BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a motion for preliminary injunction in its federal court challenge of the recently-signed ban on modern semiautomatic rifles and their ammunition magazines. The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul.
Joining SAF are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, C4 Gun Store LLC, Marengo Guns, Inc. and a private citizen, Dane Harrel, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill. The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
In their motion, plaintiffs note to the court, “The Supreme Court has now repeatedly said that the Second Amendment ‘protects the possession and use of weapons that are in common use at the time.’ The firearms and magazines Illinois recently banned certainly qualify for protection under this standard. The firearms include many of the most commonly owned firearms in the country and the magazines are integral for the operation of common firearms.”
“Thanks to last summer’s Supreme Court decision in the Bruen case,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “the defendants—in this case the State of Illinois—must justify the ban signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker as being consistent with historical tradition rooted at the time the Constitution was ratified. They can’t possibly do so because the Bruen ruling clearly established there is no tradition of banning commonly possessed arms, and modern semi-auto rifles are owned by millions of citizens across the country.”
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut added, “Gov. Pritzker calls the banned firearms ‘assault weapons’ based on a term invented by the gun prohibition lobby, and for no other reason. These are firearms in common use across the country for home and personal protection, hunting, competition, predator control, and an array of other legitimate uses, and the governor has no justifiable reason to ban their possession and use by law-abiding, peaceable Illinois citizens.”