by The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case of Barnett v. Raoul on Tuesday. The case involves the ban by the State of Illinois on certain semi-automatic firearms as well as standard capacity magazines. The US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois had issued a permanent injunction against the enforcement of this ban and the state appealed against this judgment. Barnett is the lead case and is the amalgam of four different challenges to the state’s Protect Illinois Communities Act.
What makes this case even more interesting than a usual AWB and mag ban case is that the US Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs and was given time in the oral arguments. Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, argued on behalf of the DOJ.
The full oral arguments can be found here. The three judge panel consisted of Judges Frank Easterbrook, Michael Brennan, and Amy St. Eve.
Involved in the case(s) since the beginning has been my good friend Todd Vandermyde. He and I had a long conversation about the case and the oral arguments earlier this week as he was in the courtroom. He has since put up an analysis of the case on his Freedom’s Steel YouTube channel. Most interesting was Todd’s analysis of what happens next depending on the opinion in the case. It could a win, it could be a win and the state appeals for an en banc hearing, it could be a split decision, or it could be a loss. All have ramifications for what direction things take from there.
Todd also did an interview with William Kirk of Washington Gun Law regarding the case. That interview is on YouTube and can be found here.
Do oral arguments and amicus briefs actually make any difference? A much better predictor is which judges are on the panel. Which President appointed the judge is the biggest data point. The other one is past actions by the judge to uphold or nullify the Supreme Court. Put these two together and reliability approaches 100%.
I don’t know about oral arguments but information from amicus briefs is often included in the final opinion.
As a contra argument to which President appointed the judge, I give you Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the 4th Circuit Ct of Appeals who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. I don’t think he has ever seen a 2A case in which he voted for the 2A.