Image by Boch.

Monday was the deadline for the defendants of the consolidated cases challenging Illinois’ new firearm and magazine bans to file their briefs with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the new law into effect on January 10th of this year. How did that go?

Well the state’s attorneys submitted outright lies and falsehoods to the court. How can they do that without sanction? Folks, there isn’t enough bourbon in the world to read through their briefs without getting a serious headache.

Keep in mind that the new law that’s being challenged via more than a dozen lawsuits in both state and federal courts has limited the ability of good people in Illinois to get the most popular and most effective firearms for self-defense.  Meanwhile, gang members use modified, full-auto guns to shoot up other people on a daily basis.

So while Chicago continues to see the toll of horrific violence pile up, let’s start with the city’s 91-page brief.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are also dangerous and
unusual. The AR-15 rifles Herrera wishes to keep in his home are no different from
M-16 rifles, which may be banned.

Oh really? The AR platform rifle is America’s favorite and has become the hottest selling rifle in the nation. That makes it not only “usual” but, in fact, it makes it “the MOST usual.” Americans own about 25 million of them and counting.

Dangerous? Misusing them is dangerous, just as when fire, water, gasoline or electricity are dangerous when misused.

AR-15s were originally developed for military use, and the civilian versions in circulation today are, if anything, even deadlier than those used on the battlefield.

Please.

Image by Boch.

Did the city’s legal team buy up the entire stock of THC-infused gummy bears to snack on while they wrote this?

And because of the dramatic technological changes and unprecedented societal concerns about mass shootings using assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, the City can address these public safety concerns only through banning these dangerous instruments.

That’s an interesting take. Unfortunately, Bruen says, “No, you can’t.” More from the city’s attorneys . . .

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are instruments of war. In
the hands of civilians, they enable perpetrators of mass shootings to unleash
horrific carnage, pose a grave threat to law enforcement officers, instill terror in
citizens, disrupt public life, undermine democracy, and impose significant economic
and social costs on communities and municipal governments.

If these rifles are actually instruments of war, why does the city issue them to its police officers? After all, police officers are civilians, too.

Chicago’s defense team goes on to twist themselves into a legal pretzel, trying to 1) rewrite Heller to say that only guns in common use for self-defense are covered by the Second Amendment, 2) government can restrict or suspend fundamental Constitutional rights because of “public interest” (meaning none of your rights are safe from government overreach), and 3) don’t believe your lyin’ eyes: America’s favorite rifle is both dangerous and unusual, kind of like the highly unusual F-150 pickup truck…which the AR-15 outnumbers across America.

If I had to sum up Chicago’s pleading, I’d start with “Once upon a time…” and file it in the Fiction section. Frankly, it has little basis at all in reality.

But that’s the city. Then there is the state (Team Kwame Raoul) and their 131-pages of make-believe.

Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Hunger and her pal, Assistant Attorney General Ivan Parfenoff did their best to defend the legal trainwreck otherwise known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act. In short, it has fallen on their shoulders to defend the indefensible for their boss.

Give them props for trying to do the moral, ethical, and intellectual equivalent of justifying racial segregation after the famous Brown v. Board of Education ruling that ended racial segregation in American schools.

At least their work product didn’t read like a bunch of stoned high school kids in shop class wrote it as the city of Chicago’s brief did . . .

Plaintiffs are not entitled to preliminary injunctive relief. To begin, plaintiffs
failed to show that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their Second
Amendment claim under Bruen’s two-step test, which directs courts to first assess
whether the regulated conduct is within the Second Amendment’s text and then, if
necessary, whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the country’s
historical tradition of regulating firearms.

Raoul’s team is trying their darnedest to pretend things don’t exist when they really do as opposed to Team Chicago who just made up their own “facts” like claiming the AR-15 is just like the M-16.

Clearly, bans on firearms commonly owned for lawful purposes isn’t an exception written into the Second Amendment. Most of the rest of Team Raoul’s 131 pages is more of the same until they get to the part about lobbying for the court to take a “more nuanced” approach to the historical analysis.

the record shows that a “more nuanced approach” to the historical inquiry is appropriate here

Here we go. “A more nuanced approach,” run through the universal translator, means the state of Illinois thinks it’s time to restore the discredited two-step, interest-balancing test where government can restrict your rights “for the greater good.”

Team Raoul goes on and on in scores of pages, willfully ignoring reality and pretending it doesn’t exist. If I had to summarize the their filing with a single word, I’d opt for “gaslighting.”

Finally, we get to Cook County’s 92-page brief. Otherwise known as Team Foxx, as in Kim Foxx the Soros-funded Cook County State’s Attorney who doesn’t bother to prosecute gang bangers who shoot it out with and murder one another. She’s another “top of her class” legal mind occupying public office.

Team Foxx spends page after page claiming that the banned guns are so awful that we must suspend the right of people to own them. What do they offer for a historical analogue for their gun ban?

…it is analogous to the longstanding regulations on gunpowder enacted in
England centuries ago.

Sweet Baby Jesus. Did they actually put this in a briefing for the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals?

Did the legal beagles in Kim Foxx’s office ask their elementary school-age children to brainstorm “historical analogues” for them? Dear Lord, make it stop.

Given the extraordinary lethality of assault weapons, such weapons are
patently incompatible with basic principles of moderate self-defense. Such weapons
are very powerful and effective at a long range, meaning they are more likely to
travel easily through walls, vehicles, body armor, and the human body, regardless
of whether the shooter intends to do so.Given the effective range of assault weapons when compared to the population density of Cook County, there are few, if any, places where one could safely discharge them without knowingly or unknowingly endangering the bodily safety of a third party.

Reduced to a fine point, firing a weapon that has the capacity to pierce body
armor at 500 yards, equipped with a large-capacity magazine or
not, within densely populated Cook County, is excessive force, and not self-defense,
and thus a crime. 

Apparently, every time a police officer in Cook County uses an AR-style patrol rifle they’re committing a crime.

Back to the gun powder regulations: Team Foxx claims that regulations on gun powder in England as a “historical analogue” to banning America’s favorite rifle. They go on for pages and pages trying to make that paper mache puppy hunt when it won’t even stand up.

But the piece de resistance is found on page 48:

III. Bruen Does Not Abrogate This Court’s Decisions in Friedman and
Wilson.

Those are the rulings upholding the Highland Park and Cook County “assault weapons” bans. Bruen turned both into dead-letter law. No, Bruen didn’t mention them specifically, but the faulty foundation upon which they were built was liquified and pulverized by the Bruen ruling.

Describing Team Foxx’s work in a single word or phrase? “Childlike.”

So there you have it. Chicago’s filing is gaslighting. Team Raoul’s filing is make-believe and Team Foxx’s filing is childlike.

That sums up close to 300 pages of taxpayer-funded grasping at straws to defend the indefensible. Our June 29th court date for oral arguments can’t come quickly enough.

48 COMMENTS

  1. The real question is what does the Plantiffs brief say? Did our side articulate the facts and arguments nullifying the BS?

      • I hope you mention the claim of ‘Bruen’s 2-step test is sheer fantasy…

        • my cousin may truly get cash in their additional time on their pc. their dearest companion had been doing this 4 some place around a year and at this point cleared the commitment. in their littler than normal house and acquired an uncommon vehicle.

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  2. “Well the state’s attorneys submitted outright lies and falsehoods to the court. How can they do that without sanction? ” – Because demtards

    • I’m wondering if the briefs were either written by Giffords or the writers lazily copied-and-pasted Giffords talking points.

      Or the interns who actually wrote the briefs deliberately set them up to fail.

  3. The laws will remain in effect so long as the appeals process permits, which is until the SC determines 2A is absolute. Meanwhile, there is no consequence for unlimited appeals by the states.

    • The laws against law abiding citizens 2nd amendment rights, will remain in place as long as they allow those who are delaying and denying their Rights to exist. Regardless of any Court rulings. Including the Supreme Court. You deserve the Tyranny you allow.

  4. WTF is “basic principles of moderate self-defense.”????

    If someone is trying to kill me, it doesn’t MATTER how I choose to defend myself. There is no moderation. He’s trying to KILL ME! Anything, and everything, that I am capable of doing, is too little, too late. It’s “do or die” time, and I intend to do!

    Fekkin’ idiots.

    • @Paul I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t understand. They want you to die, they want me to die, they want everyone who thinks like you and me to die. They don’t care if it’s a flu virus, a car accident with an illegal alien driver or a criminal does it for them, as long as they personally don’t have to do it. The leftist hate everyone of us. Please remember that.

    • Paul, how do you know he intends to kill you, until he kills you? Seems like you’re jumping to conclusions fella.

      That’s how those fucking retards think. That, and like @MB said, they do actually really you to die.

  5. Anyone else note the filings declare Bruen a “two-step process”, as if it is analogous to “interest balancing”?

    • It is a two-step process, although the steps are now different. But they definitely trotted out the smoke and mirrors again. It’s always Opposite Day in Leftist Land.

  6. The origin of the word “assault weapon” stems from the term “assault rifle,” which the U.S. Army defines explicitly as a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power. In 1984, a group called Handgun Control, Inc. first used the term “assault weapon” in reference to a rifle in a newspaper advertisement. A few years later, in 1988, the term rose in prominence after Josh Sugarmann, a gun control advocacy group’s communications director, stated in a Violence Policy Center paper. Since then the term “Assault Weapon” was coined in an effort to ban semiautomatic rifles. The term “assault weapon” is now broadly used by antigun activists to describe any and all semiautomatic firearms as taboo and undesirable for private civilian ownership, despite being legally owned and used by millions of Americans.

    Source CHAT GTB4

  7. Wasn’t it Lori Lightweight who stated that Chicago’s firearms issues were due to Illinois being adjacent to several free states? Boy, those folks in So. Illinois are knocking each other off left, right and center, huh?

  8. When the day comes those on point supposedly defending the Second Amendment tell a court, “History Confirms Gun Control in any shape. matter or form is an agenda Rooted on Racism and Genocide” then and only then will the tables really turn. Until that happens wishful thinking Gun Owning Courtroom drama queens are just peeing in the wind…like you sam.

      • We need to be reminded of the only successful legal strategy that will guarantee victory in every 2A lawsuit.

        It’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it.

    • Yea Debbie I’m sure that’ll wrap everything up with a nice little bow, if everyone could just know that history confirms gun control is rooted in racism and genocide. Then all will be well. Thank you Debbie

  9. “The AR-15 rifles Herrera wishes to keep in his home are no different from
    M-16 rifles, which may be banned.”

    Flat out lie. The civilian version AR-15 is miles different from the M-16 of military use.

    “AR-15s were originally developed for military use, and the civilian versions in circulation today are, if anything, even deadlier than those used on the battlefield.”

    flat out lie. The origin of the AR-15 was developed as a civilian only rifle. Armalite wanted a semi-auto civilian rifle that had military styling. They wanted to capture the growing market for rifles that had a military style and they wanted to base their semi-auto civilian rifle on the AR-10 styling. So Sullivan scaled the AR-10 down and started work on a civilian rifle, this was the actual development, the origin design, of what was designated the ‘AR-15’ because it was the 15th rifle in Armalite design series. It was not created as a military only rifle, it was conceptualized and developed and designed originally as a civilian rifle.

    When the military need came to be Stoner took that civilian rifle design that Sullivan had scaled down and changed it for the things the military wanted (e.g. auto fire, smaller round .223), and Colt basically took it from their to redesign for a military use.

    From the left wings own liberal journalist think tank, it even tells us of it originally being designed as a civilian rifle > https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/what-is-ar15-rifle-history-of-firearm/

    “First developed in the 1950s for civilian use, the AR-15 rifle was named after its manufacturer, Armalite. The letters ‘AR’ do not stand for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’ ”

    (note for the dense: The ‘AR’ stands for ARmalite)

    There was a statement by Stoners family that said this:

    “Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47,”

    this is false, although they probably did not intended it to be false in their understanding but the use of ‘designed’ here is the issue and to them it may have been ‘designed’ but it was not ‘designed’ by Stoner actually as a military weapon as they imply. It was actually developed and designed as a civilian rifle by Sullivan (see above).

    Aside from what I already posted. The M-16 designation was applied to a Colt re-design of the Armalite patent for what Stoner converted from a civilian rifle design. The AR-15 stayed with it because it was still the 15th rifle in the Armalite series (only being a direct derivation from the civilian rifle, and not a whole new design, it carried the same design designation of the civilian rifle design sequence of AR-15. Its how Armalite did it back then.), and when Armalite sold the patent to Colt part of the agreement was that the AR-15 designation would stay with it.

    Once again that word “design” thrown around without context and broadly has created a lot of false information.

    The rest in their ‘brief’ is just as much BS as these two lies were. Full of lies and deliberate mischaracterizations.

    • side-by-side an AR-15 and an M-16 look identical…a major selling point as sales dropped off markedly during the AWB when the appearance was altered…and the big money is always in the military contracts where you get a lot of cash in a hurry…civilian sale is a fall-back position when the big money dries up…and Colt followed that plan…introducing the “sporter” in the 60’s…it was a slow seller at first, but eventually caught on big time in the 70’s and 80’s when people were converting them to full-auto all over the place and the government started to take notice and clamp down on auto-sears and parts kits…probably a lot of ’em still out there stashed away someplace but in the hands of the law-abiding they don’t pose much of a threat…these new devices are largely used by the criminal element….

  10. Meanwhile “let’s go Brandon” is wringing his mitts about “fun violence”. It’s gang violence Mayor dummy. Nothing to do with me or every other lawful gat owner. And I lawfully bought a shotgun yesterday. No Iron pipeline you Dimscum©

  11. These are the same idiots who believe Dylan Mulvaney is functionally no different from an actual woman believe an AR15 is just like an M16. They are capable of believing anything that matches their political interests.

  12. wishful thinking
    and make believe
    is half the democrat party platform
    the other half
    is abortion

  13. The Scalia decision has not be overturned by the Supreme Court and since they already trashed the Constitution over Roe v/s Wade don’t think that the court cannot quote Scalia who said “The courts have the right to “regulate” firearms which is nothing more than slicker than eel shit talk for “ban or severely restrict”.

    Since the court has not overturned the myriad of other assault rifle bans in other states do you really think they will do so here and open up a pandora’s box of litigation in all the other states. Not likely.

    • @dacian

      “Since the court has not overturned the myriad of other assault rifle bans in other states …”

      falsely mischaracterized.

      Cases for those haven’t reached SCOTUS yet, it does not mean those ‘bans’ are constitutional or legal as you imply. A case has to reach SCOTUS and be decided by them before it can be overturned specifically. But, in effect SCOTUS has actually already ‘overturned’ them by the Bruen decision – they are still in play though even though unconstitutional because cases for them haven’t reach SCOTUS to be overturned specifically. The states with these know that, they continue to enforce an unconstitutional law and they know its unconstitutional to do so.

      “since they already trashed the Constitution over Roe v/s Wade”

      Once again falsely mischaracterized.

      SCUOTUS did not “trash the constitution” over “Roe v/s Wade” (BTW it would properly be ‘Roe vs. Wade’ and not ‘Roe v/s Wade’ which says something completely different meaning ‘Roe and-or Wade’ and not ‘Roe verses Wade’). The original decision in ‘Roe vs. Wade’, the abortion aspect, was never actually part of the constitution to begin with in the enumerated rights. The original decision was a (somewhat flawed) ‘logic test’ reasoning that decided by an ‘implying’ that abortion was COVERED under the right to privacy, thus was never part of the constitution or bill of rights but rather just said to be ‘covered’ under an ‘implied’ right to privacy.

      So there was never actually an ‘enumerated right to abortion’ or a ‘right to abortion’ as some claim even with the original ‘Roe vs. Wade’ decision. And that’s because the decision only basically included it as ‘covered’ and the US Constitution does not explicitly mention the right to privacy but it implies it through various amendments and interpretations. So in the end ‘Roe vs. Wade’ was implied to be covered and was never an actual right. SCOTUS did not trash the constitution by ‘removing’ something that was never actually in the constitution.

      • To Booger Brain

        ROE V/S WADE WAS A DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT. EVEN A 5TH GRADER BOOGER BRAIN CAN UNDERSTAND THIS SO WHY CANNOT YOU??????

        In its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized that the right to abortion is a fundamental liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Since Roe the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the Constitution’s protection for this essential liberty, which guarantees each individual the right to make personal decisions about family and childbearing. Accordingly, the Court has made clear that it cannot dismiss “the certain cost of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case.” Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 856 (1992). Over the decades since the Court first held that the Constitution encompasses protection for the right to abortion, including its most recent decision, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016), as revised (June 27, 2016), it has also recognized that without access to abortion, the right is meaningless. Roe built on earlier cases in which the Court held that the constitutional right to privacy protected an individual’s rights to reproductive autonomy. In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the Court struck down a ban on the use or sale of contraceptives to married couples because it violated the constitutional right to privacy. In another case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), the Court extended this fundamental right to contraception to unmarried people. Eisenstadt elaborated on the right to privacy as “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Id. at 488. Protecting access to abortion effectuates vital constitutional values, including dignity, autonomy

        Roe built on earlier cases in which the Court held that the constitutional right to privacy protected an individual’s rights to reproductive autonomy. In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the Court struck down a ban on the use or sale of contraceptives to married couples because it violated the constitutional right to privacy. In another case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), the Court extended this fundamental right to contraception to unmarried people. Eisenstadt elaborated on the right to privacy as “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

        Protecting access to abortion effectuates vital constitutional values, including dignity, autonomy, equality, and bodily integrity. In its rulings on abortion, the Court recognized that “[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives,” Casey, 505 U.S. at 856. It has further acknowledged that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.”

        • @dacian

          You are truly delusional.

          Nothing you replied shows that there was ever actually an ‘enumerated right to abortion’ or a ‘right to abortion’ as you are trying claim. And in fact, your own reply, in part, substantiates what I posted.

    • TLDR for those that value their time/braincells:
      I am loosing you are cheating wah wah wah.

      • To Void of any Grey Matter between his ears

        TLDR is the excuse the uneducated use because they are too frightened to face the truth and since having failed English classes cannot comprehend anymore than a few lines in a response.

        • Did I miss anything you were trying to convey in that word salad? LOL fear no disgust and amusement sure. By the way good job with a more compact and direct paragraph you are almost at Debbie’s level.

    • that probably depends on which cases they are willing to hear…but after that rather startling abortion decision anything is possible…the AR-15 certainly qualifies under the “common use” provision…

  14. There is no use watching all that water go over Niagara Falls. I believe a digging canal to the Pacific would alleviate Illinois’s problems.
    America needs more Mongolians.

  15. Banning a type of rifle because some idiots/nutcases/criminals choose to use them in an illegal manner makes about as much sense as banning Ford Pick up trucks because Billy Joe Red Neck got drunk and T-boned a church bus.
    The body armor claim is completely without merit. The majority of LEO’s wear classIII or classIIIA1 body armor. Designed and constructed to stop handgun bullets. Not designed or constructed to resist rifle rounds.
    And the next issue is magazine size. It takes no more than a couple seconds to drop an empty magazine and load a fresh one. Wouldn’t matter if it was 5, 10, or 30 rounds.
    Last issue, the .223Remington/5.56mm cartridge is less powerful than many common hunting cartridges. Rather than banning firearms, why not ban criminals?

    • “And the next issue is magazine size. It takes no more than a couple seconds to drop an empty magazine and load a fresh one.”

      Gotta understand who is talking to who, on that one.

      The anti-gun mafia are people who are terrified of guns, and have no experience with them. The idea of magazine limits is based on the perception of anti-gunners that if they had a gun with a magazine, they would fumble around so long with a magazine change that many, many, potential victims could run to safety, thus saving lives.

      Since the gun control religion doesn’t tolerate learning to properly use firearms, the acolytes believe that the vast majority of legal gun owners don’t, either. The acolytes (who have no interest in making inner cities safe from illegal gun owners) are convinced that the people who “snap” and conduct mass shootings are no more informed/experienced than anti-gunners, so magazine change-out would be difficult to conduct under stress.

    • …and I doubt that even that body armor could be pierced at 500 yds!….this cartridge loses steam very rapidly…lethal up close but falls off rapidly beyond 200 yds…as we found out in Afghanistan…forcing the army to look for something more potent…

  16. Give them a break
    They never touched one, forget firing a M16 or an AR -15. So how could they know, so they believe what they are told.
    We know better, because we have fired both weapons.

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