOUL and BRENDAN F. KELLY,

Defendants-Appellants.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:23-cv-00209-SPM — Stephen P. McGlynn, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JUNE 29, 2023 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 3, 2023

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, WOOD, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge. The Second Amendment to the Con-

stitution recognizes an individual right to “keep and bear

Arms.” Of that there can be no doubt, in the wake of the

1 Consolidated with No. 23-1826, Harrel v. Raoul (S.D. Ill. No. 3:23-cv-

00141-SPM); No. 23-1827, Langley v. Kelly (S.D. Ill. No. 3:23-cv-00192-SPM);

and No. 23-1828, Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, et al. v. Pritzker (S.D.

Ill. No. 3:23-cv-00215-SPM).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 3

Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554

U.S. 570 (2008); McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742

(2010); Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016) (per cu-

riam); and New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S.

Ct. 2111 (2022). But as we know from long experience with

other fundamental rights, such as the right to free speech, the

right peaceably to assemble, the right to vote, and the right to

free exercise of religion, even the most important personal

freedoms have their limits. Government may punish a delib-

erately false fire alarm; it may condition free assembly on the

issuance of a permit; it may require voters to present a valid

identification card; and it may punish child abuse even if it is

done in the name of religion. The right enshrined in the Sec-

ond Amendment is no different.

The present cases, which we have consolidated for dispo-

sition, relate to the types of “Arms” that are covered by the

Second Amendment. 2 This presents a line-drawing problem.

Everyone can agree that a personal handgun, used for self-

defense, is one of those Arms that law-abiding citizens must

be free to “keep and bear.” Everyone can also agree, we hope,

that a nuclear weapon such as the now-retired M388 Davy

Crockett system, with its 51-pound W54 warhead, can be re-

served for the military, even though it is light enough for one

person to carry.3 Many weapons, however, lie between these

2 For ease of exposition, we will use the term Arms to refer to those

weapons that fall within the scope of the Second Amendment.

3 See Matthew Seelinger, The M28/M29 Davy Crockett Nuclear Weapon

System, THE ARMY HISTORICAL FOUNDATION, https://armyhistory.org/the-

m28m29-davy-crockett-nuclear-weapon-system/; see also Jeff Schogol,

The Story of the ‘Davy Crockett,’ a Nuclear Recoilless Rifle Once Fielded by the

4 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

extremes. The State of Illinois, in the legislation that lies at the

heart of these cases, has decided to regulate assault weapons

and high-capacity magazines—a decision that is valid only if

the regulated weapons lie on the military side of that line and

thus are not within the class of Arms protected by the Second

Amendment. Several municipalities have done the same. The

plaintiffs in these cases challenge that conclusion. Using the

tools of history and tradition to which the Supreme Court di-

rected us in Heller and Bruen, we conclude that the state and

the affected subdivisions have a strong likelihood of success

in the pending litigation. We therefore affirm the decisions of

the district courts in appeals No. 23-1353 and 23-1793 refusing

to enjoin these laws, and we vacate the injunction issued by

the district court in appeals No. 23-1825, 23-1826, 23-1827, and

23-1828.

I. Background

A. The Act

At the center of these appeals lies a new statute in Illinois

that took effect on January 10, 2023—a measure called the Pro-

tect Illinois Communities Act, Pub. Act 102-1116 (2023) (“the

Act”). Some of the consolidated cases also implicate three mu-

nicipal laws that cover much of the same ground, though the

details vary: Cook County Ordinances No. 54-210 to 54-215;

City of Chicago Municipal Ordinances 8-20-010 to 8-20-100;

and City of Naperville Ordinances No. 3-19-1 to 3-19-3. We

make note of the municipal laws only when their specific pro-

visions affect our analysis. For the interested reader, the chart

US Army, TASK & PURPOSE (Sept. 19, 2022), https://taskandpur-

pose.com/history/army-davy-crockett-tactical-nuclear-weapon/.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 5

in the Appendix to this opinion summarizes the relevant dif-

ferences among these enactments.

The Act is a sprawling piece of legislation made up of 99

sections that cover a vast array of regulatory and record-keep-

ing matters, along with the provisions of interest here. The

Act’s wide scope led to a challenge in Illinois’s courts for fail-

ing to comply with state-law requirements such as the single-

subject rule, the three-readings requirement, and the ban on

special legislation. See Caulkins v. Pritzker, 2023 IL 129453

(Aug. 11, 2023). The state supreme court upheld the Act

against those contentions, and it also ruled that the Act did

not violate the state constitution’s equal protection clause. It

did not reach any argument about the Second Amendment,

because it found that the plaintiffs had waived any reliance

on that theory. The plaintiffs in these cases have not argued

that the Act is invalid under state law.

The critical part of the Act for our purposes is its treatment

of so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

Those sections institute something close to a ban on “assault

weapons,” through the Act’s general prohibitions of the sale,

possession, and use of a defined set of weapons. The Act also

bans large-capacity magazines. The plaintiffs have not speci-

fied exactly which provisions of the Act they believe are un-

constitutional under the Second Amendment, but we assume

that their principal targets are 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9 and 5/24-1.10.

Section 5/24-1.9 addresses the “[m]anufacture, possession, de-

livery, sale, and purchase of assault weapons, .50 caliber rifles,

and .50 caliber cartridges,” and section 5/24-1.10 deals with

“[m]anufacture, delivery, sale, and possession of large capac-

ity ammunition feeding devices.”

6 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

The Act defines “assault weapon” using language that is

largely borrowed from the expired Federal Assault Weapons

Ban, which was a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and

Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-322, 108 Stat.

1796. 4 The Illinois Act bans certain semiautomatic rifles and

pistols. A semiautomatic rifle falls under the Act’s proscrip-

tions if it has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and

one or more of the following features: a pistol grip or

thumbhole stock; any feature capable of functioning as a pro-

truding grip for the non-trigger hand; a folding, telescoping,

thumbhole, or detachable stock or a stock that otherwise en-

hances the concealability of the weapon; a flash suppressor; a

grenade launcher; or a barrel shroud. 720 ILCS 5/24-

1.9(a)(1)(A). The definition also includes a semiautomatic rifle

with a fixed magazine capacity of greater than 10 rounds, ex-

cept those that accept only .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. Id.

5/24-1.9(a)(1)(B). Finally, there is a lengthy list of particular

models that fall within the scope of the statute. See 5/24-

1.9(a)(1)(J). Subpart (i) of that section covers all AK weapons,

and subpart (ii) covers all AR types. In the remainder of this

opinion, we will refer often to the AR-15 as a paradigmatic

example of the kind of weapon the statute covers. We use it

only illustratively, however; our analysis covers everything

mentioned in the Act.

The Act makes it unlawful for any person within Illinois

knowingly to “manufacture, deliver, sell, import, or pur-

chase … an assault weapon, assault weapon attachment, .50

caliber rifle, or .50 caliber cartridge.” Id. 5/24-1.9(b). (Unless

the context requires otherwise, from this point we use the

4 The more formal name of the relevant part of the law was the Public

Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 7

term “assault weapon” to cover all four covered items, in the

interest of readability.) With some exceptions, the Act also

makes it unlawful as of January 1, 2024, for any person within

the state knowingly to “possess an assault weapon.” Id.

5/24-1.9(c).

There are two significant exceptions to these prohibitions.

Using the terminology the Supreme Court of Illinois adopted

in Caulkins, the first is for “trained professionals” and the sec-

ond is for “grandfathered individuals.” 2023 IL 129453 at ¶ 1.

The list of trained professionals, set forth in 5/24-1.9(e), in-

cludes peace officers; qualified active and retired law-enforce-

ment officers; prison wardens and “keepers”; members of the

Armed Services, Reserves, or Illinois National Guard; nuclear

facility guards; and licensed private security personnel. Id.

5/24-1.9(e)(1)–(7). The “grandfather” provision can be found

at 5/24-1.9(d). It states that the Act’s prohibitions do “not ap-

ply to a person’s possession of an assault weapon … if the

person lawfully possessed” that weapon as of the effective

date of the law and then the person “provide[s] in an endorse-

ment affidavit, prior to January 1, 2024, under oath or affirma-

tion” certain specified information to the Illinois State Police.

Id. 5/24-1.9(d)(1)–(3). A completed endorsement affidavit

“creates a rebuttable presumption that the person is entitled

to possess and transport the assault weapon.” Id. 5/24-1.9(d),

at ¶ 2. The Act restricts the places where authorized persons

may possess their weapons to the following: (1) private prop-

erty owned or controlled by the person; (2) other private

property, with the express permission of the owner or con-

troller; (3) premises of a licensed firearms dealer or gunsmith

for lawful repairs; (4) licensed firing ranges or sport shooting

competition venues; and (5) in transit to or from any of those

locations, if the weapon is unloaded and in a container. Id.

8 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

5/24-1.9(d), at ¶ 3(1)–(5). The parties have not focused on

these locational restrictions, and so neither will we.

Section 5/24-1.10 sets out the rules for large-capacity am-

munition feeding devices. They are defined as a magazine (or

similar mechanism) that can accept “more than 10 rounds of

ammunition for long guns and more than 15 rounds of am-

munition for handguns.” Id. 5/24-1.10(a), at ¶ 3(1). This provi-

sion also grandfathers in those who lawfully possessed a

large-capacity magazine before the effective date of the Act,

so long as the device is used in a permitted place. Id. 5/24-

1.10(d). It has an analogous set of exceptions for trained pro-

fessionals. Id. 5/24-10(d), at ¶ 1.

Broadly speaking, violations of the assault-weapon ban

are classified as felonies when the violation involves guns or

gun parts, and as misdemeanors when the violation involves

.50 caliber cartridges. Id. 5/24-1(b).

B. The Lawsuits

The ink was barely dry on the pages of the Act when liti-

gation began. Before us now are six related cases, in which 26

plaintiffs have challenged the Act and the three municipal or-

dinances we mentioned earlier. All of the challengers contend

that the legislation in question violates their Second Amend-

ment right to keep and bear Arms. A brief review of the indi-

vidual cases should help keep the issues straight.

1. Bevis v. City of Naperville (No. 23-2353)

This case, filed in the Northern District of Illinois, was

brought by three parties: (1) Robert Bevis, a Naperville resi-

dent and owner of Law Weapons, Inc.; (2) Law Weapons, Inc.,

a commercial firearms store in Naperville; and (3) the Na-

tional Association for Gun Rights. We refer to them

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 9

collectively as Bevis. Once the suit was filed and landed in

Judge Kendall’s court, Bevis’s first step was to seek a prelimi-

nary injunction against both the Naperville ordinance and the

Act. They were unsuccessful. Applying the standard four-

part test for preliminary injunctions established in Winter v.

Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008),

Judge Kendall decided that the plaintiffs were unlikely to suc-

ceed on the merits. This would have been an easy conclusion

under our decision in Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784

F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015), but the judge was concerned that

Friedman’s methodology may have been undermined by

Bruen, and so she undertook a fresh analysis of the merits us-

ing only Bruen. (We address Friedman’s continuing vitality be-

low.)

Judge Kendall’s efforts convinced her that “[t]he history of

firearm regulation … establishes that governments enjoy the

ability to regulate highly dangerous arms (and related dan-

gerous accessories).” Bevis v. City of Naperville, No. 22 C 4775,

2023 WL 2077392, at *14 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 17, 2023). She took par-

ticular note of longstanding regulations on Bowie knives and

other “melee weapons.” Id. at *10–11. Next, she found that as-

sault weapons fit within this tradition because they pose “an

exceptional danger” compared with “standard self-defense

weapons such as handguns.” Id. at *14. Critically for our pur-

poses, after citing statistics about the lethality and injury rates

of assault weapons, id., she highlighted the fact that “[a]ssault

rifles can … be easily converted to … mimic military-grade

machine guns,” id. at *15. Quoting from the Fourth Circuit,

she observed that

the very features that qualify a firearm as a

banned assault weapon—such as flash

10 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

suppressors, barrel shrouds, folding and tele-

scoping stocks, pistol grips, grenade launchers,

night sights, and the ability to accept bayonets

and large-capacity magazines—serve specific,

combat-functional ends.

Id. (quoting Kolbe v. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114, 137 (4th Cir. 2017) (en

banc), abrogated on other grounds by Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2126–27)

(cleaned up). Finally, the judge noted that the high-capacity

magazines exhibited similar dangers. Id.

This was enough, in her view, to show that the plaintiffs

were not likely to succeed on the merits. Quickly looking at

the other three criteria for a preliminary injunction, she also

found that without a presumption of irreparable harm related

to the alleged Second Amendment violation, plaintiffs could

not satisfy that factor. Bevis had not shown that the gun shop

would lose substantial sales because of the two laws, and the

organizational members retained other effective weapons for

self-defense. Id. at *16. Finally, Judge Kendall concluded that

neither the balance of equities nor the public interest favored

plaintiffs sufficiently to overcome the inadequate showing on

the other issues. Id. at *17.

2. Herrera v. Raoul (No. 23-1793)

The plaintiff in our next case, Javier Herrera, is a Chicago

emergency room doctor who owns several assault weapons

and large-capacity magazines. After the Act was passed, he

filed a suit seeking both a temporary restraining order and a

preliminary injunction against the Act, the Chicago ordi-

nance, and the Cook County ordinance. Unlike Bevis, he also

challenged the Act’s registration requirements (through

which the grandfathering provisions are administered). This

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 11

case was assigned to Judge Jenkins, who largely agreed with

the reasoning in Bevis. See Herrera v. Raoul, No. 23 CV 532,

2023 WL 3074799 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 25, 2023). She rejected

Hererra’s attempt to distinguish Bevis on the ground that his

suit focused on the defense of his home, rather than on the

public-carry right. Although she recognized that the analo-

gies to Bowie knives and melee weapons were not perfect, she

noted that Bruen did not demand a “dead ringer” or a “histor-

ical twin,” especially if there are “‘dramatic technological

changes’ or ‘unprecedented societal concerns’ [that] may re-

quire a ‘more nuanced approach.’” Id. at *7, *9 (quoting Bruen,

142 S. Ct. at 2133, 2132).

With respect to the need to register a covered weapon in

order to take advantage of the Act’s grandfathering provision,

Judge Jenkins first assured herself that the question was ripe

even though Herrera had not yet taken steps to register his

guns. Id. at *8. Herrera made clear that he intended to disobey

that law, that his intended conduct “[ran] afoul of a criminal

statute,” and that the effective date of the registration require-

ment was “sufficiently imminent.” Id. (quotations omitted).

On the merits, however, she concluded that Herrera was un-

likely to succeed because historical evidence showed that the

“colonies required gun registration in a variety of ways,” such

as colonial “muster” requirements and a variety of tax re-

quirements, “which in essence required that firearms be iden-

tified and disclosed to the government.” Id. at *9. She also took

note of several 19th- and 20th-century laws as evidence of a

“continuing tradition of state and national registration re-

quirements.” Id. She found support for her ruling in the Bruen

Court’s comment that “nothing in our analysis should be in-

terpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of existing ‘shall-

12 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

issue’ licensing laws.” Id. at *10 (quoting Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at

2138 n.9 (cleaned up)).

Although lack of likely success on the merits pointed

strongly toward denial of preliminary injunctive relief, Judge

Jenkins also looked briefly at the other three factors and found

that they pointed in the same direction. She rejected the argu-

ment that there is an established presumption of irreparable

harm for all Second Amendment challenges. Id. at *11. She

was also unpersuaded by Herrera’s argument that the laws

prevented him from protecting himself in his home and at-

tending his monthly SWAT training (because of the commute

time to retrieve his assault weapons from an out-of-county lo-

cation). Herrera owned other compliant guns suitable for self-

defense, and he had managed the commute since 2018. Id. at

*12. Lastly, she found that neither the public interest nor the

equities pushed the needle far enough to justify an injunction.

Id. at *13.

3. Barnett v. Raoul (No. 23-1825)

The perspective reflected in the third case, which arose in

the Southern District of Illinois, is quite different from the first

two. In Barnett and the three other cases that were consoli-

dated with it, the plaintiffs included individual gun owners,

commercial firearms dealers, and various organizations de-

voted to protecting and enhancing Second Amendment

rights. Like their counterparts in the Northern District, these

plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction against the Act. Un-

like the others, they succeeded. Judge McGlynn concluded

that because the plaintiffs had brought a facial challenge to

the Act, “the entirety of [the Act] as codified will be enjoined.”

Barnett v. Raoul, No. 3:23-cv-00209-SPM (Lead Case), 2023 WL

3160285, at *2 (S.D. Ill. Apr. 28, 2023). (We put to one side the

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 13

fact that there are many provisions of the Act that have noth-

ing to do with gun ownership or regulation. See generally

Pub. Act 102-1116 (2023). Presumably the judge did not mean

to enjoin them, but if that is so, then the injunction does not

comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65. That rule re-

quires an injunction to indicate clearly what is forbidden or

mandated—a rule necessitated by the fact that injunctions are

enforceable by contempt. We need not explore this further,

given our ultimate conclusion in these appeals.)

With obvious reference to the two sections of the Act that

address assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, Judge

McGlynn chose to start with the issue of irreparable injury,

rather than likelihood of success on the merits. He found that

there is a presumption of irreparable harm when plaintiffs

mount a facial challenge under the Second Amendment, and

even if there were not, these plaintiffs had shown irreparable

injury because the restrictions on their ability to buy or sell

the weapons and accessories covered by the Act limited their

right to armed self-defense. 2023 WL 3160285, at *4–5.

The judge then moved on to likelihood of success on the

merits. He rejected the defendants’ arguments that many of

the Act’s provisions regulated only accessories (such as

threaded barrels and pistol grips), which in themselves were

not the Arms protected by the Second Amendment. Those

items were “important corollar[ies] to the meaningful exercise

of the core right to possess firearms for self-defense.” Id. at *8

(quoting Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 708 (7th Cir.

2011)). He then moved on to consider whether the Act was

“consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm

regulation.” Id. at *9. For this purpose, he assigned to the de-

fendants the burden of “(1) demonstrat[ing] that the ‘arms’ in

14 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

[the Act] are not in ‘common use;’ and (2) ‘identify[ing] a well-

established and representative historical analogue’ to [the

Act].” Id. (quoting Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2128, 2133). He rejected

the defendants’ argument that the weapons had to be in com-

mon use for self-defense. The defendants failed to carry their

burden, he held, because they “focused almost entirely on

AR-15 rifles and their commonality or lack thereof” instead of

the many other weapons and accessories covered by the Act.

Id. at *10. Accepting an argument of the plaintiffs in the cases

now before us (as well as their amici curiae), the judge held

that AR-15s and large-capacity magazines are “in common

use” because a large number of people own them. Id.

Wrapping up, the judge characterized the defendants’

proposed historical analogues as inapt, because they were

simply concealed-carry regulations, not outright bans on pos-

session. Id. at *11. The balance of harms, in his view, decidedly

favored the plaintiffs, as (in his words) “there can be no harm

to a government agency when it is prevented from enforcing

an unconstitutional statute,” id. (cleaned up and quotation

omitted), and he saw no evidence in the record indicating

how the Act would help Illinois communities. He noted that

the Act “was purportedly enacted in response to the Highland

Park [mass] shooting,” id. at *12, but that fact was not enough

to overcome the injury it inflicted.

II. Governing Law

A. Preliminary Injunction Standard

As our account of the proceedings in the district courts

shows, we are not here today to rule definitively on the con-

stitutionality of the Act or any of the municipal ordinances.

The only issue before us concerns preliminary injunctive

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 15

relief. The Bevis and Herrera courts denied motions for such

an injunction, which would have suspended the operation of

720 ILCS 5/24-1.9 and 5/24-1.10 (and the corresponding Na-

perville, Chicago, and Cook County ordinances), and the Bar-

nett court granted the injunction (ostensibly against the entire

Act, as we mentioned). We entered a stay of the Barnett injunc-

tion pending the resolution of these interlocutory appeals,

which are authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1); the order stip-

ulated that the stay would remain in effect “until these ap-

peals have been resolved and the court’s mandate has is-

sued.”

As we mentioned earlier, the leading Supreme Court de-

cision establishing the standard for granting preliminary in-

junctive relief is Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council,

Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008). The Court summarized the pertinent

requirements as follows:

A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction

must establish that he is likely to succeed on the

merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable

harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that

the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that

an injunction is in the public interest.

Id. at 20. It elaborated on these factors in a later case dealing

with the criteria for staying a court decision, Nken v. Holder,

556 U.S. 418 (2009), noting there that “[t]here is substantial

overlap between [the criteria for a stay] and the factors gov-

erning preliminary injunctions.” Id. at 434 (citing Winter, 555

U.S. at 24). The two most important considerations are likeli-

hood of success on the merits and irreparable harm. Id. With

respect to the former, the Court said that “[i]t is not enough

that the chance of success on the merits be ‘better than

16 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

negligible.’” Id. (quoting and disapproving Sofinet v. INS, 188

F.3d 703, 707 (7th Cir. 1999)). Nor is a mere possibility enough.

Id. As we put it in Illinois Republican Party v. Pritzker, 973 F.3d

760, 763 (7th Cir. 2020), although the party seeking the injunc-

tion need not demonstrate likelihood of success by a prepon-

derance of the evidence, that party must nevertheless make a

“strong” showing that reveals how it proposes to prove its

case. Similarly, a mere possibility of irreparable harm will not

suffice. See Nken, 556 U.S. at 434–35; Winter, 555 U.S. at 22.

Decisions such as Winter and Nken reflect the fact that “[a]

preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy never

awarded as of right.” Winter, 555 U.S. at 24. The party seeking

the injunction bears the burden of showing that this type of

relief is warranted. Nken, 556 U.S. at 433–34. We must also

bear in mind, when a party is seeking to enjoin a statute, that

legislative enactments are entitled to a presumption of consti-

tutionality. See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 617 (1960)

(quoting Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 128 (1810)).

Though we carefully evaluate any claim that a statute violates

the Constitution, we assume that the legislative body—

whether Congress or a state legislature—was aware of consti-

tutional limitations and endeavored to follow them.

Finally, we note that a hybrid standard of review applies

to interlocutory review of a preliminary injunction: “we re-

view the district court’s findings of fact for clear error, its legal

conclusions de novo, and its balancing of the factors for a pre-

liminary injunction for abuse of discretion.” Doe v. University

of Southern Indiana, 43 F.4th 784, 791 (7th Cir. 2022) (brackets

and quotation omitted).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 17

B. The Second Amendment

The basic contours of the second article of the Bill of Rights

have become familiar, and so we will only summarize them

here. In a crisp, if not enigmatic, way, it says this: “A well reg-

ulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be

infringed.” U.S. CONST. amend. II. For many years, both the

Supreme Court and scholars thought that there was a relation

between the prefatory clause, which refers to the Militia, and

the operative clause, which refers to the right to keep and bear

Arms. See, e.g., ROBERT H. BORK, SLOUCHING TOWARDS

GOMORRAH: MODERN LIBERALISM AND AMERICAN DECLINE 166

(rev. ed. 2003). But in Heller the Supreme Court severed that

connection. Undertaking its own examination of the events

that led up to the Amendment’s inclusion in the Constitution,

it concluded that the Amendment recognized an individual

right to keep and bear Arms.

At the same time, Heller held that “[l]ike most rights, the

right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

554 U.S. at 626. It continued as follows:

From Blackstone through the 19th-century

cases, commentators and courts routinely ex-

plained that the right was not a right to keep

and carry any weapon whatsoever in any man-

ner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

Id. This opened up new frontiers of litigation: Which weapons

are covered? What manner of “keeping and bearing” is pro-

tected? What purpose must or may the user have? Which peo-

ple hold this right? The Heller Court recognized that there was

much left to be resolved. It did give some hints, however. One

18 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

important tea leaf for present purposes was its refusal to en-

dorse the idea that the Amendment protects “only those

weapons useful in warfare.” Id. at 624. It called this a “star-

tling reading,” since that would have implied that ma-

chineguns—quintessential weapons used exclusively by the

military, not private citizens—could not be regulated, in the

face of the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on those weap-

ons. Id.; see also Pub. L. No. 73-474, 48 Stat. 1236 (1934).

Perhaps the most important expansion of Heller occurred

in McDonald, in which the Supreme Court confirmed that the

Second Amendment, like the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and

Eighth Amendments, applies to the states through incorpora-

tion pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment. See 561 U.S. at

750. The late date of the McDonald decision—2010—explains

why there are so few cases exploring the Second Amendment

implications of state laws regulating weapons from the time

the Amendment became part of the Constitution (1791) to the

present. Under the view that prevailed until McDonald, the

states were free to regulate weapons in any way compatible

with their own constitutions. See generally Jeffrey S. Sutton,

51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Consti-

tutional Law (2018). And they did so in countless ways—a

point of some significance when we come to consider the his-

tory and tradition of regulation in this area.

After McDonald, most courts of appeals adopted a two-

step test for legality under the Second Amendment. See, e.g.,

Ezell, 651 F.3d at 702–03. Step one asked whether the “chal-

lenged firearms law regulates activity falling outside the

scope of the Second Amendment right as it was understood

[historically].” Id. If the regulated activity was unprotected,

then the law in question was not subject to further Second

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 19

Amendment review. If, however, history showed that the ac-

tivity was protected, or the evidence was inconclusive, step

two called on the court to balance the public benefit the gov-

ernment was seeking to achieve against the regulatory means

it selected, using a form of heightened scrutiny. Id. at 703.

Some courts, including our own, steered clear of that two-

step approach. That explains the path we chose in Friedman,

which dealt with exactly the same issue we face now: a ban

on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. Although

the district court in Bevis thought that the reasoning in Fried-

man might not have survived Bruen, we see Friedman as basi-

cally compatible with Bruen, insofar as Friedman anticipated

the need to rest the analysis on history, not on a free-form bal-

ancing test.

After briefly reviewing the holdings in Heller and McDon-

ald, Friedman turned to the question of the scope of the indi-

vidual right to keep and bear Arms. It began by summarizing

the Court’s own historical analysis in Heller:

[The Court] cautioned against interpreting the

[Heller] decision to cast doubt on “longstanding

prohibitions,” including the “historical tradi-

tion of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous

and unusual weapons.’” [554 U.S.] at 623, 627. It

observed that state militias, when called to ser-

vice, often had asked members to come armed

with the sort of weapons that were “in common

use at the time”, id. at 624, and it thought these

kinds of weapons (which have changed over the

years) are protected by the Second Amendment

in private hands, while military-grade weapons

(the sort that would be in a militia’s armory),

20 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

such as machine guns, and weapons especially

attractive to criminals, such as short-barreled

shotguns, are not. Id. at 624–25.

784 F.3d at 407–08. The plaintiffs in Friedman had contended

that “there is no ‘historical tradition’ of banning possession of

semi-automatic guns and large-capacity magazines.” Id. at

408. But, we observed, “this argument proves too much: its

logic extends to bans on machine guns, … [but] Heller deemed

a ban on private possession of machine guns to be obviously

valid.” Id. (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 624). That was so even

though states “didn’t begin to regulate private use of machine

guns until 1927,” and the federal government did not do so

until 1934. Id.

The critical question of “[h]ow weapons are sorted be-

tween private and military uses,” we noted, “has changed

over time.” Id. Anticipating Bruen, we rejected a historical fo-

cus on the 1920s, when these bans started to come into exist-

ence, and turned instead to the time of the Second Amend-

ment’s adoption. Id. With respect to the common ownership

and use question, we cautioned against circular reasoning:

Machine guns aren’t commonly owned for law-

ful purposes today because they are illegal;

semi-automatic weapons with large-capacity

magazines are owned more commonly because,

until recently (in some jurisdictions), they have

been legal. Yet it would be absurd to say that the

reason why a particular weapon can be banned

is that there is a statute banning it, so that it isn’t

commonly owned. A law’s existence can’t be the

source of its own constitutional validity.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 21

Id. at 409. 5 We were not persuaded by the plaintiffs’ efforts to

put semiautomatic weapons on the “private” or “mixed” side

of the line between private or mixed private/military weap-

ons, on the one hand, and weapons exclusively for military

use, on the other. We were reluctant to place semiautomatic

weapons in the former category for the simple reason that the

Heller Court had not done so. Instead, in distinguishing United

States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), we reaffirmed “the rule

that the Second Amendment does not authorize private per-

sons to possess weapons such as machine guns and sawed-off

shotguns that the government would not expect (or allow) cit-

izens to bring with them when the militia is called to service.”

784 F.3d at 408.

Conspicuously absent from our Friedman analysis is any

hint of the two-part test that Bruen disapproved. We looked

instead to the type of Arms that the Second Amendment has

always protected for private use and contrasted them with

weapons reserved for military use. We expressly declined to

subject Highland Park’s law to means-end scrutiny. Id. at 410.

Instead, we said, “we think it better to ask whether a regula-

tion bans weapons that were common at the time of ratifica-

tion or those that have ‘some reasonable relationship to the

preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,’ … and

whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-

defense.” Id. (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 622 (quoting Miller,

307 U.S. at 178)). This approach, we believe, is consistent with

the methodology approved in Bruen.

5 The dissent embraces the reasoning we rejected in Friedman; it asserts

that circularity concerns are more hypothetical than actual. See post at 62

n.4 (citing Friedman, 784 F.3d at 416 n.5 (Manion, J., dissenting)).

22 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Pointing to Wilson v. Cook County, 937 F.3d 1028 (7th Cir.

2019) (per curiam), the dissent sees Friedman differently. It

notes that one can find language in Wilson that characterizes

Friedman as “evaluat[ing] the importance of the reasons for

the [assault weapons ban] to determine whether they justified

the ban’s intrusion on Second Amendment rights.” 937 F.3d

at 1036. But this language is pure dicta. It may represent the

Wilson panel’s attempt to put a gloss on Friedman, but it did

not change the actual legal test that Friedman applied. The is-

sue in Wilson, recall, was whether Friedman could be recon-

ciled with Ezell, which struck down Chicago’s ban on firing

ranges within city limits. See id. at 1035. On that issue, Wilson

found that “Friedman fits comfortably under the umbrella of

Ezell” and that it “represents the application and extension of

its principles to the specific context of a ban on assault weap-

ons and large-capacity magazines.” Id. at 1036. Indeed, Wilson

is notable for what it did not say: it never said that Friedman

had used intermediate scrutiny or means-end balancing; and

it did not depict Friedman as evaluating only the importance

of the reasons behind the ordinance at issue there. The fleeting

reference to the city’s reasons for adopting the ordinance, in

short, was not part of the panel’s reasoning, and so, while cer-

tainly disapproved in Bruen, does not undermine the central

analysis in the case.

We have now referred many times to Bruen, and finally, it

takes center stage. Rejecting the two-part test adopted by the

courts of appeals (which it derided as having “one step too

many,” 142 S. Ct. at 2127), the Bruen Court elaborated on the

test that Heller requires. See 142 S. Ct. at 2129–30. First, it said,

the trial court must decide whether “the Second Amend-

ment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct.” Id. If so,

then “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.”

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 23

Id. at 2130. The analysis then moves to the second step, which

calls on the “government [to] justify its regulation by demon-

strating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradi-

tion of firearm regulation.” Id. The Court predicted that this

second step would be relatively easy in some instances, when

historical analogues are easy to find. But in other instances, it

recognized that the task would be challenging. It singled out

“cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dra-

matic technological changes,” which “may require a more nu-

anced approach.” Id. at 2132.

Bruen also confirmed some additional points that inform

our analysis. First, the Court said (not for the first time) that

the Arms protected by the Second Amendment are not limited

to those that were in existence at the time of its ratification,

1791, or at the time the Fourteenth Amendment took effect,

1868. Id. Second, the search is for a historical regulation that is

relevantly similar, not identical. Bearing in mind that “the cen-

tral component” of the Second Amendment right is individual

self-defense, id. at 2133 (quoting McDonald, 561 U.S. at 767

(emphasis in original)), the question is whether the modern

and historical regulations “impose a comparable burden on

the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden is

comparably justified,” id. And the Court made it clear that this

search was a meaningful one, not just a subterfuge for either

upholding or striking down all modern laws:

[A]nalogical reasoning under the Second

Amendment is neither a regulatory straight-

jacket nor a regulatory blank check. On the one

hand, courts should not uphold every modern

law that remotely resembles a historical ana-

logue, because doing so risk[s] endorsing

24 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

outliers that our ancestors would never have ac-

cepted. On the other hand, analogical reasoning

requires only that the government identify a

well-established and representative historical

analogue, not a historical twin. So even if a mod-

ern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for his-

torical precursors, it still may be analogous

enough to pass constitutional muster.

Id. (quotation and citation omitted, and second alteration and

emphases in original). Finally, the Court’s decision in Bruen

builds on, rather than disturbs, Heller and McDonald. See id. at

2157 (Alito, J., concurring); id. at 2161 (Kavanaugh, J., concur-

ring). Justice Alito in particular took care to make this point

when he wrote “[n]or does [Bruen] decide anything about the

kinds of weapons that people may possess.” Id. at 2157 (Alito,

J., concurring). Bruen simply “made the constitutional stand-

ard endorsed in Heller more explicit” and applied it to the

handgun regulation at issue. Id. at 2134.

Our task is to apply Bruen’s methodology to the four laws

before us. We begin by assessing whether the assault weapons

and large-capacity magazines described in those laws are

Arms for purposes of the Second Amendment. If not, then the

Second Amendment has nothing to say about these laws:

units of government are free to permit them, or not to permit

them, depending on the outcome of the democratic process. If

they are properly characterized as Arms, then we must pro-

ceed to Bruen’s second step, at which the governments bear

the burden of proof, and determine whether these laws pass

muster.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 25

III. Application to the Cases

A. Are the Covered Weapons “Arms”?

We begin by looking at the “plain text” of the Second

Amendment to see whether the assault weapons and large-

capacity magazines (terms that we, like the parties, continue

to use as short-hand for the many items covered by these

laws) fall within the scope of the “Arms” that individual per-

sons are entitled to keep and bear. Both Supreme Court deci-

sions and historical sources indicate that the Arms the Second

Amendment is talking about are weapons in common use for

self-defense. That is not to say that there are no other lawful

uses for weapons—sporting uses, collection, and competi-

tions come to mind as examples. But the constitutional pro-

tection exists to protect the individual right to self-defense,

and so that will be our focus.

Our starting point is, once again, Heller. It began by inter-

preting the object of the Second Amendment right: Arms. See

554 U.S. at 581. It is worth a close look at this part of the opin-

ion:

The 18th-century meaning is no different from

the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel

Johnson’s dictionary defined “arms” as

“[w]eapons of offence, or armour of defence.” 1

Dictionary of the English Language 106 (4th ed.)

(reprinted 1978). Timothy Cunningham’s im-

portant 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as

“any thing that a man wears for his defence, or

takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at

or strike another.” 1 A New and Complete Law

Dictionary; see also N. Webster, American

26 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (re-

printed 1989) (similar).

The term was applied, then as now, to weap-

ons that were not specifically designed for military

use and were not employed in a military capacity.

For instance, Cunningham’s legal dictionary

gave as an example of usage: “Servants and la-

bourers shall use bows and arrows on Sundays,

&c. and not bear other arms.” … Although one

founding-era thesaurus limited “arms” (as op-

posed to “weapons”) to “instruments of offence

generally made use of in war,” even that source

stated that all firearms constituted “arms.” 1 J.

Trusler, The Distinction Between Words Es-

teemed Synonymous in the English Language

37 (3d ed. 1794) (emphasis added).

554 U.S. at 581–82 (first emphasis and ellipsis added, and

“hereinafter” parentheticals omitted). Summarizing, the

Court said that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie,

to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.” Id. at 582.

But what exactly falls within the scope of “bearable”

Arms? Not machineguns, the Court said, because they can be

dedicated exclusively to military use. See id. at 624. Yet a nor-

mal person can certainly pick up and carry a machinegun, or

for that matter the portable nuclear weapons we mentioned at

the outset. “Bearable” thus must mean more than “transport-

able” or “capable of being held.” See id. at 627 (discussing

“weapons that are most useful in military service—M16 rifles

and the like,” which “may be banned”).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 27

The Court’s comments about the role of the militia shed

light on the scope of the term “Arms.” It explained that “[t]he

traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing

arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-

defense.” Id. at 624. It then concluded that “the Second

Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically

possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such

as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical

understanding of the scope of the right.” Id. at 625 (emphasis

added). We take from this that the definition of “bearable

Arms” extends only to weapons in common use for a lawful

purpose. That lawful purpose, as we have said several times,

is at its core the right to individual self-defense.

This approach is consistent with the historical antecedents

on which the Second Amendment was based. Chief among

those was the 1689 English Bill of Rights, which is a key pre-

cursor to the bills of rights in the U.S. state and federal consti-

tutions. The 1689 Bill of Rights “explicitly protected a right to

keep arms for self-defense.” McDonald, 561 U.S. at 768. Simi-

larly, Blackstone explained that at the root of the right to bear

arms, there is a “natural right of resistance and self-preserva-

tion,” and “the right of having and using arms for self-preser-

vation and defence.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 594 (quoting

1 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *139, *140). State con-

stitutional protections from the Founding Era confirm this un-

derstanding. As Heller observed, “nine state constitutional

provisions written in the 18th century or the first two decades

of the 19th … enshrined a right of citizens to bear arms in de-

fense of themselves and the state or bear arms in defense of

himself and the state.” 554 U.S. at 584–85, 585 n.8 (citing the

state constitutions of Pennsylvania, Vermont, Kentucky, Ohio,

28 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Indiana, Mississippi, Connecticut, Alabama, and Missouri)

(quotations omitted).

In order to show a likelihood of success on the merits, the

plaintiffs in each of the cases before us thus have the burden

of showing that the weapons addressed in the pertinent leg-

islation are Arms that ordinary people would keep at home

for purposes of self-defense, not weapons that are exclusively

or predominantly useful in military service, or weapons that

are not possessed for lawful purposes. This search for the cor-

rect meaning of “Arms” for the Second Amendment is con-

sistent with our approach to its companions in the Bill of

Rights. When interpreting the text of a constitutional provi-

sion or a statute, we often resort to contemporaneous diction-

aries or other sources of context to ensure that we are under-

standing the word in the way its drafters intended. In Fourth

Amendment cases, we ask whether the place or item searched

falls within the Amendment’s scope. See, e.g., California v. Ci-

raolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213–14 (1986) (aerial view of backyard). For

purposes of the Sixth Amendment, before we apply the Con-

frontation Clause we must ensure that a particular statement

was testimonial. See, e.g., Ohio v. Clark, 576 U.S. 237, 243–44,

247 (2015) (child’s responses to questions from a teacher). The

famous Fifth Amendment right against compulsory self-in-

crimination attaches only if the person is in custody, despite

no mention of custody in the “plain text” of the Amendment.

See, e.g., New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 654 (1984).

We find substantial support for the proposition that the

Arms protected by the Second Amendment do not include

weapons that may be reserved for military use. We already

have pointed to language in the Supreme Court’s opinions to

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 29

this effect. 6 The dissent, relying heavily on Staples v. United

States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994), contends that the Court has already

decided that the AR-15 is in common use, and thus that the

weapon is presumptively immune from regulation. See post at

67. We see no such holding in Staples. That case had nothing

to do with the Second Amendment, which is mentioned no-

where in the opinion. The Court handed down the Staples de-

cision five months before Congress enacted the Federal Assault

Weapons Ban, when as a matter of federal law it was lawful

to own an AR-15. (We assume that this statute is of little rele-

vance to our historical inquiry, given the Supreme Court’s in-

sistence that the relevant time to consult is 1791, or maybe

1868, not the late 20th century.) The status of the AR-15 at the

time Staples was decided provides a ready explanation for

why the Court asserted (with no empirical support) that the

AR-15 is among the weapons that have been “widely accepted

as lawful possessions.” 511 U.S. at 612. Interestingly, the Sta-

ples Court contrasted the AR-15s with grenades, the posses-

sion of which it said “is not an innocent act.” Id. at 610 (quo-

tation omitted). It said the same about “machineguns, sawed-

off shotguns, and artillery pieces.” Id. at 611. Overall, we see

6 We note, too, that this court was not the first to observe the line that

Heller recognized, and which was applied to the states in McDonald. For

example, over a decade ago, and three years before Friedman, one scholar

of the Second Amendment wrote that “Heller and McDonald … focused on

the right of a law-abiding person to have a handgun in his or her home for

self-protection,” but “[n]either case foreclosed reasonable gun regula-

tions,” including “bans on military weapons wholly unnecessary for ordi-

nary self-defense,” “limits on the size of gun clips,” and “registration and

permit requirements.” See Akhil Reed Amar, Gun Control After Newtown

(Dec. 26, 2012), reprinted in THE CONSTITUTION TODAY: TIMELESS LESSONS

FOR THE ISSUES OF OUR ERA 230, 231 (2016).

30 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

nothing in Staples that decides whether the Second Amend-

ment protects AR-15s, though we do find much in the opinion

that reinforces the line we discern from Heller, and which is

confirmed by history.

When we compare the AR-15s and other semiautomatic

weapons covered by the Act and its counterparts, we come to

the same conclusion. Indeed, we asked the plaintiffs at oral

argument to explain what distinguishes AR-15s from M16s,

the military’s counterpart that is capable of both fully auto-

matic operation and semiautomatic operation. The question

is important precisely because Heller itself stated that M16s

are not among the Arms covered by the Second Amendment;

they are instead a military weapon. See 554 U.S. at 624, 627.

The plaintiffs’ responses to our question were unconvinc-

ing. They argued, for instance, that civilians do not regard

machineguns as useful for self-defense, but that is because

they cannot purchase machineguns. It is not too much of a

stretch to think that some people might like the fully auto-

matic feature of a machinegun, if they were hoping to defend

their families, their property, and themselves from invaders.

The plaintiffs also noted that machineguns are more expen-

sive than semiautomatic weapons, but we cannot believe that

an item’s entitlement to constitutional protection depends on

its price. Finally, with a nod to the “lawful use” criterion, the

plaintiffs said that when machineguns were available to civil-

ians (early in the 20th century), they were primarily used by

criminals. But this tells us nothing about how use of those

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 31

guns would have evolved, had they remained legal and read-

ily available. 7

Coming directly to the question whether the weapons and

feeding devices covered by the challenged legislation enjoy

Second Amendment protection, at the first step of the Bruen

analysis, we conclude that the answer is no. We come to this

conclusion because these assault weapons and high-capacity

magazines are much more like machineguns and military-

grade weaponry than they are like the many different types

of firearms that are used for individual self-defense (or so the

legislature was entitled to conclude). 8 Indeed, the AR-15 is al-

most the same gun as the M16 machinegun. The only mean-

ingful distinction, as we already have noted, is that the AR-15

has only semiautomatic capability (unless the user takes ad-

vantage of some simple modifications that essentially make it

fully automatic), while the M16 operates both ways. Both

7 It appears that there is a large and growing demand for guns in gen-

eral. Since 1986, the number of guns manufactured each year has almost

quadrupled, from around 3 million in 1986 to almost 11 million in 2013.

See Scott Horsley, Guns in America, by the Numbers, NPR (Jan. 5, 2016),

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-

numbers. There is no reason to think that machineguns would not have

followed the same pattern, had they been lawful in civilian hands.

8 Obviously, many weapons are “dual use”: private parties have a

constitutionally protected right to “keep and bear” them and the military

provides them to its forces. In this sense, there is a thumb on the scale in

favor of Second Amendment protection. When we refer to “military”

weapons here, we mean weapons that may be essentially reserved to the

military.

32 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

weapons share the same core design, and both rely on the

same patented operating system. 9

The similarity between the AR-15 and the M16 only in-

creases when we take into account how easy it is to modify

the AR-15 by adding a “bump stock” (as the shooter in the

2017 Las Vegas event had done) or auto-sear to it, thereby

making it, in essence, a fully automatic weapon. In a decision

addressing a ban on bump stocks enacted by the Maryland

legislature, another federal court found that bump-stock de-

vices enable “rates of fire between 400 to 800 rounds per mi-

nute.” Maryland Shall Issue v. Hogan, 353 F. Supp. 3d 400, 404

(D. Md. Nov. 16, 2018) (quotation omitted). To the same effect,

the Fourth Circuit noted that “[t]he difference between the

fully automatic and semiautomatic versions of [the AR-15 and

AK-47] is slight. That is, the automatic firing of all the ammu-

nition in a large-capacity thirty-round magazine takes about

two seconds, whereas a semiautomatic rifle can empty the

same magazine in as little as five seconds.” Kolbe, 849 F.3d at

125. The District of Columbia Circuit also noted that “semi-

automatics … fire almost as rapidly as automatics.” Heller v.

District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244, 1263 (D.C. Cir. 2011), on re-

mand from Heller, 554 U.S. 570; see also ATF Ruling 2006-2, at

2 (Dec. 13, 2006) (discussing a device (apparently the “Akins

Accelerator,” an early bump-stock device) that “is advertised

to fire approximately 650 rounds per minute”).

9 See ARMALITE, INC., Technical Note 54: Direct Impingement Versus Pis-

ton Drive (July 3, 2010), available at https://wayback.archive-

it.org/all/20120905024032/http://www.armalite.com/im-

ages/Tech%20Notes%5CTech%20Note%2054,%20Gas%20vs%20Op%20R

od%20Drive,%20020815.pdf.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 33

There are a few other differences between the AR-15 and

the M16, but none that is relevant. The M16 has an automatic

firing rate of 700 rounds per minute, while the AR-15 has a

semiautomatic rate of “only” 300 rounds per minute—unless,

as we have just noted, it is modified with, for example, a

bump stock or a “binary” trigger, which can double the rate

at which semiautomatic weapons can be fired. Both models

use the same ammunition, deliver the same kinetic energy

(1220–1350 foot-pounds), the same muzzle velocity (2800–

3100 feet per second), and the same effective range (602–875

yards). And these comments apply with equal force to the

high-capacity handguns that are restricted by these laws. The

latter are almost indistinguishable from the 17- or 21-round

M17 and M18 pistols that are standard-issue in the military.

But what about the possibility that the AR-15 (and its

many cousins covered by the Act) as sold is an Arm, even

though simple modifications can transform it into a military

weapon? On the one hand, this might support an argument

against the Act, which focuses initially on the product as sold.

On the other hand, there is a serious question whether the leg-

islature sought to prevent users from deconstructing weapons

into (or assembling weapons from) their constituent parts in

order to evade the core regulation. If the AR-15 by itself is not

a machinegun because it fires “only” at the rate of 300 rounds

per minute, and the auto-sear is also not a machinegun be-

cause it is just a component that holds a hammer in the cocked

position, that would be a road map for assembling ma-

chineguns and avoiding legitimate regulations of their private

use and carry. A question of this nature is raised in VanDerStok

v. Garland, No. 4:22-cv-00691-O, 2023 WL 4539591 (N.D. Tex.

June 30, 2023), appeal docketed, No. 23-10718, 2023 WL 4945360

(5th Cir. July 24, 2023), and stay pending appeal granted sub nom.

34 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Garland v. Vanderstok, No. 23A82, 2023 WL 5023383 (U.S. Aug.

8, 2023), where the Supreme Court has issued a stay of a dis-

trict court’s order vacating a federal “ghost gun” regulation,

87 Fed. Reg. 24652 (Apr. 26, 2022). See also Garland v. Black-

hawk Mfg. Grp., Inc., No. 23A302, 2023 WL 6801523 (U.S. Oct.

16, 2023) (vacating a second injunction limited to the parties).

Neither the parties nor the evidence before us addressed

these points, but the district courts may explore them as the

cases move forward. Better data on firing rates might change

the analysis of whether the AR-15 and comparable weapons

fall on the military or civilian side of the line. We note in this

connection that it is one thing to say that the AR-15 is capable

of firing at a rate of 300 rounds per minute and the compara-

ble rate for the M16 is 700 rounds per minute, but quite an-

other to address actual firing capacity, which accounts for the

need to change magazines. No one here has suggested that

the M16 comes with a 700-round magazine, or for that matter

that the AR-15 comes with a 300-round magazine. Either one

must be reloaded multiple times to fire so many rounds. Fac-

toring in the reloading time, the record may show that the two

weapons differ more—or less—than it appears here.

Turning now to large-capacity magazines, we conclude

that they also can lawfully be reserved for military use. Recall

that these are defined by the Act as feeding devices that have

in excess of 10 rounds for a rifle and 15 rounds for a handgun.

Anyone who wants greater firepower is free under these laws

to purchase several magazines of the permitted size. Thus, the

person who might have preferred buying a magazine that

loads 30 rounds can buy three 10-round magazines instead.

Based on the record before us, we are not persuaded that

the AR-15 is materially different from the M16. Heller informs

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 35

us that the latter weapon is not protected by the Second

Amendment, and therefore may be regulated or banned. Be-

cause it is indistinguishable from that machinegun, the AR-15

may be treated in the same manner without offending the Sec-

ond Amendment.

We conclude this portion of the opinion by stressing again

that this is just a preliminary look at the subject. That assess-

ment persuades us, as it did Judges Kendall and Jenkins, that

the plaintiffs have not shown a strong likelihood of success on

the merits. But, as we previously have recognized, Second

Amendment challenges to gun regulations often require more

evidence than is presented in the early phases of litigation. See

Atkinson v. Garland, 70 F.4th 1018, 1023–25 (7th Cir. 2023) (va-

cating the district court’s order dismissing a Second Amend-

ment challenge to a federal statute and remanding with a list

of specific questions to consider as the case proceeded). There

thus will be more to come, and we do not rule out the possi-

bility that the plaintiffs will find other evidence that shows a

sharper distinction between AR-15s and M16s (and each one’s

relatives) than the present record reveals.

B. Historical Tradition

Although we are satisfied that these appeals can be re-

solved at the first step of the Bruen framework—are the weap-

ons among the Arms protected by the Second Amendment—

for the sake of completeness we now turn to the question

whether, if the weapons covered by the statutes before us

ought to be considered bearable “Arms,” the laws nonetheless

pass muster under Bruen’s second step. In short, are these

laws consistent with the history and tradition of firearms reg-

ulation? Here, too, at the preliminary injunction stage, we

36 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

conclude that the plaintiffs have not shown the necessary like-

lihood of success on the merits.

In discussing whether these assault weapons and large-ca-

pacity magazines are Arms protected by the Second Amend-

ment, we have (as instructed by Bruen) confined ourselves to

textual considerations. There is another aspect of the Bruen

framework, which is whether the regulated weapons are “in

common use.” There is no consensus on whether the com-

mon-use issue belongs at Bruen step one or Bruen step two.

The plaintiffs argue that it belongs at the second step. We will

assume (without deciding the question) that this is a step two

inquiry, where the state bears the burden of proof. Even with

that leeway, we do not find this factor to be very helpful.

In this respect, we find the analysis in Friedman to be par-

ticularly useful, and unlike the district courts, we do not be-

lieve that the relevant portion was undermined by Bruen. We

recognized in Friedman that “common use” is a slippery con-

cept. Suppose, for example, a new type of handgun is intro-

duced to the market on January 1, 2024. As of that day, zero

guns of that type have been sold. Yet if its characteristics are

analogous to those of the many other types of handguns avail-

able for consumers, no one would say that this new handgun

was not within the class of Arms protected by the Second

Amendment. At the other end of the spectrum, consider the

actual case of machineguns, which for a time were available

for civilian purchase, but which were eventually withdrawn

from that market. However popular machineguns might have

been, either in organized crime circles or more generally, be-

cause their characteristics were military in nature, the deci-

sion to reserve them to military use was within the power of

the legislature.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 37

The dissent repeatedly makes the point that the assault

weapons covered by the challenged legislation are obviously

in common use, because there are so many in private hands.

Indeed, the dissent’s argument boils down to two proposi-

tions: first, it contends that the fact that many people own as-

sault weapons insulates them from regulation; and second, it

makes the surprising assertion that assault weapons are not

particularly dangerous. The latter proposition finds no empir-

ical support in the record, and the former, as we will explain,

does not carry the day.

The plaintiffs present basically the same argument. One

brief asserts that at least 20 million AR-15s and similar rifles

are owned by some 16 million citizens (though they do not

specify how many of these owners would fall within the large

carveout created by the grandfather and the trained profes-

sional exceptions to the Act). The plaintiffs also assert that at

least 150 million magazines with a capacity greater than 10

rounds have been bought for private use. (The state criticizes

these numbers for being based, it says, on “an unpublished,

non-peer-reviewed paper recounting an online survey that

does not disclose its funding or measurement tools.” We have

no need for present purposes to resolve that dispute.) Cook

County offers a different perspective, noting that of all the

firearms in the country, only 5.3% are assault weapons, and

that percentage includes those held by law-enforcement agen-

cies. One is reminded of Mark Twain’s apocryphal remark,

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statis-

tics.”

For the reasons set forth in more detail in Friedman, we de-

cline to base our assessment of the constitutionality of these

laws on numbers alone. Such an analysis would have

38 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

anomalous consequences. The problem with this approach

can be seen in the case of the AR-15. When, in 1994, the Fed-

eral Assault Weapons Ban made civilian possession of AR-15s

(among other assault weapons) unlawful, see Pub. L. No. 103-

322, § 110102, 108 Stat. 1796, 1996, few civilians owned AR-

15s. But in 2004, after the legislation was allowed to expire

pursuant to its sunset provision, id. § 110105(2), 108 Stat. at

2000, these weapons began to occupy a more significant share

of the market. Indeed, most of the AR-15s now in use were

manufactured in the past two decades. 10 Thus, if we looked to

numbers alone, the federal ban would have been constitu-

tional before 2004, but unconstitutional thereafter. This con-

clusion is essential to the plaintiffs’ position, yet it lacks both

textual and historical provenance.

As this example illustrates, the idea of “common use” can-

not be severed from the historical scope of the common-law

right that the Second Amendment was designed to protect

against encroachment. In other words, the relevant question

is what are the modern analogues to the weapons people used

for individual self-defense in 1791, and perhaps as late as

1868. This would exclude the weapons used exclusively by

the military—and every Framer of the Second Amendment

was well aware by 1791 that the King of England had an im-

pressive standing army, and that such weapons existed. The

weapons used for self-defense are the ones that Heller,

McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen had in mind—not a militaristic

10 See Aaron O’Neill, Annual Share of AR-15 Assault Rifles in the Total

Number of Firearms Manufactured in the United States from 1990 to 2020,

STATISTA (June 2, 2023), https://www.statista.com/statistics/1388010/share-

ar-15-united-states-firearm-production-historical/.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 39

weapon such as the AR-15, which is capable of inflicting the

grisly damage described in some of the briefs.

Bruen recognized that even Arms (i.e., non-militaristic

weapons) may be regulated, as long as the regulation is “part

of an enduring American tradition of state regulation.” 142 S.

Ct. at 2155. A regulation is a part of this tradition if one can

provide answers to two questions: (1) how, and (2) why, does

a given regulation “burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to

armed self-defense”? Id. at 2133. With respect to the “how”

question, judges are instructed to consider “whether modern

and historical regulations impose a comparable burden” on

that right. Id. For all its disclaiming of balancing approaches,

Bruen appears to call for just that: a broader restriction bur-

dens the Second Amendment right more, and thus requires a

closer analogical fit between the modern regulation and tra-

ditional ones; a narrower restriction with less impact on the

constitutional right might survive with a looser fit. It is at this

stage that many courts, as well as the state parties here, point

to the long-standing tradition of regulating the especially

dangerous weapons of the time, whether they were firearms,

explosives, Bowie knives, or other like devices. (The regula-

tions we list below are representative of this tradition.) The

dissent cannot deny that regulation existed; it relies only on

the fact that the particulars of those regulations varied from

place to place, and that some were more absolute than others.

But the same is true in our case. The laws before us have one

huge carve-out: people who presently own the listed firearms

or ammunition are entitled to keep them, subject only to a reg-

istration requirement that is no more onerous than many

found in history. In addition, as we noted at the outset, the

laws do not purport to regulate many other special uses. This

40 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

is enough, in our view, to satisfy the “how” question Bruen

identified.

The “why” question is another one that at first blush

seems hard to distinguish from the discredited means/end

analysis. But we will do our best. Bruen makes clear that the

question whether a burden is “comparably justified” cannot

be answered by pointing to the gravity of the harms the legis-

lation was designed to avert and the appropriateness of the

mechanism they adopt. See id. at 2133, 2129. The dissent

chooses to take a purposive approach to this question: what

were the reasons motivating the historical regulations, and do

they map well onto the reasons behind the modern law? We

confess to some skepticism about any test that requires the

court to divine legislative purpose from anything but the

words that wound up in the statute. Legislator A may have

had one goal; Legislator B may have had another; and Legis-

lator C might have agreed to vote for one bill in exchange for

a reciprocal vote for Legislator D’s pet project later. That is

why, as the author of Heller reminded us, “The text is the law,

and it is the text that must be observed.” ANTONIN SCALIA, A

MATTER OF INTERPRETATION 22 (1997).

The best one can say is that if the text of the legislation

evinces its purpose (perhaps in an introductory Statement of

Purpose, which many bills contain, or in some other prefatory

provision), that is a valid source to consult in answering the

“why” question. When we consult the text of the Act, we find

the best indication of its purpose in its name: “Protect Illinois

Communities Act.” See Pub. Act. 102-1116, at § 1 (2023). Cf.

Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361, 377 (1974) (noting that the

name of a statute can emphasize its purpose). Historical reg-

ulations show that at least since the Founding there has been

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 41

an unbroken tradition of regulating weapons to advance sim-

ilar purposes.

Once again, the dissent cannot dispute the existence of this

enduring American tradition. It tries to escape it, asserting

that “stop[ping] a mass casualty event,” or perhaps “stopping

escalating gun violence,” is the purpose of the statute, post at

71, 74, yet it points to nothing in the Act that supports either

of these specific characterizations. To be sure, the dissent

notes that the bill enacted by the City of Naperville recites a

few of the many mass shootings that have occurred during

the last decade. See post at 71 n.13. 11 But the bill also expressly

states that the purpose of the ordinance is to protect public

health, safety, and welfare. See City of Naperville, Ill., Ordi-

nance No. 22-099, at 4 (Aug. 16, 2022). The mass-shooting de-

tails appear to be nothing more than particular examples il-

lustrating that broader purpose. The state’s attorney also in-

forms us that the legislation was enacted after the Highland

Park July 4 massacre. But we have not rested our opinion on

this point, because in our view it comes too close to the

means/end scrutiny that Bruen rejected. In any event we do

not think it is appropriate to rely on extratextual considera-

tions to answer the “why” question. The issue, whether we

separate out “how” and “why” or we consider them a unified

test, is whether the tools the legislature used were limited to

those that the Second Amendment left for it, after (as the

Court said in Heller, 554 U.S. at 635, and Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at

2133 n.7) the Second Amendment itself performed the

11 Indeed, the dissent relies solely on the municipal bill’s recitations as

proof of the state statute’s purpose. It is quite the puzzle to try to square

this interpretive method with the dissent’s lengthy criticism of our brief

invocation of the name of the Act. See post at 63-65.

42 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

necessary means/end balancing. As we have explained, we

think that the legislatures involved here did stay within those

boundaries.

Harking back to our examination of covered Arms, we

find the distinction between military and civilian weaponry

to be useful for Bruen’s second step, too. Both the states and

the federal government have long contemplated that the mil-

itary and law enforcement may have access to especially dan-

gerous weapons, and that civilian ownership of those weap-

ons may be restricted. 12 Many other weapons remain that are

more universally available. That is enough to assure us that

we are not creating some unbounded “military veto” over the

types of Arms that can be regulated. History and tradition

leave no doubt that certain weaponry is for the state only:

weapons such as the grenades, the machineguns, the artillery

pieces, and the like mentioned in Staples. See 511 U.S. at 611–

12. (And recall that the laws before us carve out not only the

military, but police and security forces too, from their cover-

age.) And, as we now show, the distinction between the two

uses is one well rooted in our history.

The following examples suffice to make the point:

12 We realize that all guns are dangerous when used as intended: a

gunshot wound may be fatal or life-threatening. The Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention estimate that 48,830 people died as a result of a

firearm in 2021. See CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, Na-

tional Center for Health Statistics: All Injuries (Sept. 13, 2023),

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm. But the record indicates

that there are important differences in the lethality of the military-grade

weapons, as compared with guns that are commonly owned and used for

self-defense and other lawful purposes.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 43

• In 1746, Boston outlawed the discharging of

any cannon, gun, or pistol within city limits,

but it explained that soldiers were still per-

mitted to discharge weaponry on their train-

ing days. See Chapter 11—An Act to Prevent

the Firing of Guns Charged with Shot[t] or

Ball in the Town of Boston, §§ 1–3, in 3 THE

ACTS AND RESOLVES OF THE PROVINCE OF THE

MASSACHUSETTS BAY 1742-1756, at 309 (1878).

• Other cities, such as Cleveland, Ohio, imple-

mented similar ordinances throughout the

19th century, again exempting military com-

panies during drills. See Chapter 33—Fire

Arms, §§ 417–423, in ORDINANCES OF THE

CITY OF CLEVELAND 136–37 (H.L. Vail & L.M.

Snyder, eds., 1890).

• There are dozens of examples of Bowie knife

regulations, forbidding or limiting the use of

these dangerous weapons. Several of those

featured military exceptions. In 1884, for ex-

ample, Arkansas outlawed the sale of all

dirks, Bowie knives, cane-swords, metal

knuckles, and pistols, except as for use in the

army or navy of the United States. See Chap-

ter 53—Carrying Weapons, §§ 1907–1909, in

A DIGEST OF THE STATUTES OF ARKANSAS 490

(W.W. Mansfield, ed., 1884).

• Several city ordinances in the late 1800s fol-

lowed suit, restricting the carry of a wide ar-

ray of dangerous and concealable weapons

(slingshots, metal knuckles, Bowie knives,

44 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

daggers, pistols, and clubs), but exempting

“peace officers” and “conservator[s] of the

peace.” See Chapter 6—Offenses Against the

Peace of the City, § 182, in THE REVISED

ORDINANCES OF PROVO CITY 106–07 (1877);

Chapter 534—Ordinances of Baltimore,

§ 742A, in THE BALTIMORE CITY CODE 297–98

(John Prentiss Poe, ed., 1893).

• The federal government continued this tra-

dition when it began passing gun control

laws. The National Firearms Act of 1934 im-

posed taxation and registration require-

ments on all guns, but it exempted transfers

to the U.S. government, states, territories,

political subdivisions, and peace officers.

See Pub. L. No. 73-474, §§ 1-12, § 13, 48 Stat.

1236, 1236-40, 1240 (1934).

• Federal restrictions expanded in 1968, when

sale and delivery of destructive devices (de-

fined as an “explosive, incendiary, or poison

gas bomb, grenade, mine, rocket, missile, or

similar device”) and machineguns were se-

verely restricted. See Omnibus Crime Con-

trol and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. No.

90-351, § 921(a)(4), § 922(b), 82 Stat. 197, 227,

230 (1968). Once again, these provisions did

not apply to items sold to the United States

or to any individual state. Id. § 925(a), 82

Stat. at 233.

• Machineguns were banned by the Firearm

Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. Since then,

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 45

civilian ownership has been capped at pre-

1986 levels and only military and law en-

forcement have access to these weapons. See

Pub. L. No. 99-308, § 102(9), 100 Stat. 449, 453

(1986).

In short, there is a long tradition, unchanged from the time

when the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution,

supporting a distinction between weapons and accessories

designed for military or law-enforcement use, and weapons

designed for personal use. The legislation now before us re-

spects and relies on that distinction.

IV. Concluding Observations

We conclude with a few remarks about several additional

issues in some of these cases that do not require immediate

attention, and a reminder about the limits on our ruling.

First, we briefly comment on Herrera’s challenge to the

constitutionality of the registration requirement that imple-

ments the grandfather exemption. He regards it as a burden

on his Second Amendment rights, and he worries that it may

in the future lead to confiscatory acts on the part of the state.

If we are correct in our prediction that the state will prevail in

its defense of the Act against the Second Amendment argu-

ments, then the registration requirement will be valid as long

as it can withstand rational basis review. At this juncture, we

see nothing particularly onerous about it, though as with eve-

rything we have said, this is a preliminary assessment. Her-

rera has until the end of 2023 to file the necessary forms, and

if he does so, he may retain all of the covered weapons he al-

ready owns; the Act will prohibit only his acquisition of addi-

tional assault weapons or high-capacity feeding devices. For

46 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

its own reasons, the dissent agrees with us that the registra-

tion requirement should not be enjoined. See post at 76.

Second, in this court none of the parties has developed any

coherent argument that would distinguish restrictions on

possession, on the one hand, from restrictions on sale or man-

ufacture, on the other. One of the parties in Bevis is a gun

store, but the implications of that have yet to be addressed.

We thus have no comment on it.

Finally, we have no need to decide whether an alleged Sec-

ond Amendment violation gives rise to a presumption of ir-

reparable harm, and if so, whether any such presumption is

rebuttable or ironclad. Given our decision that the plaintiffs

have not shown that they have a strong likelihood of success

on the merits, we think it best to save this point for another

day. We also have no comment on the other two parts of the

Winter inquiry: where the balance of equities lies, and what

the public interest dictates. 13

We close with an important reminder. Nothing that we

have said here indicates that any state or municipality must

enact restrictions on the ownership of assault weapons or

high-capacity magazines. Unless preemptive federal legisla-

tion requires otherwise, this is an issue for the political pro-

cess in each jurisdiction. The people of some states may find

13 The governmental parties devoted considerable attention in their

briefs to the horrors of the mass shootings that have occurred with dis-

tressing regularity throughout the country. Illinois reports that the mass

shooting in the town of Highland Park on July 4, 2022, in which seven

people were killed and another 48 were injured, inspired the Act. We have

not relied on this point, however, because, as we have mentioned, it ap-

pears to depend on the type of means/end analysis that Bruen disap-

proved.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 47

the arguments in favor of a lack of restrictions to be persua-

sive; the people of other states may prefer tighter restrictions.

As long as those restrictions do not infringe on the constitu-

tionally protected right to keep and bear the Arms covered by

the Second Amendment, either choice is permissible. In the

cases now before us, however, the plaintiffs have not shown a

likelihood of success on the merits, based on the fact that mil-

itary weapons lie outside the class of Arms to which the indi-

vidual right applies.

In Nos. 23-1353 and 23-1793, we AFFIRM the district

courts’ orders denying preliminary injunctive relief. In Nos.

23-1825, 23-1826, 23-1827, and 23-1828, we VACATE the dis-

trict court’s order granting preliminary injunctive relief. We

also confirm that the stay we issued in these appeals will re-

main in effect until our mandate issues.

SO ORDERED.

48 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

APPENDIX

Jurisdiction Actions Prohibited Firearms Covered Magazines Covered

• Semiautomatic rifles that

have one or more assault

• Manufacture weapon-like modifications

• Delivery • Semiautomatic pistols that

• Sale have one or more assault

weapon-like modifications • Rifles—over 10 rounds

• Purchase

Illinois • Semiautomatic shotguns • Handguns—over 15

• Possession (pre-existing with a revolving cylinder rounds

possession and private or that have one or more

post-Act use are permissi- assault weapon-like modi-

ble if registration require- fications

ments are met)

• Various assault weapons

listed by name

• Semiautomatic rifles that

can accept more than 10

rounds or that have one or

more assault weapon-like

modifications

Naperville • Commercial sale N/A

• Devices that accelerate the

rate of fire of a semiauto-

matic rifle

• Various assault weapons

listed by name

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 49

• Semiautomatic rifles that

have one or more assault

weapon-like modifications

• Manufacture

• Semiautomatic pistols that

• Sale

have one or more assault

• Offer or display for sale weapon-like modifications

• Give • Semiautomatic shotguns

with a revolving cylinder

Cook County • Lend • Magazines over 10 rounds

or that have or one more

• Transfer of ownership assault rifle-like modifica-

tions

• Acquire

• Combination kits from

• Carry

which an assault weapon

• Possession can be assembled

• Various assault weapons

listed by name

50 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

• Semiautomatic rifles with

the ability to accept a de-

tachable magazine and that

have one or more assault

weapon-like modifications

• Semiautomatic rifles that

have a fixed magazine with

the capacity to accept more

• Import than 10 rounds

• Sale • Devices that accelerate the

rate of fire of a semiauto- • Handguns—over 15

Chicago • Manufacture

matic rifle rounds

• Transfer of ownership

• Shotguns that have one or

• Possession more assault weapon-like

modifications

• Semiautomatic handguns

that have one or more as-

sault weapon-like modifi-

cations

• Various assault weapons

listed by name

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 51

BRENNAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting. The Second Amend-

ment “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is not a sec-

ond-class right. Yet the State of Illinois and several Illinois mu-

nicipalities have categorically banned law-abiding citizens

from keeping and bearing a sweeping range of firearms and

magazines. In a remarkable conclusion, the majority opinion

decides that these firearms are not “Arms” under the Second

Amendment. Because the banned firearms and magazines

warrant constitutional protection, and the government parties

have failed to meet their burden to show that their bans are

part of the history and tradition of firearms regulation, pre-

liminary injunctions are justified against enforcement of the

challenged laws. I respectfully dissent.

I

The Protect Illinois Communities Act, Pub. Act 102-1116,

challenged in each case before us, dramatically redefines the

legality of firearms and magazines in Illinois. It goes far be-

yond the prohibition of “assault rifles.” The Act eliminates the

ownership, possession, and use for self-defense of many of

the most commonly-owned semiautomatic handguns, shot-

guns, rifles, and magazines. Exceptions to the Act are narrow.

Specifically, the Act covers firearms, magazines, and an

endorsement process for registration. The Act bans the man-

ufacture, delivery, sale, import, and purchase of a vast array

of weapons, 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. §§ 5/24-1(a)(16), 75/24-1.9(a),

5/24-1.10(a)–(b), prohibiting them by their features, by their

functions, and by name. The Act bans semiautomatic rifles

with detachable magazines and one additional qualifying at-

tachment, such as a pistol grip or a flash suppressor. Id. § 5/24-

1.9(a)(1)(A). “[A]ll AR type[]” rifles are banned, including 43

named variants, such as the AR-15. The Act further prohibits

52 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

“copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the ca-

pability of any such weapon.” Id. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(J)(ii). It also

bans almost 100 more rifles by name. Id. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(J).

The Act restricts various other firearms as well. For exam-

ple, a law-abiding citizen in Illinois can no longer purchase

semiautomatic pistols that have “a fixed magazine with the

capacity to accept more than 15 rounds,” regardless of any

attachments. Id. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(D). The same goes for a semi-

automatic shotgun with a fixed magazine holding more than

five shells. Id. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(F)(v). The list of restricted weap-

ons includes nearly all detachable magazines holding more

than 10 rounds of ammunition for long guns and 15 rounds

of ammunition for handguns. Id. § 5/24-1.10(a)(1)–(2). Many

handguns, the “quintessential self-defense weapon” for the

American people, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570,

629 (2008), come standard with magazines carrying more than

15 rounds. As with semiautomatic rifles, after banning pistols

by their features, the Act bans “[a]ll AR type[] pistols” and

approximately 40 semiautomatic pistols by name. 720 ILL.

COMP. STAT. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(K).

Three municipal laws are also challenged, which are as or

more restrictive than the Act. The City of Naperville ordi-

nance is similar to the Act in most respects; both are

challenged in Bevis. The Cook County and City of Chicago or-

dinances, challenged along with the Act in Herrera, are even

broader. Cook County bans possession of “assault weapons,”

COOK COUNTY, ILL. CODE § 54-211 and § 54-212, which in-

cludes semiautomatic pistols with the capacity to accept a de-

tachable magazine and contain a qualifying attachment (such

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 53

as a muzzle brake). The City of Chicago ordinance is similar.

See CHI. MUN. CODE §§ 8-20-010, 8-20-075, 8-20-085. 1

II

The parties dispute whether the state, county, and city

bans respect the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. In

New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111

(2022), the Supreme Court set forth the framework for ad-

dressing those disputes. Rejecting means-end scrutiny, the

Court held: “When the Second Amendment’s plain text

1 The majority opinion uses the phrase “assault weapon” to simplify

the covered arms. The appendix to the majority opinion uses a variety of

terms to summarize the types of arms the four challenged laws categori-

cally ban.

Still, the description in the appendix of the Act’s ban is underinclusive

in some ways. The Act bans semiautomatic rifles with fixed magazines

over 10 rounds (unless it fires .22 rimfire and is loaded with a tubular

mechanism). ILL. COMP. STAT. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(B). The appendix uses the

phrase “[s]emiautomatic pistols that have one or more assault weapon-

like modifications,” most likely a reference to ILL. COMP. STAT. § 5/24-

1.9(a)(1)(C). More precisely, the Act also bans semiautomatic pistols with

fixed magazines over 15 rounds. Id. § 5/24-1.9(a)(1)(D). Not included in

the appendix are bump stocks and binary triggers (a device enabling the

firing of two-rounds per trigger pull), which are both prohibited by the

Act. Id. § 5/24-1(a)(14).

The Cook County ordinance mirrors the Act’s prohibitions, although

it is stricter than the Act in that it bans semi-automatic handguns with

fixed magazines over 10 rounds (as opposed to 15 rounds under the Act).

COOK COUNTY, ILL. CODE § 54-211(2).

The City of Chicago ordinance is underinclusive in its description of

the magazines covered. The ordinance prohibits any magazine holding

greater than 15 rounds, encompassing magazines for all types of firearms

(except for attached devices that only accept and operate with .22 rimfire

ammunition), not just handguns. CHI. MUN. CODE § 8-20-010.

54 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presump-

tively protects that conduct. The government must then jus-

tify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with

the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen,

142 S. Ct. at 2129–30.

The Second Amendment states in part, “the right of the

people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S.

CONST. amend. II. The amendment presents several condi-

tions for plain text coverage, which raise questions including:

• Is the regulated population a covered “peo-

ple?” See, e.g., Range v. Att’y Gen. United

States, 69 F.4th 96, 101–03 (3d Cir. 2023) (en

banc); United States v. Sitladeen, 64 F.4th 978,

983 (8th Cir. 2023); and

• Is the conduct regulated “keep[ing]” or

“bear[ing]” arms? See, e.g., Heller, 554 U.S. at

582–92.

We consider another question: Are the instruments regu-

lated “Arms”?

“Arms” in the Second Amendment is a broad term that

“covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-de-

fense.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132. The term “extends, prima fa-

cie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even

those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

Heller, 554 U.S. at 582. When the plain text of the Second

Amendment covers an individual’s conduct, then the Consti-

tution presumptively protects the conduct. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at

2129–30. That presumptive protection is of all bearable instru-

ments that facilitate armed self-defense, even those not in ex-

istence at the time of the Founding. Id. at 2132, 2143 (citing

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 55

Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411, 411–412 (2016) (per cu-

riam), and Heller, 554 U.S. at 627). 2

As an initial matter, magazines—ammunition feeding de-

vices without which semiautomatic firearms cannot operate

as intended—are “Arms.” Such devices are required as part of

the firing process. This court has recognized that corollaries

to firearms fall within Second Amendment protection. See

Wilson v. Cook County, 937 F.3d 1028, 1032 (7th Cir. 2019)

(quoting Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 708 (7th Cir.

2011)). Further, the Act’s ban on magazines holding more

than ten rounds for rifles and more than fifteen rounds for

handguns effectively bans firearms that come standard with

magazines over the limit.

As for the broader definition of “Arms,” that term should

be read as “Arms”—not “Arms in common use at the time.”

In Heller, the Supreme Court recognized a “historical tradition

of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weap-

ons,’” 554 U.S. at 627, which may be regulated—a point it re-

peated in Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2143.

The Court “did not say that dangerous and unusual weap-

ons are not arms.” Teter v. Lopez, 76 F.4th 938, 950 (9th Cir.

2023) (emphasis in original) (ruling that Hawaii statute ban-

ning butterfly knives violated Second Amendment). To be

2 When the Supreme Court issued Bruen, it vacated several federal ap-

pellate decisions upholding gun controls laws, remanding them for recon-

sideration. Two of them—Duncan v. Bonta, 19 F.4th 1087 (9th Cir. 2021),

and Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs Inc. v. Att’y Gen. N.J., 974 F.3d 237 (3d

Cir. 2020)—concerned magazine limits of 10 rounds, and Bianchi v. Frosh,

858 F. App’x 645 (4th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) (unpublished), upheld Mar-

yland’s “assault weapons” ban.

56 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

sure, this does not mean that the Second Amendment bars

governments from regulating weapons long held improper

for civilian use. This reading of Bruen permits the govern-

ment, for example, to preclude civilian ownership of military

weaponry when the history and tradition of weapons regula-

tion so dictates. As other examples, the government may pro-

hibit sawn-off rifles and shotguns, which properly qualify as

dangerous and unusual firearms as they are not ordinarily

used by law-abiding citizens. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 625 (“[T]he

Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typ-

ically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,

such as short-barreled shotguns.”). But that distinction does

not determine whether a weapon is an “Arm.”

The government parties limit the Second Amendment

right by importing the phrase “in common use” to assess

whether firearms are “Arms.” But their reading improperly

restricts the constitutional right. The banned firearms propel

bullets by explosive force from gunpowder, yet the govern-

ment parties ask us to conclude that these rifles and pistols

are not “Arms.” As one amicus curiae submitted, “in common

use” is a sufficient condition for finding arms protected under

the history and tradition test in Bruen, not a necessary condi-

tion to find them “Arms.” 3 The nature of an object does not

change based on its popularity, but the regulation of that ob-

ject can.

The government parties also incorrectly attempt to place a

burden on the plaintiffs to show that the plain text of “Arms”

includes the banned firearms. Bruen does not say that. In-

stead, Bruen states that when the Second Amendment’s text

3 See D.E. 99, Brief for Amici Curiae Idaho, et al., at 6.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 57

covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presump-

tively protects it. 142 S. Ct. at 2126, 2129–30. It is undisputed

that the government then bears the burden of proof under

Bruen’s history and tradition framework.

Whether a firearm is “in common use” is asked as part of

the history and tradition analysis. At least two reasons sup-

port this reading. First, the “in common use” test in Bruen is

drawn from the “historical tradition” of restrictions on “dan-

gerous and unusual weapons.” Id. at 2143. The test is not

drawn from a historical understanding of what an “Arm” is.

Id. at 2132. Second, if a weapon is an “Arm,” it is only prima

facie protected by the Second Amendment. Bruen, 142 S. Ct.

at 2132 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 582); see Teter, 76 F.4th at

949–50 (placing “in common use” test in history and tradition

test of Bruen).

The limitation of the Second Amendment right is ad-

dressed in Bruen’s history and tradition test. This requires the

government to identify well-established and representative

historical analogues to show that the modern regulation is

consistent with a historical tradition of firearms regulation.

Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2133. In performing this analogical inquiry,

it is critical to fly at the right level of generality. Id. (“[A]na-

logical reasoning under the Second Amendment is neither a

regulatory straightjacket nor a regulatory blank check.”); see

J. HARVIE WILKINSON, COSMIC CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY 44

(2012). Fly too high, and we risk any historical firearms regu-

lation becoming an analogue. Under Bruen, courts must not

“uphold every modern law that remotely resembles a histor-

ical analogue.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2133. (quoting Drummond

v. Robinson, 9 F.4th 217, 226 (3d Cir. 2021)). Fly too low, and

we risk myopia—nitpicking differences because a historical

58 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

regulation is not a “dead ringer.” Id. We are looking for “a

well-established and representative historical analogue, not a

historical twin.” Id.

Before reviewing the approach to decide whether a regu-

lation is an analogical fit, it helps to address what history and

tradition refer to here. “History” means that analogous laws

must be “longstanding” and from the relevant “timeframe.”

Id. at 2131, 2133 (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 626). “History” helps

establish the public meaning of the Constitution as “under-

stood ... when the people adopted” it. Id. (citing Heller, 554

U.S. at 634–35). The Court tells us that only two historical

timeframes are relevant to the public understanding of the

Second Amendment—the adoption of the Second Amend-

ment in 1791 and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amend-

ment in 1868. Id. at 2136. Laws enacted after the “end of the

19th century” must be given little weight. Id. at 2136–37

(cleaned up). “Tradition” means that the comparison must be

to laws with wide acceptance in American society. Id. at 2136.

Laws that enjoyed “widespread” and “unchallenged” sup-

port form part of our tradition. Id. at 2137.

In Bruen, the Court reaffirmed that “individual self-de-

fense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment

right,” id. at 2133 (citing McDonald, 561 U.S. at 767 (quoting

Heller, 554 U.S. at 599)), and expressly identified two ques-

tions to assess the analogical strength of a historical regula-

tion: “how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding cit-

izen’s right to armed self-defense.” Id. at 2133. Put another

way, how does the regulation limit the Second Amendment

right, and why does it do so?

How. How a historical regulation addressed a particular

problem, or whether it did at all, matters. “[I]f earlier

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 59

generations addressed the societal problem, but did so

through materially different means, that also could be evi-

dence that a modern regulation is unconstitutional.” Id. at

2131. Whether a given regulation was ever enforced, and to

what extent, can be relevant here as well. Id. at 2149.

Courts must also evaluate how historical “regulations bur-

den a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense.” Id. at

2133. Modern regulations that impose a “comparable burden

on the right of armed self-defense” are more likely to be up-

held. Id.

In assessing these comparable burdens, we consider the

breadth of the ban and the weapon banned. For the breadth

of the ban, the more expansive the limitation, the greater the

burden on the Second Amendment right, which necessarily

requires a close analogical fit. For the weapon banned, the

burden on the right to keep and bear arms necessarily corre-

lates with whether the prohibited weapon is “in common use

at the time” of regulation. Id. at 2128, 2134, 2143. So, it is nat-

ural that categorical bans of weapons in common use will

require an even stronger analogical fit with historical regula-

tions. See id. at 2143–44 (rejecting the analogical value of

alleged colonial era categorical bans on “dangerous and unu-

sual” weapons because handguns are “unquestionably in

common use today”).

Why. Why a historical regulation addressed a particular

problem, or whether it did at all, is also key to evaluating its

analogical value. In considering whether a historical regula-

tion is an analogical fit, courts are to address whether the

modern regulation and proposed historical analogue have

comparable justifications for burdening the right to bear

arms. Id. at 2133. If the reasons motivating the historical and

60 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

modern regulations differ, there is no analogue. See id. at 2140,

2144. Beyond doubt, this inquiry should not allow a return to

interest balancing. See id. at 2131 (explaining that the Second

Amendment itself “is the very product of an interest balancing

by the people” (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 635)). Rather, the

state’s current rationale for arms regulation only matters in-

sofar as a historical regulation was motivated by similar rea-

sons. If not, the analogy fails. See id. at 2144 (discussing the

context of the colonial New Jersey restrictions, in which land

disputes between planters and the colony’s proprietors

caused planters to carry pistols).

The government can only defend a regulation by proving

it is consistent with this country’s history and tradition. See

Atkinson v. Garland, 70 F.4th 1018, 1020–21 (7th Cir. 2023).

Whether that history and tradition allows regulating firearms

in sensitive places, for the mentally ill, and for felons, is cur-

rently under debate. See, e.g., United States v. Rahimi, 61 F. 4th

443, 460–61 (5th Cir. 2023) (ruling that federal statute prohib-

iting possession of firearm by individual subject to domestic

violence restraining order violates Second Amendment as in-

consistent with historical tradition), cert. granted 143 S. Ct.

2688.

This understanding of the Bruen framework is different

from that of my colleagues. First, the majority opinion

acknowledges Bruen’s “in common use” language but criti-

cizes it as spawning unworkable circularity issues: If the Sec-

ond Amendment protects firearms in common use, then that

right would turn on how quickly a state enacts regulations. If

a firearm is outlawed quickly following its introduction to the

market, then it has no chance of gaining common use and en-

joys only limited or no Second Amendment protection. This

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 61

cannot be how the Second Amendment functions, the argu-

ment goes, as the speed of regulation should not bear on an

arm’s constitutionality.

This circularity concern is far less pressing when the “in

common use” language is properly situated. Because that

consideration plays into the history and tradition analysis—

and not the scope of the Second Amendment’s text—it is not

an “on-off” switch for constitutional protection. Just because

a weapon is not in common use does not mean it falls outside

the text of the Second Amendment; and just because a

weapon is in common use does not necessarily mean a gov-

ernment is barred from regulating it. Proper inquiry requires

full examination of the government’s evidence and historical

analogues, keeping in mind that bans of weapons “in com-

mon use” are constitutionally suspect.

The Supreme Court certainly was not worried about cir-

cularity. In Bruen, the Court explicitly linked the Second

Amendment analysis to “in common use.” See 142 S. Ct. at

2128 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 629) (explaining that “the Sec-

ond Amendment protects only the carrying of weapons that

are those ‘in common use at the time,’ as opposed to those that

‘are highly unusual in society at large’”). The Court reasoned

that even if handguns were once “dangerous and unusual,”

such firearms “are unquestionably in common use today”

and therefore receive robust Second Amendment protection.

Id. at 2143. In Caetano, the Court addressed Second Amend-

ment protections for a new electronic weapon. So many were

in circulation (200,000 stun guns, far fewer than the approxi-

mately 25 million AR rifles) that the electronic weapon was

deemed “commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for

lawful purposes … .” 577 U.S. at 420. We are not free to ignore

62 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

the Court’s instruction as to the role of “in common use” in

the Second Amendment analysis. 4

Next, my colleagues disagree with my approach to Bruen’s

“why” question, raising the specter of purposivism. The ma-

jority opinion urges respect for the text of a statute alone,

which I share. Indeed, a fair reading of a statute always “re-

quires an ability to comprehend the purpose of the text, which

is a vital part of its context.” See ANTONIN SCALIA & BRYAN A.

GARNER, READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS

33 (2012); see also John O. McGinnis, The Contextual Textualism

of Justice Alito, 14 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL’Y PER CURIAM, at 2

(2023) (describing Justice Alito’s use of context in interpreta-

tion). This is certainly a different task than interpreting a stat-

ute by reference to the intent of its drafters, which I agree is

an inappropriate job for judges.

Still, Bruen requires us to consider the historical context

giving rise to the statute (the “why”). Bruen looks at history

and tradition to determine “the content of the preexisting le-

gal right to bear arms.” Randy E. Barnett & Lawrence B. So-

lum, Originalism After Dobbs, Bruen, and Kennedy, 118 NW.

U. L. REV. 433, 469 (2023). And Bruen’s history and tradition

approach is a different endeavor than statutory interpreta-

tion.

Often a statute takes center stage for a purpose other than

to discern the scope of its legal rule, even when determining

whether it violates a constitutional right. See Vill. of Arlington

4 The circularity argument also is not new. See Friedman v. City of High-

land Park, 784 F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015). As Judge Manion explained in dis-

sent, circularity concerns deal in the hypothetical more than the actual. Id.

at 416 n.5.

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 63

Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 270 (1977)

(considering whether a discriminatory purpose was a moti-

vating factor in a city’s zoning rules). For example, in Bruen

the Court considered Henry VIII’s “displeasure with hand-

guns” due to his concern that they would “threaten[] English-

men’s proficiency with the longbow,” which led to

Parliament’s passage of handgun restrictions. 142 S. Ct. at

2140. East New Jersey prohibited the concealed carry of

pocket pistols in response to “‘strife and excitement’ between

planters and the Colony’s proprietors ‘respecting titles to the

soil.’” Id. at 2143–44. And Heller discusses the “public-safety

reasons” behind several Colonial-era individual-arms-bear-

ing statutes. Heller, 554 U.S. at 601.

When looking to the text in its “why” analysis, the major-

ity opinion relies on the Act’s title, Protect Illinois Communi-

ties Act. Set aside for the moment that “for interpretive pur-

poses,” courts should only rely on titles to “shed light on

some ambiguous word or phrase” in the text. See Trainmen v.

Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U.S. 519, 529 (1947). Titles and sec-

tion headings have a short history in the Anglo-American in-

terpretive tradition—legislatures did not always include the

title while debating the act. See SCALIA & GARNER at 221. If

there is serious doubt as to whether those titles and headings

received a fair shake in the legislative process, relying on

them would make little sense. One influential treatise im-

plores judges to check a state’s constitution for provisions that

vouchsafe interpretive usefulness on a statutory title. See id. at

224.

As it turns out, the title of the Protect Illinois Communities

Act has little interpretive utility. The Illinois Constitution has

a provision grounding the title in the legislative process, but

64 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

there is serious doubt whether the legislature obeyed it here.

The so-called three-readings clause states: “A bill shall be read

by title on three different days in each house.” ILL. CONST. art.

IV, § 8(d). Reading rules exist precisely to ensure “that each

House knows what it is passing and passes what it wants.”

Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 396

(1951) (Jackson, J., concurring) (explaining that the federal

three-readings rule helps draw a line where debate ends and

drafting begins).

Consider the procedural path of the Act, during which the

Illinois legislature may very well have ignored the three-read-

ings rule. See Caulkins v. Pritzker, No. 129453, 2023 WL

5156850, at *17 (Ill. Aug. 11, 2023) (White, J., dissenting). A

group of firearms owners challenged the Act in Illinois state

court, arguing it violated several provisions of the Illinois

Constitution. Id. at *1. The three-readings clause is one of

these provisions, and the Supreme Court of Illinois rejected

that claim only because the plaintiffs failed to cross-appeal it,

a jurisdictional error warranting dismissal. Id. This legislation

began in the Illinois House with the title, “an Act concerning

regulation,” and its synopsis described changes to the state’s

insurance code. Id. at *17 (White, J., dissenting). The House

read it three times by this title, then sent it to the Illinois Sen-

ate. Id. The Senate read it twice before the Senate adopted an

amendment that “completely stripped the insurance provi-

sions[,] … replaced them with the ‘Protect Illinois Communi-

ties Act[,]’” and added the new bill’s popular title. Id. The day

the legislation became the “Protect Illinois Communities Act,”

the Senate read it for the first time under the new title and

passed it. Id. The Act was returned to the House the day after

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 65

that and passed without a reading. Id. The Illinois Governor

signed it later that day. Id. 5

Though the Act’s possible three-readings problem bears

on neither the Second Amendment question nor the Act’s le-

gitimacy, it remains a good reason to be skeptical of the inter-

pretive value of language extrinsic to the operative text. In-

stead, I focus on permissible indicators of meaning.

III

Turning to this interlocutory appeal, the plaintiffs make a

facial challenge to the Act and ordinances at the preliminary

injunction stage. According to the Supreme Court in Nken v.

Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009), the two most important con-

siderations at this stage are likelihood of success on the merits

and irreparable harm. For the reasons explained below, plain-

tiffs have satisfied both considerations.

A

As for likelihood of success on the merits, the firearms and

magazines banned by the Act and ordinances are “Arms” un-

der the plain text of the Second Amendment. These firearms

and magazines are therefore presumptively protected. 6 The

government parties embrace a contrasting, very narrow view

of the scope of the Second Amendment. They would limit this

constitutional right to the facts in Heller and Bruen. Yet, as

5 The Illinois Supreme Court decided that the Act does not violate cer-

tain provisions of that state’s constitution. Caulkins, 2023 WL 5156850, at

*4–6. The court also ruled that a challenge based on the federal Second

Amendment had been waived. Id. at *6.

6 Debates about grenades or rocket launchers are off subject. Some

military weaponry is covered by federal statute, see 18 U.S.C. ch. 44, which

is not challenged here.

66 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

examples, the First and Fourth Amendments would surely

not be read in such a cramped manner.

Under Bruen’s history and tradition test, the government

parties bear the burden to show that the banned arms are not

in common use—or in other words, are not dangerous and

unusual—and to identify historical analogues. As described

above, Bruen reviewed Heller and set forth its test to deter-

mine if regulations satisfied the “how” and “why” test. Bruen,

142 S. Ct. at 2128 (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 626–34).

The Act and ordinances here do not fall within a “histori-

cal tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and un-

usual weapons.’” Heller, 554 U.S. at 627; see Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at

2143. The banned arms are “in common use,” including for

self-defense, hunting, and sporting pursuits. Each side

chooses its metric—regulators divide the banned guns by the

total number of firearms, and gun owners use gross numbers

of the banned guns and magazines. Under either measure, the

banned weapons and magazines meet the definition of “com-

mon”: “the quality of being public or generally used.” BRYAN

GARNER, GARNER’S DICTIONARY OF LEGAL USAGE 179 (Oxford,

3d ed. 2011). More than 24 million AR rifles are estimated to

be in circulation in this country. 7 Magazines number far more:

in 2020 it was estimated that approximately 160 million pistol

and rifle magazines with a capacity of 11 rounds or more were

in U.S. consumer possession from 1990–2018. 8

7 Commonly Owned: NSSF Announces over 24 Million MSRs in Circula-

tion, NAT’L SHOOTING SPORTS FOUND. (July 20, 2022),

https://www.nssf.org/articles/commonly-owned-nssf-announces-over-

24-million-msrs-in-circulation/ [https://perma.cc/2LX6-UN3B].

8 Firearm Production in the United States, NAT’L SHOOTING SPORTS

FOUND. 7 (2020), https://www.nssf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IIR-

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 67

Federal courts have recognized that the AR-15 rifle is com-

mon. In Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994), the Su-

preme Court offered comments in dicta stating how common

AR-15s were at that time in this country. That case, which did

not address the Second Amendment, turned on the question

of mens rea, and the Court decided that to convict a person of

possession of an unregistered machinegun, the government

must prove the defendant knew that it would fire automati-

cally. Id. at 619. In Staples, the Court contrasted the semiauto-

matic AR-15 with the automatic M16. Id. at 602 n.1, 603.

Acknowledging “a long tradition of widespread lawful gun

ownership by private individuals in this country,” the Court

stated, “[e]ven dangerous items can, in some cases, be so com-

monplace and generally available that we would not consider

them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regula-

tion.” Id. at 610–11. Staples contrasted ordinary firearms such

as the AR-15 in that case with “machineguns, sawed-off shot-

guns, and artillery pieces,” stating “guns falling outside those

categories traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful

possessions.” Id. at 612.

Albeit pre-Bruen, two federal appellate courts also con-

cluded that AR platform rifles are common. N.Y. State Rifle &

Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Cuomo, 804 F.3d 242, 255 (2d Cir. 2015)

(“Even accepting the most conservative estimates cited by the

parties and by amici, the assault weapons and large-capacity

magazines at issue are ‘in common use’ as that term was used

in Heller.”); Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244, 1261

(D.C. Cir. 2011) (“We think it clear enough in the record that

semi-automatic rifles and magazines holding more than ten

2020-Firearms-Production-v14.pdf [https://perma.cc/3WK8-TVAV] (sum

of pistol and rifle magazines with 11 or more rounds).

68 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

rounds are indeed in ‘common use,’ … .”). The firearms

banned by the Act and ordinances here have achieved com-

mon use in the United States. They are not unusual.

As for magazines, Heller recognizes that ammunition feed-

ing devices may store rounds in a way that the ammunition

can be used immediately. 554 U.S. at 630. The Act and ordi-

nances limit the number of rounds a magazine may contain to

10 and 15. Nothing in the record supports these arbitrary lim-

its. “Large”- or “high”-capacity magazine is a relative term,

as pistols may ship with magazine sizes ranging from 5 to 20

rounds, and common self-loading rifles have a standard mag-

azine capacity of between 20 and 30 rounds. 9 The numbers

chosen in the Act and ordinances do not track the gun market

and are not “in common use.”

Even if AR platform rifles were unusual, they are not more

dangerous than handguns. (Recall the test is “dangerous and

unusual.” (emphasis added). See id. at 627; Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at

2143.) The semiautomatic mechanism in an AR-15 rifle is, in

all material respects, the same as in a semiautomatic handgun.

That mechanism is gas powered, and the impact of the pin

firing the bullet pushes back the lock mechanism, ejects the

9 David B. Kopel, The History of Firearm Magazines and Magazine Prohi-

bitions, 78 ALB. L. REV. 849, 874 (2015) (“It is indisputable in the modern

United States that magazines of up to thirty rounds for rifles and up to

twenty rounds for handguns are standard equipment for many popular

firearms.”); id. at 859 (“The most popular rifle in American history is the

AR-15 platform, a semiautomatic rifle with standard magazines of twenty

or thirty rounds.”). Springfield, for example, ships a small handgun with

a 5-round magazine. See XD-S Mod.2 OSP 3.3” Single Stack .45 ACP Hand-

gun, SPRINGFIELD ARMORY (2023), https://www.springfield-ar-

mory.com/xd-series-handguns/xd-s-mod-2-osp-handguns/xd-s-mod-2-

osp-3-3-single-stack-45-acp-handgun [https://perma.cc/64NQ-KRWM].

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 69

old shell, and loads the new round from the magazine. If

Bruen and Heller provide that semiautomatic handguns do not

fail under the “dangerous” prong, the mechanism in the AR-

15 must survive scrutiny. Indeed, a handgun could be viewed

as more dangerous than an AR-15 rifle because the handgun

is less accurate and more concealable. 10

AR-15s are not more dangerous because of the projectile

used. The regulations challenged here do not speak to the

type of round employed, but to the capacity of the magazines

and the rate of fire. In this respect, an AR-15 and a semiauto-

matic handgun are very similar. Controlling for the same cal-

iber of round, the difference between a Glock semiautomatic

pistol and an AR-15 is just the stock and barrel length. Their

rate of fire depends on how fast a trigger can be pulled. On

that metric, an AR-15 is closer to a semiautomatic handgun

10 One pre-Bruen analysis offered a test for “Arms” consistent with the

elements Heller pointed to: common use, unusualness, dangerousness,

and use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Eugene Volokh, Im-

plementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self Defense: An Analytical

Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. REV. 1443, 1481–82 (2009).

Volokh suggested that “Arms” with the same level of practical danger-

ousness as those in common use are protected. Id. Machineguns fail this

test due to their rapid rate of fire and the difficulty of firing them in a dis-

criminating way. The same with short-barreled shotguns, which combine

the lethality of a shotgun at the short distance characteristic of a criminal

attack, and the concealability of a handgun. Id. at 1482.

The weapons banned by the Act and the ordinances here have the

same practical dangerousness as those in common use among law-abiding

citizens. See id. at 1485.

70 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

(protected in Bruen and Heller) than an automatic rifle such as

the M16. 11

Though dangerousness can be measured by many metrics,

it is best to focus on what we know. The traditional demarca-

tion for regulation has been between automatic and semiau-

tomatic weapons. Fully automatic weapons have long been

heavily regulated, and lawfully owned, fully automatic fire-

arms are very rare and expensive. 12 The Act and ordinances

violate that tradition.

The banned arms are “in common use.” They are com-

monly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,

including self-defense. They may be “dangerous”—as are all

firearms—but they are not “unusual,” and thus would not be

within the history and tradition recognized in Heller of pro-

hibiting “dangerous and unusual” weapons.

The Act and ordinances burden the rights of hundreds of

thousands of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear the types

of weapons and magazines that have long been deemed

appropriate for self-defense. This leaves one option for the

government parties—they must identify analogous weapons

regulations from at or near the time of the Founding. These

are the “how” and “why” questions of Bruen’s history and tra-

dition test—“how” did the regulation burden the Second

11 See STEPHEN P. HALBROOK, AMERICA’S RIFLE: THE CASE FOR THE AR-

15, at 9 (2022) (“The features that make an otherwise legal semiautomatic

firearm an ‘assault weapon’ under various laws do nothing to affect the

firearm’s functional operation and, if anything, promote safe and accurate

use.”).

12 See GARY KLECK, TARGETING GUNS: FIREARMS AND THEIR CONTROL

108–10 (1997).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 71

Amendment right, and “why” was this regulation adopted?

The government parties offer a variety of historical regula-

tions on weapons. These regulations show, they argue, that

the Act and ordinances are consistent with the Nation’s his-

tory and tradition. But the governments’ examples are not rel-

evantly similar—their “how” and “why” set them apart from

the Act and ordinances here.

The government parties first point to regulations limiting

the public carry of certain weapons, such as pistols, dirks (a

long-bladed dagger), Bowie knives, and clubs. See, e.g., 1813

Ky. Acts 100 (restricting concealed carry of weapons like

pocket pistols, dirks, or swords in a cane, unless the individ-

ual was “travelling on a journey”); 1813 La. Acts. 172; 1819

Ind. Acts 39. But those regulations are limited only to the pub-

lic carry of certain weapons. The Act and ordinances here do

more, prohibiting the sale and eventually the possession of

the banned firearms. The “how” of the current regulations is

more burdensome than historical regulations limiting public

carry of weapons.

The Bowie knife example offered by the government par-

ties and relied on by the district court in Bevis falls short as a

historical analogue under the “how” and “why” questions.

The Bowie knife was not categorically banned, just burdened

in certain ways. The “how” is different, as it was taxed, or it

could not be carried. The “why” for the Bowie knife was also

different. The knife was regulated because it was used in du-

els, not to stop a mass casualty event—the “why” proffered

here. 13 Laws banning Bowie knives are also a poor analogue

13 For example, the Naperville ordinance states its bans are a direct

response to mass shootings over the last decade. See NAPERVILLE, ILL.

72 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

because of what they ban. Guns and knives present different

dangers. Bodily harm is inflicted up-close and personal with

a knife, and from a distance with a gun. These differences cau-

tion that the “how” and “why” behind historical Bowie knife

regulations are not so comparable to justify the bans here.

Elsewhere, the government parties note historical bans on

the sale, possession, and carry of pocket pistols, revolvers,

and other kinds of weapons. Such regulations appear to have

been uncommon. One example is an 1837 Georgia statute stat-

ing, “it shall not be lawful for any merchant … or any person

or persons whatsoever, to sell, or offer to sell, or to keep, or to

have about their person or elsewhere, any of the hereinafter

described weapons, to wit: Bowie, or any other kinds of

knives, manufactured and sold for the purpose of weapon, or

carrying the same as arms of offence or defense, pistols, dirks,

sword canes, spears … save such pistols as are known and

used as horseman’s pistols … .” 1837 Ga. Acts 90, § 1; see also

1879 Tenn. Pub. Acts 135–36, An Act to Prevent the Sale of

Pistols, chap. 96 § 1; 1881 Ark. Acts 192, An Act to Preserve

the Public Peace and Prevent Crime, ch. XCVI, § 3.

These regulations also tended to restrict only unusual

kinds of pistols, preserving the right to continue carrying

army or navy pistols. Even more, Heller, McDonald, and Bruen

have solidified the constitutional right to own and carry

handguns, so it is unclear what insights to draw from these

defunct regulations. The “how” of regulations like the Geor-

gia statute are thus distinguishable. The current regulations

do far more than limit small, uncommon handguns or other

MUN. CODE tit. 3, ch.19 (reciting list of mass shootings and incorporating

them into text of the ordinance).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 73

outlier weapons. They limit access to many of the most popu-

lar models of semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns, and

magazines. The Act and ordinances therefore impose a far

greater burden on the right to keep and bear arms. If all that

is not enough, the Supreme Court of Georgia declared the

1837 statute unconstitutional to the extent it limited one’s con-

stitutional right to carry arms openly. See Nunn v. State, 1 Ga.

243, 251 (1846); Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2147 (discussing Nunn and

the 1837 Act).

Cook County contends that historical regulations on gun-

powder support their current ordinance. The County argues

that the “why” of those regulations is comparable to the

“why” of the Act and the county’s ordinance—preventing

mass casualty events. But the County’s argument “flies too

high.” The “why” of the gunpowder regulations was to stop

fires resulting from the combustion of stored flammable ma-

terials. Moreover, while gunpowder storage was regulated,

purchasing and possessing gunpowder was not prohibited.

Fire-safety laws do not create a comparable burden to an ab-

solute ban on arms. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 632 (“Nothing about

those fire-safety laws undermines our analysis; they do not

remotely burden the right of self-defense as an absolute ban

on handguns.”). Even more, the Court rejected this gunpow-

der analogy in Heller. Id. (“Justice Breyer cites ... gunpowder-

storage laws that he concedes did not clearly prohibit loaded

weapons, but required only that excess gunpowder be kept in

a special container or on the top floor of the home. Nothing

about those fire-safety laws undermines our analysis; they do

not remotely burden the right of self-defense as much as an

absolute ban on handguns.”).

74 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Various government parties also offer as historical ana-

logues regulations on trap or spring guns, fully automatic ma-

chineguns, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns. See, e.g., 18

U.S.C. § 922(a)(4) (short-barreled shotguns and rifles); id.

§ 922(o) (machineguns); 1763–1775 N.J. Laws 346, An Act for

the Preservation of Deer and Other Game, and to Prevent

Trespassing with Guns, ch. 539, § 10 (trap guns). But the

“how” and “why” of those restrictions are materially differ-

ent as well. Trap or spring guns—rigged to fire when a string

or other device is triggered by contact—do not provide a his-

torical analogue. They fire indiscriminately, and the “why” of

banning them—the imbalance of using lethal force to protect

property versus human life—is different than the “why” the

Act and ordinances seek to address of stopping escalating gun

violence. Just so, machineguns can expend hundreds more

rounds per second than even the fastest semiautomatic fire-

arm, disqualifying such a law as an analogue.

The majority opinion also relies on anti-carry laws as ana-

logues. But the challenged Act and ordinances ban possession

of arms. The distinction between anti-carry and anti-posses-

sion laws is critical: the first limits only the way a person may

use a firearm in public; the second categorically denies pos-

session of a firearm for any purpose. To elide this difference

between anti-carry and anti-possession laws ignores Heller

and Bruen. Bruen states that the “central” consideration in as-

sessing historical analogues is “whether modern and histori-

cal regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of

armed self-defense and whether that burden is comparably

justified.” 142 S. Ct. at 2133.

This leaves only those regulations restricting semiauto-

matic firearms and ammunition feeding devices, but those

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 75

regulations all come from the twentieth century. Even if valid

for other reasons, Bruen states that regulations so far from the

time of the Founding cannot meaningfully inform the history

and tradition analysis. 142 S. Ct. at 2136–37 (“[W]e must also

guard against giving postenactment history more weight than

it can rightly bear.”).

Even if the government parties had identified a historical

analogue that satisfied the “how” and “why” inquiries of

Bruen’s history and tradition test, a single such regulation was

not enough in that case. 142 S. Ct. at 2153. In fact, three ana-

logues were not enough in Bruen. Id. One can ask if there is

any “why” in support of the Act and ordinances that did not

also apply to the ownership and public carry of handguns in

Bruen. If the “how” and “why” of handguns did not satisfy

Bruen, what about these regulations supply a different

“why”? This question was not adequately answered at oral

argument. 14

Because the Act and ordinances fail the “how” and “why”

questions of Bruen, the government parties have not met their

burden that these regulations are “relevantly similar” to a his-

torical law. Some hypothetical laws might satisfy the history

and tradition test—say, a law that banned carbine rifles that

hold more than six rounds, or possession of a pistol that need

not be reloaded. Magazines fall within the category of

“Arms,” so banning them must also satisfy the history and

tradition test. For example, if there had been a historical ana-

logue of “25 or fewer bullets is the number of shots a gun shall

fire,” the government parties might rely on that. But no such

laws have been cited for firearms or magazines. The

14 Oral Arg. at 15:20.

76 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

government parties have failed to show that the Act and

ordinances are consistent with the Nation’s history and tradi-

tion of firearm regulation. History and tradition do not sup-

port banning firearms and magazines so many citizens own,

possess, and use for lawful purposes.

To finish up likelihood of success on the merits, I agree

with my colleagues that on this record, the registration re-

quirement does not appear to be unconstitutional.

B

On the second consideration for a preliminary injunction,

an alleged constitutional violation often constitutes irrepara-

ble harm. See Int’l Ass’n of Fire Fighters, Loc. 365 v. City of East

Chicago, 56 F.4th 437, 450 (7th Cir. 2022); 11A CHARLES ALAN

WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND

PROCEDURE § 2948.1 (3d ed. 2022) (“When an alleged depriva-

tion of a constitutional right is involved ... most courts hold

that no further showing of irreparable injury is necessary.”).

For some constitutional violations, particularly First Amend-

ment violations, irreparable harm is presumed. Christian Legal

Soc’y v. Walker, 453 F.3d 853, 867 (7th Cir. 2006). Although the

Supreme Court has not recognized a presumption of irrepa-

rable harm for Second Amendment violations, it has empha-

sized that the constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense

is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different

body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” Bruen,

142 S. Ct. at 2156 (citing McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S.

742, 780 (2010) (plurality opinion)).

This court has held that when a law is facially challenged

under the Second Amendment, “the form of the claim and the

substance of the Second Amendment right” create a “harm

[that] is properly regarded as irreparable and having no

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 77

adequate remedy at law.” Ezell, 651 F.3d at 699–700. In Ezell,

the court likened the plaintiff’s alleged Second Amendment

harm to a First Amendment challenge, implying a presump-

tion of irreparable harm. Id. In accord, the Ninth Circuit has

held that there is a presumption of irreparable harm where a

Second Amendment right is violated. See Baird v. Bonta, 81

F.4th 1036, 1046 (9th Cir. 2023) (“[W]e presume that a consti-

tutional violation causes a preliminary injunction movant ir-

reparable harm and that preventing a constitutional violation

is in the public interest.”) Pre-Bruen, the D.C. Circuit con-

cluded the same. See Wrenn v. District of Columbia, 864 F.3d

650, 667–68 (D.C. Cir. 2017).

Accordingly, a violation of the Second Amendment right

presumptively causes irreparable harm. The Act and other or-

dinances challenged here violate the Second Amendment,

and thus, irreparable harm has occurred. The majority opin-

ion does not speak to irreparable harm.

Neither of the final two preliminary injunction factors—

balance of the equities and what the public interest dictates—

cuts against the plaintiffs. Gunshot victims and gun owners

each claim harms, and what is in the public interest on ques-

tions of gun possession and ownership is constantly under

public debate. So, I would rule that preliminary injunctions

are justified against enforcement of the challenged laws.

IV

In reaching the opposite result, the majority opinion ap-

plies precedent and reasoning that Bruen abrogated.

A

Notwithstanding Bruen, the majority opinion relies on rea-

soning from this court’s decision in Friedman v. City of

78 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015). See also Wilson v.

Cook County, 937 F.3d 1028, 1035 (7th Cir. 2019) (relying on

Friedman to dismiss a Second Amendment challenge to the

Cook County ordinance banning assault weapons and large-

capacity magazines). It is true that the Act regulates firearms

and magazines in substantially the same way as the ordi-

nances in Friedman (Highland Park) and in Wilson (Cook

County), which were upheld. Compare 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. §§

5/24-1.9(a)(1), 1.10(a) with Friedman, 784 F.3d at 407 and Wilson,

937 F.3d at 1029–30. As noted in I., the City of Chicago and

City of Naperville ordinances are functionally similar to the

Act and the Cook County ordinance.

In Friedman, this court announced a unique test for Second

Amendment questions: “whether a regulation bans weapons

that were common at the time of ratification or those that have

‘some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency

of a well regulated militia,’ … and whether law-abiding citi-

zens retain adequate means of self-defense.” 784 F.3d at 410.

The government parties assert Friedman focused on the con-

siderations identified by Heller and Bruen, specifically,

historical evidence and the impact of the regulation on an in-

dividual’s meaningful opportunities for self-defense. Id.; Wil-

son, 937 F.3d at 1033. Friedman is therefore compatible with

the constitutional analysis endorsed by Bruen, the govern-

ment parties submit, and Friedman remains good law and

should control the outcome here.

But after Bruen, Friedman’s test is no longer viable, and

much of Friedman is inconsistent with it. The Second Amend-

ment’s “reference to ‘arms’ does not apply only to those arms

in existence in the 18th century.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132

(cleaned up). That amendment’s operative clause “does not

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 79

depend on service in the militia.” Id. at 2127. Indeed, the dis-

sent in Bruen admitted that under the majority opinion’s hold-

ing the scope of the right to bear arms has “nothing whatever

to do with service in a militia.” Id. at 2177–78 (Breyer, J. dis-

senting). And “the right to bear other weapons is ‘no answer’

to a ban on the possession of protected arms.” Caetano, 577

U.S. at 421 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 629).

This court in Friedman based its decision in substantial part

on its view of the benefits of the ordinance, including that the

arms ban reduced “perceived risk” and “makes the public feel

safer.” 784 F.3d at 411–12. But Bruen emphatically rejected this

sort of interest-balancing. 142 S. Ct. at 2127. Friedman also held

that categorical bans may be proper even if the limits do not

“mirror restrictions that were on the books in 1791.” 784 F.3d

410. The Bruen decision superseded that, concluding that a re-

striction on Second Amendment rights will survive scrutiny

only if “the government identif[ies] a well-established and

representative historical analogue” to the regulation. 142 S.

Ct. 2133.

Friedman looked to history when it held that a court must

ask whether the arms were common at the time of ratification.

784 F.3d at 410. But in Bruen, the Court was clear that “the

Second Amendment’s definition of ‘arms’ … covers modern

instruments that facilitate armed self-defense,” “‘even those

that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’” 142 S.

Ct. at 2132 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 582); see Caetano, 577

U.S. at 411–12 (holding lower court’s decision that arms were

unprotected because they were not in common use at the time

of ratification was “inconsistent with Heller”).

In Wilson, this court described Friedman as “evaluat[ing]

the importance of the reasons for the [ban] to determine

80 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

whether they justified the ban’s intrusion on Second Amend-

ment rights,” such as the “‘substantial’ interest[]” in “making

the public feel safer” and “overall dangerousness.” Wilson,

937 F.3d at 1036. But Bruen rejected that interest-balancing ap-

proach as “inconsistent with Heller’s historical approach.”

Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2129. Governments may no longer “simply

posit that the regulation promotes an important interest,” id.

at 2126, or advances a “substantial benefit,” Friedman, 784 F.3d

at 412. Wilson described Friedman’s application of an interest-

balancing test as “intermediate scrutiny,” Wilson, 937 F.3d at

1036, the approach Bruen expressly left behind.

Recently, in Atkinson v. Garland, 70 F.4th 1018 (7th Cir.

2023), this court considered the new world Bruen presented

for Second Amendment jurisprudence, in the context of pos-

session of a firearm as a felon. Id. at 1022. There, we declined

to avoid a Bruen analysis by relying on Heller and instead

stated, “[w]e must undertake the text-and-history inquiry the

Court so plainly announced and expounded upon at great

length.” Id. Neither the majority nor the dissent in Atkinson

discussed or even cited Friedman, although those opinions re-

lied on other pre-Bruen precedents from our court.

In sum, Bruen effectively abrogated Friedman and Wilson.

The “history and tradition” methodology of Bruen is not the

framework applied in either of those cases. “Stare decisis can-

not justify adherence to an approach that Supreme Court

precedent forecloses.” Fed. Trade Comm’n v. Credit Bureau Ctr.,

LLC, 937 F.3d 764, 767 (7th Cir. 2019). “When an intervening

Supreme Court decision unsettles [this court’s] precedent, it

is the ruling of the [Supreme] Court … that must carry the

day.” United States v. Wahi, 850 F.3d 296, 302 (7th Cir. 2017).

That happened here, and the district court in Bevis correctly

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 81

concluded that Friedman cannot be reconciled with Bruen.

This court should review the challenged laws under Bruen’s

framework, distinct from any interest-balancing approach,

and separate from the reasoning employed in Friedman and

Wilson.

The majority opinion is correct that Friedman’s test differs

from the two-step interest balancing test of other courts that

Bruen replaced. Nevertheless, Friedman cites to history to com-

pare the arms the regulation bans, rather than the regulations

themselves. 784 F.3d at 410. Friedman discusses the features of

the weapons, including whether they are in common use for

militia or police functions. Id. It also examines the gun’s char-

acteristics—such as its weight, caliber, and magazine capac-

ity—as determinative of its value to self-defense. Id. at 411.

Representative of that analysis, the majority opinion engages

in a matching exercise between the AR-15 and the M16, as-

sessing the similarity and differences of the characteristics of

the two firearms.

In stark contrast, in Bruen the Court did not say “Arms”

are defined by using the history and tradition of military ver-

sus civilian weaponry, such as the line drawn in the majority

opinion. Rather, the Court looked to common usage to define

the term “Arms.” Even more, the assessment in Bruen is

whether a firearm regulation has a historical analogue, 142 S.

Ct. at 2133, not whether a weapon does. Under Bruen’s frame-

work, courts can entertain the parties’ arguments as to

whether a regulation is a historical analogue. Per Bruen,

whether firearm regulations were historically grounded in a

military versus civilian distinction is to be performed as part

of the history and tradition analysis, not in the plain text re-

view, as the majority opinion does.

82 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

B

The majority opinion’s reasoning departs from Bruen in

other ways, which I examine next.

1. A weapon’s military counterpart does not determine

whether it is an “Arm.”

The AR-15 is a civilian, not military, weapon. No army in

the world uses a service rifle that is only semiautomatic.15

Even so, the majority opinion uses a civilian firearm’s military

counterpart to determine whether it is an “Arm.” But neither

Heller nor Bruen draw a military/civilian line for the Second

Amendment. Similarity between the AR-15 and the M16

should not be the basis on which to conclude that the AR-15

is not a weapon used in self-defense.

The majority opinion concludes that Heller limits the scope

of “Arms” in the amendment to those not “dedicated to mili-

tary use” and those possessed for a lawful purpose. Citing to

“historical support” that “the Arms protected by the Second

Amendment do not include weapons for the military,” the

majority opinion focuses on Heller’s comment about the M16

rifle. 554 U.S. at 627. The AR-15 and the M16 are similar weap-

ons, my colleagues conclude, which means the AR-15 is be-

yond protection under the Second Amendment.

My colleagues read the passages in Heller discussing

weapons with military capabilities too broadly, however,

placing controlling weight on supporting or explanatory lan-

guage in that decision. For example, Heller did not limit the

scope of “Arms” to those without an analogous military

15 E. Gregory Wallace, “Assault Weapon” Myths, 43 S. ILL. U. L.J. 193,

205–06 (2018).

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 83

capacity. 554 U.S. at 581–82. The majority opinion emphasizes

the statement in Heller that “Arms” are “weapons that were

not specifically designed for military use and were not em-

ployed in a military capacity.” Maj. Op. at 26 (emphasis omit-

ted). But this passage most naturally means that the public

understanding of “Arms” encompassed more than weapons

designed for or employed in a military capacity. At that sec-

tion of Heller, the Court was refuting the argument that the

Second Amendment only protected a military right to keep

and bear arms. Instead, “Arms” was broad enough to include

“any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his

hands, or useth in wrath to coast at or strike another.” Heller,

554 U.S. at 581. That passage in Heller does not support a read-

ing that weapons the military uses are not “Arms.”

Relying on Heller’s discussion of United States v. Miller—

the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision upholding a conviction

under the National Firearms Act against a Second Amend-

ment challenge—the majority opinion points out that milita-

ristic weapons are not “bearable” and thus not “arms” at all.

Justice Stevens in dissent in Heller viewed Miller as endorsing

a military-only view of the Second Amendment. To him, Mil-

ler says regulating “the nonmilitary use and ownership of

weapons” is fine—so the Amendment protects only the “right

to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes.” Id. at

637–38 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

But according to Heller, Miller does not say that the Second

Amendment protects machineguns as part of ordinary mili-

tary equipment. Rather, Miller explains that a short-barreled

shotgun, the weapon at issue, is not “‘any part of the ordinary

military equipment’” nor “‘could contribute to the common

defense.’” Id. at 622 (quoting Miller, 307 U.S. at 178). In Heller,

84 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

the Court explained, “we therefore read Miller to say only that

the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not

typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful pur-

poses, such as short-barreled shotguns.” Id. at 625.

The majority opinion here quotes this passage and re-

frames it as a military-analogue test. It introduces the passage

with Heller’s observation that an M16 is “most useful in mili-

tary service.” Id. at 627. But after Heller, we know Miller does

not address a weapon’s military use. Because the National

Firearms Act of 1934 targeted the firearms most commonly

used by criminals and gangs, Miller’s “lawful use” language

relates to criminal use, not military use.

One example of this military-analogue test falling short is

when the majority opinion compares the rates of fire of the

AR-15 and the M16. My colleagues credit the AR-15’s rate of

fire as “‘only’ 300 rounds per minute,” which they do not see

as a relevant difference from the M16’s 700 rounds per mi-

nute. Maj. Op. at 33. The two record sources they point to do

not support a 300-rounds-per-minute rate; in fact, those

sources give good reasons to doubt that figure.

The first is the district court’s opinion in Bevis, which ex-

plains: “[A] shooter using a semiautomatic weapon can

launch thirty rounds in as little as six seconds, with an effec-

tive rate of about a bullet per second for each minute of firing,

meeting the U.S. Army definition for ‘rapid fire.’” Set to the

side the district court’s concession that the effective rate is ac-

tually only sixty rounds per minute. For the 300-rounds-per-

minute figure, the district court cited a law journal article that

spends nine pages discussing the dubious origins of the 300-

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 85

rounds-per-minute claim. 16 Wallace agrees that 30 shots in six

seconds is possible—if you are an expert at operating firearms

and you neglect aiming and reloading.17

The second source that might be referenced for the figure

is a government witness’s report in Herrera. James Yurgealitis

included a chart listing weapons, an ammunition type, and

the “semiautomatic cyclic rate” of each. Each rifle, including

“M-16/AR-15 Rifle,” has a cyclic rate of exactly 300 rounds per

minute, and the three pistols have a rate of “300–400 rounds

per minute.” Yurgealitis offers no source for his calculations.

He does not describe the firing conditions or how the shooter

timed the shots.

Yurgealitis describes the rate as “cyclic,” a type of fire

where “the gunner holds the trigger to the rear while the as-

sistant gunner feeds ammunition into the weapon.” DEP’T OF

THE ARMY, ARMY TRAINING PUBLICATION: INFANTRY PLATOON

AND SQUAD, ATP 3-21.8, at Appendix F. The cyclic rate “pro-

duces the highest volume of fire the machine gun can fire”

and is a drastic step, as it “can permanently damage the

machine gun and barrel and should be used only in case of

emergency.” Id. It is difficult to see how a gunner could fire

an AR-15 cyclically. Because it is a semiautomatic firearm, if

the trigger were held to the rear, the cyclic rate would be one

round per minute. Yurgealitis does not explain how this can

be done.

The effective rate of fire, rather than the cyclic rate, would

be a better comparison. There, Yurgealitis helps. He includes

in his report a table from an Army field manual on rifle

16 See Wallace, supra note 15 at 214–22.

17 See id. at 217–18.

86 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

marksmanship listing the M16’s maximum semiautomatic ef-

fective rate at 45 rounds per minute—more than four times

slower than its maximum automatic effective rate.

Heller does not draw a line between firearms that are mil-

itary counterparts and those that are not. That demarcation

should not decide whether firearms and magazines are pro-

tected under the Second Amendment.

2. A “military weapon” is defined too broadly.

Even if Heller drew such a line, the majority opinion’s

standard for what constitutes a “military weapon” renders

the “military” category substantially overbroad.

The majority opinion draws a line between “private” or

“mixed private/military” weapons on one side (also charac-

terized as “dual use” weapons) and “military weapons” on

the other side. Military weapons are defined as “weapons that

may be essentially reserved to the military,” Maj. Op. at 31

n.8—meaning that a military weapon is one not made availa-

ble for public use. The only “characteristic” that matters is

that the government decided to ban it. “Dual use” weapons

are those “private parties have a constitutionally protected

right to ‘keep and bear’” and “the military provides [] to its

forces.” Id. “In this sense, there is a thumb on the scale in favor

of Second Amendment protection.” Id. Under the majority

opinion’s definition, “dual use” weapons are on the side of

the line protected by the Second Amendment.

Applying their framework, my colleagues find the AR-15

“more like” the M16 by comparing the firearms’ characteris-

tics. Id. To my colleagues, the firearms look the same (“same

core design”), operate the same (“same patented operating

system”), and have similar specifications (same ammunition,

Nos. 23-1353 et al. 87

kinetic energy, muzzle velocity, and effective range), identi-

fying “the only meaningful distinction” as an M16’s auto-

matic-fire capability. Id. at 31–32. But because the AR-15 is not

“essentially reserved to the military” and shares characteris-

tics with “private” weapons, such as being semiautomatic, the

AR-15 is at most a “dual use” weapon. So under the majority

opinion’s categories, the AR-15 should warrant Second

Amendment protection.

In any event, because the majority opinion defines a mili-

tary weapon as any that “may be essentially reserved to the

military,” a weapon’s characteristics are not relevant to how

it is categorized. Thus, any combat weapon would be a mili-

tary weapon. This effectively allows the U.S. Armed Forces to

decide what “Arms” are protected under the Second Amend-

ment. Such a “military veto” is mistaken for at least three rea-

sons.

First, the military has historically selected for commission

firearms already publicly available and thus on the “dual use”

side of the line. Privately available repeating and semiauto-

matic rifles, and the arms the American military selected for

wartime use, overlapped substantially at least until the 1930’s.

When the Second Amendment was ratified, repeaters—

firearms capable of repeated firing before they required man-

ual reloading—were useful for military purposes and were

widely available for civilian purchase. The Girandoni air rifle,

for example, was invented for the Austrian army.18 The

“state-of-the-art repeater” at the time, the Girandoni was

18 NICHOLAS J. JOHNSON, ET AL., FIREARMS LAW AND THE SECOND

AMENDMENT: REGULATION, RIGHTS, AND POLICY 2206 (3d ed., 2021).

88 Nos. 23-1353 et al.

useful for hunting as well—Meriwet

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