textual and historical analysis in Illinois

2025If so, courts moved to step two and “appl[ied] the appropriate level of heightened means-ends scrutiny,” considering “the strength of the government’s justification for restricting or regulating the exercise of second amendment rights.” 5 No. 1-24-0917 Id. (citing Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 701-04 (7th Cir. 2011)). ¶ 20 Employing this test in 2018, our supreme court held in Chairez that a provision of the UUW statute prohibiting the possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a public park was facially unconstitutional, both because the State had failed to provide any data demons

2014That inquiry involves a textual and historical inquiry to determine whether the conduct was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification. [Citation.] If the government can establish that the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the second amendment right, then the regulated activity is categorically unprotected. [Citation.] However, ‘if the historical evidence is inconclusive or suggests that the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected–then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government’s justification for

2024The first prong requires “a textual and historical inquiry” concerning whether the “challenged law imposes a burden on conduct falling within the scope of the second amendment guarantee.” Wilson v. County of Cook, 2012 IL 112026, ¶ 41 .

2024That inquiry involves a textual and historical inquiry to determine whether the conduct was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification. [Citations.] If the government can establish that the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the second amendment right, then the regulated activity is categorically unprotected. [Citation.] However, ‘if the historical evidence is inconclusive or suggests that the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected—then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government’s justification for

2014“That inquiry involves a textual and historical inquiry to determine whether the conduct was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification.” Id. (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 634-35 ).

2014"That inquiry involves a textual and historical inquiry to determine whether the conduct was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification." Id. (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 634-35 ).

2025Step one of that framework employed “a textual and historical analysis of the second amendment to determine whether the challenged law impose[d] a burden on conduct that was understood to be within the scope of the second amendment’s protection at the time of ratification.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.

2020First, reviewing courts “conduct a textual and historical analysis of the second amendment to determine whether the challenged law imposes a burden on conduct that was understood to be within the scope of the second amendment’s protection at the time of ratification.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Chairez, 2018 IL 121417, ¶ 21 .

2026In his reply brief, defendant directs us to Justice Overstreet’s dissent in Thompson (see Thompson, 2025 IL 129965, ¶¶ 55-87 (Overstreet, J., dissenting)) and asks us to evaluate the textual and historical analysis pursuant to Bruen rather than follow the Thompson majority.

2025See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 108, 111 (Breyer, J., dissenting, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ.) (noting that in Heller the majority “undertook 40 pages of textual and historical analysis” and, in Bruen, the majority’s historical analysis consisted of 30 pages of review of “numerous original sources from over 600 years of English and American history”). ¶ 79 Nothing in any of the Court’s discussion of the text-and-history standard in Bruen leads to the conclusion that a majority of the Court has, sua sponte, completed this required comprehensive analysis with respect to shall-issue licensing regim

2025Id. at 32 ; Heller, 554 U.S. at 635 (because Heller was the “Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field”).

2025See Atkinson v. Garland, 70 F.4th 1018, 1022 (7th Cir. 2023) (noting that nothing in Bruen allows the court to sidestep the text-and-history analysis and emphasizing that the courts “must undertake the text-and-history inquiry the Court so plainly announced and expounded upon at great length”). ¶ 87 Accordingly, I agree with defendant that the appellate court below erred in disregarding the textual and historical analysis.

2014Accord People v. Garvin, 2013 IL App (1st) 113095, ¶ 35 (strict scrutiny applies to “core” second amendment protections, whereas intermediate scrutiny applies to regulation that is “closer to the margins”).