In response to a lawsuit filed by gun rights advocates against a recently enacted ban on specific rifles, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett intervened and requested a response from an Illinois municipality.

Last year, a municipal ordinance was enacted in Naperville, Illinois, that was similar to a state law passed this year in Illinois that prohibited the sale and possession of certain semi-automatic firearms and magazines.

Barrett, who is in charge of appeals for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, stated that the Naperville officials have until May 8 at noon to respond.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in NYSRPA v. Bruen that gun regulations must be consistent with the language and history of the Constitution, and the National Association for Gun Rights and the National Foundation for Gun Rights asserted that this statute is not.

Dudley Brown, President of NAGR, told the Washington Examiner, “We’re thankful the Supreme Court is taking the Second Amendment rights of Illinoisans seriously. Any ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ is plainly unconstitutional, and now it is on the city of Naperville to explain the legal justification for their ban. Of course, there isn’t any. The bans were ludicrous from the start, and if Illinois had any sense, they would wave the white flag now and save us all some time.”

“This is an exceedingly simple case. The Second Amendment protects arms that are commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, especially self-defense in the home,” the plaintiffs wrote in their emergency application.

“The arms banned by Respondents are possessed by millions of law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home. Under this Court’s precedents, ‘that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons’” the plaintiffs continued. “There cannot be the slightest question, therefore, that the challenged laws are unconstitutional.”

“The challenged laws are unconstitutional because ‘[w]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.’ Plaintiffs desire to keep and bear for lawful purposes (including defense of their homes) the semi-automatic firearms and firearm magazines banned by the challenged laws,” they added.

Here’s another crucial question in the landmark case Bevis v. Naperville and the State of Illinois, as described by renowned legal expert Jonathan Turley:

Can the government ban the sale, purchase, and possession of certain semi-automatic firearms and firearm magazines tens of millions of which are possessed by law-abiding Americans for lawful purposes when there is no analogous historical ban as required in D.C. v. Heller (2008)…and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022).

When Barrett was up for confirmation, I noted that the Second Amendment could prove one of her most interesting legacy areas of jurisprudence. Her dissent in Kanter v. Barr as an appellate judge was a powerful defense of Second Amendment rights. Rickey Kanter was convicted of one count of felony mail fraud for defrauding Medicare in connection with therapeutic shoe inserts. Focusing on the “history and tradition” of such restrictions, Barrett also took on the voting rights and jury service point with a key distinction:

“The problem with this argument is that virtue exclusions are associated with civic rights—individual rights that “require citizens to act collectively for clearly public purposes.” Individuals possess the right to vote, but they do not exercise it for their own benefit alone; rather, they vote as part of the collective enterprise of self-governance. Similarly, individuals do not serve on juries for their own benefit; rather, they do so as part of the larger enterprise of administering justice.