President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice weighed in Monday against the ban on high-powered firearms that Illinois and Gov. JB Pritzker passed after the Highland Park Fourth of July mass shooting in 2022 but found itself on the defensive as an appellate court justice grilled an assistant attorney general about whether “facts matter” as she tried to justify the administration’s position.
In arguing before the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Harmeet Dhillon, the U.S. Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the nation has a “strong interest” in ensuring that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms is “not relegated to a second-class right” and criticized claims from state officials that certain guns covered by the ban are suited more for military operations than routine self-defense.
But Judge Frank Easterbrook interrupted Dhillon early during the five minutes the court allowed her to speak even though the federal government is not a party to the case. Easterbrook noted the legal challenge from state officials resulted from a ruling by a district court in southern Illinois that determined the ban was unconstitutional, while a court in northern Illinois previously ruled a similar ban was legally sound.
“Suppose the (southern Illinois) district court had found every contested issue of fact in favor of the state. Would that affect your review of the statute’s constitutionality?” asked Easterbrook, who was appointed to the bench in the 1980s by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
As Dhillon began answering by saying, “It would not, your honor,” Easterbrook fired back, “So you don’t think the facts matter?”
Dhillon, who has been a regular on Fox News, responded by saying she thinks the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ previous arguments that have kept Illinois’ gun ban in place are “inaccurate,” while acknowledging the adverse court decisions on similar cases are tough for the courts to navigate.
“It is a challenge courts of appeals have to face, and harmonizing disparate factual findings is always a challenge, and ultimately, courts of appeals will have to do that,” she said. “The United States position is that AR-15s and similar weapons are clearly ‘arms’ that are protected by the Second Amendment. They are not militaristic. The militaristic analysis is not even a correct rule to apply. It is not found in Supreme Court precedent. It is not appropriate historically. And it is not appropriate in the context of today.”
While it’s unusual for a top-ranking Justice Department official to request — and be granted — time to speak in such a case that it is not party to, Dhillon’s involvement is an indication of just how far the Trump administration is willing to go to fight Illinois’ gun ban. Pritzker, the two-term Democratic governor who has been a consistent Trump foe, has repeatedly defended the law as constitutional, reasonable and necessary.
If the appellate court overturns the law in Illinois’ favor, gun rights groups are expected to push for the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. In July 2024, the 6-3 conservative-majority high court decided against taking up the case because the legal challenges to the gun ban were in their early stages. But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote at the time that the Illinois ban is “highly suspect” and that the high court should accept the full case if it comes back for review.
Pritzker signed the ban on so-called assault weapons in January 2023 in response to the Highland Park shooting that claimed seven lives and left dozens injured. The law prohibits more than 100 semiautomatic rifles, handguns and shotguns, high-capacity magazines and other accessories, and requires gun owners who possessed these weapons prior to the ban to register them with the Illinois State Police.
A central issue in the case has been whether the gun ban passes muster under a new constitutional test requiring gun laws to be “historically” consistent with laws on the books in the 18th century or earlier. That’s derived from the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, in which the 6-3 majority ruled citizens have a right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. Bruen also holds that the Second Amendment protects firearms that are in “common use” in everyday society.
Gun rights groups, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation, have cited the Bruen case to argue Illinois’ ban on many semiautomatic guns — requiring the trigger to be pulled once per round — is too broad because it doesn’t protect guns that are commonly used by law-abiding citizens, including AR-15- and AK-47-type guns that are subject to the Illinois ban.
But Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office argued the prohibited weapons are not considered “arms” under the Second Amendment and that they possess the same qualities as military weapons that are not commonly used for self-defense.
Illinois Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Hunger said the prohibited guns, particularly AR-15s, should not be typical for civilian use and that if the courts say it’s constitutional for the courts to ban automatic weapons, the same principle applies to semiautomatic weapons.
“It’s much more frequent that it’s happening recently,” Hunger said of mass shootings. “Mass shootings are a very specific type of event and this law was enacted to prevent this type of shooting.”
