Illinois State Rifle Assoc.: They are at it again with Crook County

Today, in a development that will potentially carry large implications for not just northern Illinois, but right here in St. Louis as well, the Illinois Supreme Court overruled lower courts' dismissal of a lawsuit challenging Cook County's ban of "assault weapons," thus allowing the challenge to proceed. From CBS News:

The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a challenge to the Cook County assault weapons ban may proceed, reversing a lower court decision.
The court on Thursday ruled that lower courts were wrong to throw out the challenge. The Supreme Court says it wants the trial court to hear evidence on whether assault weapons get the same Second Amendment protections as handguns.

The case, Wilson v. Cook County, challenges the county's 1993 "assault weapon" ban, which was expanded to ban even more firearms (along with magazines that hold eleven or more rounds) in 2006. Filed in 2007, the suit was thrown out by the circuit court at the county's request. After the plaintiffs' appeal to the appellate court, the suit was again dismissed. Now, though, the state Supreme Court has ruled that a Second Amendment challenge to bans of so-called "assault weapons" has enough merit to require a trial.

One of the points made in today's decision (brief summary available here) is that the county has not yet had the opportunity to explain how such a ban serves the government interest in curbing violent crime:

We note that unlike Heller II, the County has not had an opportunity to present evidence to justify the nexus between the Ordinance and the governmental interest it seeks to protect.

This, presumably, was in response to a point raised by the plaintiffs, that the law as written badly misstated the facts in order to justify itself. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

In their appeal, the plaintiffs said factual errors made by the Cook County Board had not been appropriately considered by lower courts. One statistic in the 1993 version of the ordinance claimed assault weapons were 20 times more likely to be used in crimes than other weapons, although the U.S. Department of Justice later found that assault weapons were used in between 2 and 8 percent of gun crimes.

Interestingly, though, the county seems not much interested in having that conversation:

But Paul Castiglione, an assistant state’s attorney arguing for Cook County, told the court that should not apply to this case.

“I think the solution to that is a political remedy,” he said during oral arguments in January. “It doesn’t really matter what findings they made.”

In other words, according to Mr. Castiglione, it "really doesn't matter" whether or not the claimed justification for the law is a lie.
So now, the courts will be asked to rule on whether or not the very firearms most capable for use in times of conflict, rather than merely for "sporting purposes," are protected by the section of the Bill of Rights that states that an effective citizen's militia is necessary to the security of a free state


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