Part of the pro-gun playbook is to encourage so many people to get firearms that others feel they have to buy their own in self-defense, driving up gun sales all around. Unfortunately, a federal judge based in Rockford seems to have bought into that philosophy.
In a decision released last Friday, Judge Iain D. Johnston, a Donald Trump appointee, said Illinois’ ban on concealed firearms on public transportation is unconstitutional. (The ban remains in effect until any appeals play out.)
Johnston based his decision, in part, on the fact that the gun ban was not historically consistent with the Second Amendment of the Constitution, a standard set in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. But the gun ban could hardly have met the standard: The Second Amendment was written in the 18th century, an era when people used horses to get around, not the CTA, Metra or Pace.
The firearms ban on public transportation came about because in 2012, Illinois was the only remaining state with an outright prohibition on concealed carry. But in a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated in an opinion written by then-Judge Richard Posner, that Illinois had to allow the concealed carrying of firearms.
In dissent, Seventh Circuit Judge Ann Claire Williams, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote that “protecting the safety of its citizens is unquestionably a significant state interest” and that “when firearms are carried outside the home, the safety of a broader range of citizens is at issue. The risk of being injured or killed now extends to strangers, law enforcement personnel, and other private citizens who happen to be in the area.”
Unfortunately, Williams was on the losing side of the vote.
So after the court ruling, the Legislature hashed out a concealed carry law that went into effect in 2013. In part, it banned concealed weapons from “any bus, train, or form of transportation paid for in whole or in part with public funds, and any building, real property, and parking area under the control of a public transportation facility paid for in whole or in part with public funds.”
The lawmakers rightly believed that putting guns in the hands of amateurs in confined spaces was not, to put it mildly, a particularly good idea.
For anyone horrified by the level of gun violence in America, the goal should be to keep finding ways to reduce the omnipresence of guns.
Instead, the appeals court decided to chip away at protections that had been negotiated in the Legislature more than a decade ago.
Licensed gun owners can still pose a risk
During the debates over Illinois’ concealed carry law, and since then, some people have argued that no one knows how many people illegally carry guns on public transit and that concealed-carry license holders, who must have 16 hours of training, are not a threat and need guns to protect themselves.
But back in 2016, the Illinois Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board granted concealed-carry permits 82% of the time even when Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart objected, as he is allowed to do under the law, because he thought the applicants posed a risk. Presumably, many of those people walking around today with concealed-carry permits would be permitted to hop aboard public transit if Judge Johnston’s ruling becomes the final law.
One of those who received a concealed-carry permit despite Dart’s objection at the time had two arrests for unlawful use of a weapon, a violation of an order of protection and a domestic battery case.
Widespread possession of guns severely erodes domestic tranquility, a guiding principle noted in the Constitution’s preamble, in our nation. The evidence is clear, for anyone willing to see it: On Wednesday, at least four people were killed and nine others were wounded and hospitalized in a shooting at a Georgia high school. Early Monday, four people were fatally shot on the CTA’s Blue Line in Forest Park. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 385 mass shootings nationwide this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
More guns means more shootings. Many innocent victims have learned that lesson. It’s time the courts did, too.
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