We’re all getting a college level education in how slowly the courts work.
FOID challenge (Guns Save Life v. Kelly): Originally scheduled for oral arguments on April 19th, that got cancelled for a medical emergency with the judge. We now have a June 20th date at 10:30 (at the Sangamon County Courthouse).
Come join us if you want. Put your Google to work to find the courthouse. Keep your head on a swivel because it’s not located in the best neighborhood in town.
We’ve only been at this four four years now, so what’s two more months?
I’ll tell you what: for people who have lost their FOIDs over vexatious complaints or the weakest of “Clear and Present Danger” reports, two months of sleepless nights can lead to more health problems and victimization by bad guys.
Federal challenges to gun ban: We got an injunction from Judge Stephen McGlynn that lasted all of six days. Then a rogue, rabidly gun-hating judge named Frank Easterbrook ignored rules and procedures to stay our hard-fought injunction.
If “Easterbrook” sounds familiar, he’s the very narcissistic judge who wrote the Freidman gun ban decision some years ago using the two-step interest-balancing test that the US Supreme Court struck down in Bruen.
Easterbook still believes not only that he should have been appointed to the US Supreme Court, but that his precious Friedman decision remains valid precedent. In reality, it is now dead letter law thanks to Bruen.
Amy Coney Barrett took up an emergency appeal in the Naperville case. In a highly unusual and extraordinary turn of events, she asked Naperville for a rebuttal.
Barrett’s order put some heat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Trying to head off a hard spanking from the US Supreme Court, the 7th has consolidated a bunch of the challenges to the new gun ban (including the Naperville case as well as the four from the Southern District of Illinois) and put them on a “super expedited” briefing schedule and a June 29th date for oral arguments.
A few days after that, Barrett rejected the emergency appeal.
Now, two months isn’t my idea of expedited, especially when people who need the best and most effective defensive firearms are debarred from purchasing them.
This is all about the preliminary injunction too. We still have to litigate the case but I’m guessing that should go fairly quickly.
Regardless of how the Northern District judges and Stephen McGlynn in the Southern District rule, I’m confident the losers will appeal the the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. And frankly, whether or not we win there is less contingent than the quality of our brief and more about the three judges we draw on the appeal.
While some federal courts are faithfully applying Bruen, many others are not. As I wrote on the website, the 7th can follow Bruen and get their heads out of their asses, or they can double down on Easterbrook stupid. If they go with Easterbrook’s version of cray-cray, then that all but guarantees the US Supreme Court will take this case to decide once and for all about gun and magazine bans. Assuming another case doesn’t make it there first.
Some federal judges (cough Kendall cough) twisting themselves into a pretzel to rewrite Bruen. Others like Easterbrook are ignoring it.
On top of all that, Illinois and some other states’ attorneys general are trying to re-write the Heller decision saying that the 2nd Amendment only applies to firearms in common use for self-defense.
The Heller decision said that the Second Amendment protects all guns in common use for lawful purposes, SUCH AS self-defense. Big difference there. Interestingly, nobody’s even talking about hunting deer.
In state court, Dan Caulkin’s case went to Oral Arguments as GunNews went to press.
If you recall from April, the two new justices on the Land of Lincoln’s Supreme Court declined to recuse themselves from hearing the Caulkins gun case. This only months after Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a named defendant in the very high-profile, very political case donated $1M to each of their campaigns for the Illinois Senate seats. And how House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon – also named defendants – donated a half-million to Justice O’Brien and about 750k to Justice Rochford’s campaigns last year.
Guns Save Life is encouraging GSL members and other civic-minded individuals to do some guerilla advocacy when it comes to the Illinois Supreme Court.
On Monday, we shared information on how the little people can help hold these judges accountable to the IL Code of Judicial Conduct and the Canons by which judges are supposed to live (and campaign).
Take a few minutes to complete a complaint form and submit it to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board. Then cook up some popcorn and watch the fun begin.
A dizzying array of legal wrangling, which thanks to a couple of skid marks in the shorts of jurisprudence, have netted us nothing. Meanwhile, that Bolshie shitbird Don Harmon continues to shepherd leftist trash through the GA at record pace on an assembly line, which then goes straight to JB Puffenstuff for rubber stamp. Harmon now wants to tear up the Circuit Courts and prevent lawsuits against the state on constitutional grounds. Expect this and the rest of their gun-hating agenda to pass in the next three days before they run out of town for the summer.
Old Josef himself would be impressed with the speed of the takeover here.
“The speed of smell.”