Illinois has built a towering house of cards of unconstitutional gun laws just waiting for the Supreme Court to send it all tumbling down. This is the latest overreach.
The law specifically prohibits dozens of brands of semiautomatic rifles and handguns along with .50 caliber firearms, attachments and rapid-fire devices. A rifle may not hold more than 10 rounds, and the limit for handguns is 15 rounds.
The state prohibition of certain semiautomatic firearms and magazines is under siege from gun rights advocates and now resides in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The law not only decimates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, but it also requires them to register their banned weapons beginning in October.
And then there’s the Fifth Amendment.
Part of the critically important addition to the founding document is that a person shall not “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
In layman’s terms, you are not required to testify against or otherwise incriminate yourself. Imagine the possible outcomes if a person could be forced to be a witness against themselves. Coerced confessions using all manner of force could be the order of the day.
Earlier this month, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on these weapons in a 4-3 decision. It controversially ruled the Protect Our Communities Act is within the bounds of the Constitution.
That does not mean it will stand. Several federal lawsuits are working through courts in the southern part of the state. And besides obvious Second Amendment infringements, there’s the Fifth Amendment that is clearly on the side of the plaintiffs.
This process bears watching.
