Federal Officials Rule Against Illinois Concealed Carry Weapons Ban
OutdoorHub Reporters 12.12.12
Illinois will no longer be known as the only state in the United States that forbids carrying concealed weapons entirely. A federal appeals court has struck down the ban, which prevented residents statewide from carrying concealed weapons.
On Tuesday, December 11, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals announced that ban was deemed unconstitutional and that ordinary citizens will be allowed to carry weapons. Illinois lawmakers have 180 days to “craft a new gun law that will impose reasonable limitations, consistent with the public safety and the Second Amendment as interpreted in this opinion, on the carrying of guns in public,” according to judges.
“We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home,” the ruling also stated. “The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside.”
Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago) said she still hoped the state will appeal the ruling, but in the meantime, lawmakers must craft a law that models other states’, such as not allowing concealed carry in day-care and other places, according to the Chicago Tribune.
A lawsuit filed by former corrections officer Michael Moore of Champaign led challenge against the ban to the ruling in the appeals court. Moore and others such as Charles Hooks, a farmer in Percy in southeastern Illinois and the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Washington, filed suit jointly.
