SCOTUS Reply Brief Filed Today!

Continuing their work together to fight PICA in the courts, today, the Barnett Petitioners and the FFL-IL Petitioners filed their reply brief in the Supreme Court in their attempt to convince SCOTUS to grant certiorari to the two cases on an interlocutory appeal.

Granting Cert is uncommon in cases without a final decision rendered by a lower court, but it happens occasionally. In relation to the petition for Cert in the Barnett cases, SCOTUS granted Cert in two landmark Second Amendment decisions, Heller and Bruen. The petitioners believe that the degree to which Illinois and the 7th Circut have thumbed their noses at those two cornerstone 2A cases should be a strong motivation for SCOTUS to set the record straight.

In the opening of the brief, they state that;

Taking a page from the Seventh Circuit’s book, respondents never mention this Court’s thrice-stated decree that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.”  … They ignore that Heller definitively “interpret[ed]” the term “Arms” to mean the same thing “today” as at the Founding, i.e., “‘any thing that a man wears for his defense, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.’”  554 U.S. at 581.  And they fail to acknowledge that Bruen not only reiterated that “general definition,” but confirmed that “the Second Amendment’s definition of ‘arms’ … covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.”  597 U.S. at 28.

This is to point out a critical injustice that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals made in their decision that the arms and magazines banned under PICA ARE NOT ARMS and, therefore, are not protected by the Second Amendment. Anyone who graduated public school should be able to read the definitions handed down by SCOTUS and realize that semi-automatic rifles and magazines of any size that can be held in a person’s hands are defined as arms and are therefore protected.

The brief then goes on to differentiate semi-automatic vs. fully automatic weapons, push back on the novel legal theory that the only relevant use in “common use” is how many times a particular firearm was ACTUALLY FIRED AT AN ASSAILANT during a confrontation, and correct the record on when firearms are considered to be in common use. Next, a criticism of the resurrection of the Friedman arguments instead of using the common use criteria was made.

With the technical arguments made, the brief then goes on to urge SCOTUS to take this case because;

…recognizing that the decision below cannot be reconciled with this Court’s precedents, respondents emphasize the procedural posture of this case and urge this Court to defer review.  That would be a weak argument even in the context of a state’s good-faith effort to comply with this Court’s precedents, as the loss of constitutional rights even temporarily is a quintessential irreparable injury, and this Court routinely vindicates constitutional rights in cases that arise in an interlocutory posture.  But the nature of Illinois’ law and the decision below makes this plea distinctly problematic.  Deferring review in the face of defiance of this Court’s decisions and constitutional rights will just beget more defiance, while law-abiding citizens face criminal charges for possessing common arms that have long been lawfully and safely possessed by their fellow citizens.

And then goes on to make the argument that;

As this pattern reflects, far too many states and courts have already returned to business as usual, embracing any argument in service of upholding firearms restrictions, no matter how strained.  One need look no further than respondents’ brief for confirmation.  Not content with discarding this Court’s definition of “Arms” and eviscerating Bruen’s burden-shifting regime, respondents claim that petitioners are not entitled to relief even assuming HB5471 is unconstitutional.

While the brief is short—it was limited to 3,000 words by rule—it cuts to the core of each argument, distilling them to their essences in an attempt to persuade enough justices to grant Cert in this case.

Chuck Michel and his team at Michel and Associates, working together with Clemen and Murphy, are knocking these briefs out of the park! But they are also VERY expensive. Your help is critical to keeping the cases that SADEC supports moving forward. We are the conduit for YOUR resources to be applied to the injustices done to YOU here in Illinois. The truth is that your financial support has been slowing down in 2024, and we are reaching a critical stage in the fight. Supporting cases at both the district court level AND SCOTUS is expending more resources than we are taking in. If you want to see your rights restored, if you want to shove PICA right down Pritzker’s throat, if you want to carry your Glock 17 in public again, please find the few extra dollars to donate to SADEC TODAY!