TASER illinois supreme court stun gun
Courtesy TASER
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Depending on the location, persons caught carrying a stun gun or TASER in Illinois could face a felony conviction. That was until Thursday when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously to strike down the ban on carrying stun guns and TASERs in the Land of Lincoln.

Now, these devices may be possessed and carried by anyone at any time, anywhere in Illinois. For now at least. New York had a similar decision released Friday, but the Illinois case involves carrying these defensive devices in public locations.

Heartland of Illinois ABC has the story:

In a unanimous decision filed Thursday, the court upheld a decision from DuPage County Circuit Court finding such a ban of the weapons or the pressing of charges under the state’s concealed carry law violated the Second Amendment of the U.S Constitution. …

The State argued stun guns and Tasers were completely banned under the Firearm Concealed Carry Act, but the circuit court disagreed, saying that “stun guns/tasers are entitled to a least as much protection under the Second Amendment as that afforded firearms, particularly since stun guns are by their specific nature far less lethal than firearms.”

The state of Illinois then appealed the circuit court’s decision directly to the state Supreme Court.

The high court noted that stun guns and Tasers are not covered under the state’s concealed carry laws, thus citizens cannot be charged for unlawful use of a weapon for carrying one in public or in their vehicle under a violation of that law.

The money quote from the 8-page Supreme Court ruling:

Accordingly, we hold the portion of section
24-1(a)(4) that prohibits the carriage or possession of stun guns and tasers is
facially unconstitutional under the second amendment.

The courts have given good people in America a number of wins recently. And this decision stands as the second victory for this week in the Land of Lincoln.

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Oh, like in Massachusetts…Where the state sidstepped the court ruling and only “granted” access to local/city/state police…All it did is made it “for law enforcement only–restricted.” MA. DemoNAZIs thumbed their nose at that rule and gave the cops a carve-out…Still Not over the counter for the “civilian population”. Of course the carve-out violated the 14th Amendment…But nobody seams to care in this Socialist Authoritarian control state….

    • The MA LTC now covers stun guns and tasers. You need an LTC to buy one and it must be registered with the state just like a gun.

  2. I’m still waiting for the Dems to work stun guns as their compromise. We’ll ban all semi-autos but hey you can have a stun gun if you jump through 30 flaming hoops and pay 30% your annual salary to fund stun gun violence research.

  3. I like the court’s reasoning, however essentially all they did was leave the door open for the Ill Legislature to address it via a bill.

  4. The Second Amendment. It’s just one sentence, twenty seven words, the longest of which is 9 letters long. Written in a very short and concise matter for a reason. The hell we have to go to in order to keep tyrants and fools from bastardizing it’s meaning never ends.

  5. I’m sure glad I live in Arizona, where I can carry tasers, handguns, “assault” rifles, knives, batons
    and just about any (damn) thing else I want to carry, open, concealed, home or in my car….

    • PA allows tasers but still restricts stun guns…even though they were legal back when the cops carried nova’s…I once polled all nearby magistrates to ask them if they had ever prosecuted anyone under this statute…the unanimous response was no…most didn’t even know it was on the books…sec 908 of the crimes code [prohibited offensive weapons] is a catch-all for attorney general’s “opinions”…and the list is quite lengthy and everchanging…while remaining nonsensical….

    • Not for long in AZ if voters aren’t careful. With the recent election irregularities, it appears the Communist tide is growing, even in that historically gun-firendly state.

  6. Damn, some judges who actually read and comprehend the Constitution and do not hold to the theory of legal positivism.

  7. I really like the way the courts have moved on this. It’s just one after another. Even the courts hostile to guns look at these stupid laws and can’t find justification for them.

    The only justification you can make is “you aren’t allowed to defend yourself, just pee and hope he goes away.”

  8. ” stun guns/tasers are entitled to a least as much protection under the Second Amendment as that afforded firearms ”

    In Illinois firearms aren’t afforded a whole lot of protection, so that pretty much waters this decision down to nothing until SCOTUS puts some backbone back into the 2A.

  9. Stun guns or TASER are arms,check,covered within the 2 nd. amendment.check,Illinois signed on to the union of several states knowing that the Constitution and Bill Of Rights was the law of the several states.check,YuP they are stuck with the governing documents of the several states which they petitioned to become a member of,nor for Illinois to adhere to them.

  10. former water walker says:
    March 23, 2019 at 10:00
    Whoopee! Twice in one week! Now if we can get rid of all the dumbocrats…

    That can happen to some, but only if we can get rid of all the Red Commie Troll Swamp in DC.

  11. You have to read the whole ruling, it’s fantastic! There is literally no way a ban on AR’s or any semi auto would stand based on the language used in this ruling! They even mentioned armor as being recognized by the 2nd!
    I think we should be really excited about this.

  12. Illinois will just reword the bill too their favor, you’ll only be able to defend yourself if you pay $ and they allow you to. Illinois makes their own laws and everything revolves around $$$

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