Crime-ridden Illinois took drastic steps to strip the constitutional freedom to defend oneself, including banning concealed carry by young adults between the ages of 18 and 21.
Now there is a legal challenge to this ill-conceived statute in federal district court to attempt to strike it down.
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) along with the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and three private citizens filed the lawsuit, known as Meyer v. Raoul.
It is well established that Chicago is reeling under a violent crime wave that has continued for years.
But the answer to the criminal surge is not preventing law-abiding legal adults from concealed carry and thereby removing their ability to defend themselves and others against those who would do them harm.
The lawsuit declares that “young adults between 18 and 21 were fully protected by the Second Amendment at the time of its ratification.”
Further, there were literally hundreds of laws from the U.S.’s colonial era and founding period that required those in this age group “to keep and bear arms.”
The new brief asserts the Illinois carry ban “must be declared unconstitutional, and its enforcement enjoined, because the Plaintiff’s Second Amendment rights demand our unqualified deference.”
As SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb noted, American 18-year-olds may vote, enter legally binding contracts, marry, join the military, and start businesses.
In fact, for nearly all actions this age group is considered to enjoy full adulthood.
Not so, however, in Illinois.
The misguided state law prohibits legal adults who would otherwise be fully qualified from exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.
Even though other law-abiding adults are allowed to possess firearms away from home or in their automobile, this arbitrary age group is stripped of its freedom to do so.
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut declared that “there is no basis” for barring young adults from their Second Amendment rights as anyone over the age of 21 may exercise them. The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and the Supreme Court “has made clear that the right to bear arms applies to ALL Americans.”
The lawsuit asks for an injunction to prevent this miscarriage of justice from being further enforced.
Either the Constitution applies to every law-abiding U.S. adult, or it does not.
There are obvious exceptions to be made for serious mental illness and other factors, but they cannot be so trivial as to randomly pick an age group and deny their freedoms.
Lawmakers are not free to pick and choose which rights enshrined in this sacred document are in force and which may be overlooked or amended to the point of being meaningless.
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the free press, and so many other important liberties apply to all. An overwhelming case must be made to infringe upon these rights as they are exercised by law-abiding citizens.
Illinois does not have a gun crisis; it has a crime crisis. It is evident with mountains of proof that all the draconian gun control laws the state can muster have no effect on disarming violent criminals who have no regard for the law in the first place.
The state wastes an incredible amount of time and effort wringing hands and plotting new ways to nullify the Second Amendment rights of its people.
This time and effort would be much better spent sweeping violent criminals off the streets and keeping them away from the public.
Instead of Illinois lawmakers exerting enormous quantities of energy stripping away freedoms from law-abiding citizens, they should instead make it easier for them to defend themselves and provide another barrier of protection against those who would do harm.
