Seventh Circuit upholds Illinois gun, magazine bans… FOR NOW.

So Diane Wood got the honor of writing a decision that King Narcissist Frank Easterbrook knew would get monkey-hammered by the US Supreme Court.  Todd Vandermyde, our Illinois gun law guru, seems to think Easterbrook ghost wrote part of the opinion.  He may or may not have done so.  One thing we know for sure is that Easterbrook remains downright butthurt he wasn’t considered for the US Supreme Court.  And when it comes to guns in America, he clearly thinks he’s smarter than both SCOTUS and our Founding Fathers.

Narcissists be like that, ya know.

I share a couple of news reports that have some info worth noting, although you have to read into them to find it.  I didn’t realize this case was the first federal appeals court ruling upholding a categorical gun and magazine ban since Bruen came down in the summer of 2022.  The question here is whether or not, between these two hacks on the 7th Circuit (we lost 2-1) and the chicanery happening in the 9th (and the 2nd and 3rd), how long will it take before the US Supreme Court rules explicitly on these bans and similar legislation.

Because, frankly, even if SCOTUS settles the issue on gun and magazine bans, rest assured recalcitrant courts across America will continue to try to treat the 2nd Amendment as a second-class right where they can.  It’s gun bans today.  What will be tomorrow?  Red flag orders?  Gun registration?  A ban on parts and accessories?

Now, before any of our readers go off yelling at the clouds over these big egos serving on inferior courts, well keep this little tidbit in mind…

Just remember it took two solid years before America’s courts kept trying to relitigate and excuse away racial segregation in America’s schools.  Yes, Brown v. Board of Education was not embraced and internalized the moment it was handed down by SCOTUS.

From The Reload:

Illinois and several of its localities can continue to enforce their bans on AR-15s and other semi-automatic weapons, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court decision blocking the gun bans after finding that the state and local governments “have a strong likelihood of success” in defending the law on constitutional grounds. In a 2-1 decision, the judges said that semi-automatic AR-15s and the magazines that come standard with them are not “arms” protected by the Second Amendment because they are “indistinguishable” from fully-automatic machineguns like the M16.

“Based on the record before us, we are not persuaded that the AR-15 is materially different from the M16,” Judge Diane Wood, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote on behalf of the panel in Bevis v. Naperville. “Heller informs us that the latter weapon is not protected by the Second Amendment, and therefore may be regulated or banned. Because it is indistinguishable from that machinegun, the AR-15 may be treated in the same manner without offending the Second Amendment.”

The ruling deals a sweeping blow to gun-rights advocates in six separate lawsuits fighting gun bans in Illinois. The order—which covers bans of the state, the cities of Chicago and Naperville, and Cook County—functionally ends any hope gun-rights supporters may have had that the bans would be blocked before a decision is reached on the merits in any of the cases.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the groups that secured the original district court order blocking Illinois’ ban, said it was weighing its options in the aftermath of the Seventh Circuit’s decision.

“We are reviewing the opinion and plan to respond accordingly,” the group said in a statement on X. “We will continue to fight forward.”

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul (D.), whose office defended the state bans, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Seventh Circuit’s ruling is significant because it marks the first federal appeals court to issue a decision upholding state-level assault weapon bans and magazine limits since the Supreme Court’s Bruen opinion last June. It also represents a new approach to upholding those bans. 

Lastly, the ZeroHedge story below on the decision raises some important take-aways…  (bold is original)

Illinois desperately wants to ensure that, within the state’s borders, only criminals have guns.

When it comes to law-abiding citizens, the state will do anything to disarm them.

That includes passing a law that pretty much bans “assault weapons” (a non-existent category that really covers AR-15s, America’s most popular gun) and large-capacity magazines (which really do exist). A federal district court issued an injunction against that part of the law, but a three-judge panel reversed the injunction on grounds that are so asinine and juvenile that they could come only from judges.

The three-judge panel in Barnett v. Raoul (Case No. 23-13530 consisted of a Reagan appointee, a Clinton appointee, and a Trump appointee. Only the latter supported the trial court. The other two judges came up with some astounding logic. I’ve summarized the judges’ logic, along with my commentary (in bolded text).

1. The Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms irrespective of active involvement in a formal militia, said that the Second Amendment is not a completely unlimited right. This is true. Heller said that.
2. The Heller decision said that the arms meant to be protected under the Second Amendment were those that were not dedicated solely to military use but were of the type that ordinary citizens would ordinarily have. To that end, the court held that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes….” America’s law-abiding citizens own around 20 million AR-15s, which they use for law-abiding purposes.
3. In the military, there is a weapon known as the M16.
4. M16s, because they are military weapons, can be calibrated to function as fully automatic weapons (they keep firing as long as you keep your finger on the trigger) or fired in three-round burst modes per single trigger pull. AR-15s are semi-automatic weapons. This means that you don’t have to manually place a new bullet into the chamber after every shot. Instead, after you fire a shot, a new round is automatically chambered. Every shot requires the user to pull the trigger.
5. Bump stocks can turn the AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon.
6. Both M16s and AR-15s use the same ammo and “deliver the same kinetic energy.”
7. Therefore, the court held that the AR-15 is essentially an M16, making it a weapon of war that can be denied to ordinary civilians.

A few things need to be said here:

First, all civilian weapons can be used in war.

By this logic, because all civilian weapons can be used in war, all civilian weapons are weapons of war and, therefore, are not protected under the Second Amendment. This is insanely stupid logic.

Second, the ammo used for AR-15s and M16s isn’t very powerful.

That’s why the AR-15 is not a good hunting weapon for medium to large game—it’s cruel to the animals because it may injure them without killing them. The reason the military opted for 5.56 ammo is because it meant that soldiers wouldn’t be so weighed down by their ammo. In other words, civilians aren’t using military ammo; the military is using civilian ammo.

Third, the court is saying that the possibility that a weapon can be augmented to become more powerful (i.e., military-esque) removes it from the reach of the Second Amendment.

Again, that’s insane.

Key in on the “A few things that need to be said here” section.

Well said, with a caveat.

“If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

See “Words have meaning” right here at Guns Save Life.  The original from 2012.  And the modernized version from 2020.

Here’s a teaser:

by John Ross

Semantics: the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development

What is wrong with Conservatives and supporters of the Second-Amendment? Why, in spite of their best efforts, do they continue to lose ground to those on the political left? The reasons are many, the causes varied, but simply put, it is because CONSERVATIVES DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE MODERN ELECTORATE.

“When words lose their meaning, the people will lose their liberties”––Confucius

THE LEFT vs. THE RIGHT
Emotionalizers vs. Intellectualizers

The left, politically, tends to attract people who speak and reason through their feelings. “I feel your pain.” “What a hateful thing to say.” “How will that affect the underprivileged…the children?” They speak in a language of feelings and it is reflected in the words they use. Those on the right, in contrast, tend to process information based on perceived structures of “reality” and what they perceive to be “common sense”. The gestalt of the left can be thought of as a gestalt of INCLUSION (based on feelings of togetherness) the gestalt of the right as a gestalt of UNDERLYING REASON AND OVERALL CONCEPTS. How do these groups interact within their own ranks?

Generally, when talking as a group, those on the right hold up topics or ideas as “the point” of the discussion; tact and politeness, although they may be important, are secondary to the ideas and “truths” that each is trying to defend or develop. Conservatives can, and often do, say things in their discussions and to each other that those on the left would consider insulting, but these things are not seen as offensive because individual words, even phrases, are secondary to the larger points and systems being pursued. Those on the left, in contrast, when interacting with each other, although also concerned with some point, are much more worried about not pushing their opinions to the level of personal insult––and are very careful to avoiding this––because the overall feeling of “community” and “group” is not to be sacrificed over abstract ideas; it is not uncommon for a member the group to intervene in the discussion between two other members to smooth things over if it is perceived that cohesiveness is being lost.

Understanding the Electorate

Consider our day and age. Do we live in a slower-paced or faster-paced world? Do more people read books or watch t.v.? Are you willing to read that thousand page book or would you prefer to see the two hour movie? Whereas baseball was once the national pastime, faster sports like football and basketball have overtaken baseball in popularity. What does this mean politically? Put simply, most people no longer have the time or inclination to learn advanced systems of logic or be persuaded through long lectures or explanations; instead, THEY RESPOND TO SOUND BITES AND APPEALS TO EMOTION. Does this make them easier to manipulate? Yes, but most people don’t care or even know they are being manipulated. It is hard enough just to hold a good job, run a household, and have time for the kids and recreation; when it comes down to these priorities or boring political discussions they’ll avoid the former. So what does this mean? It means that….