Illinois Public Transit Gun Ban Upheld by Seventh Circuit (1)

An Illinois statute banning concealed carry of firearms on public transit is valid under the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court found Tuesday.

“We are asked whether the state may temporarily disarm its citizens as they travel in crowded and confined metal tubes unlike anything the Founders envisioned,” wrote Judge Joshua Kolar of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. “We draw from the lessons of our nation’s historical regulatory traditions and find no Second Amendment violation in such a regulation.”

The decision reverses a relatively narrow ruling from a Northern District of Illinois judge who declared the law unconstitutional only as to the specific plaintiffs before him and granting no injunctions that would bar the state from enforcing the law.

The appeal drew significant interest as one of the many challenges to gun regulations following N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n. v. Bruen, which imposed a new historical test for whether such laws are constitutionally sound. Gun-control laws must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition, the Supreme Court said.

Kolar’s opinion noted a history of restricting firearm carry in “sensitive places,” including courthouses, legislatures, and polling places, as well as in crowded places.

Buses and trains can be crowded with people, and even when they aren’t, they’re still tightly enclosed, Kolar wrote.

“The risk of wayward bullets striking an unintended innocent target is high. What’s more, when vehicles are in motion, escape is generally impossible,” Kolar said.

In addition, first responders face unique challenges in responding to shootings on public transit, and if a bus driver or train operator is attacked it could endanger everyone on the vehicle and in the vicinity.

“It bears repeating that ‘Firearms are dangerous’ is a justification outside of our regulatory tradition,” Kolar wrote. “‘Firearms are dangerous in this kind of place’ can fall within that tradition.”

Bruen Interpretation

Oral arguments in May leaned heavily on differing interpretations of historical laws, including whether 19th-century passenger railroads—which imposed restrictions on firearms on board—should be understood as quasi-public entities.

A deputy solicitor general for Illinois at oral arguments indicated that if Seventh Circuit judges decided against Illinois’ ban, it might create a circuit split, given decisions from the Ninth and Second circuits that he said supported his position.

The state of Second Amendment case law post-Bruen is not yet concrete, Kolar wrote.

“Unsettled areas of the law are nothing new. We cannot yet know if these are legal growing pains that will subside with age, or if they signify a malady in need of a cure,” he wrote.

In a concurrence, Judge Amy St. Eve said she agreed with the majority opinion “in full,” and wrote separately to address the fact that separate regulations imposed by the transit agencies themselves also bar concealed carry on board.

“Bruen demands a fact-intensive analysis of ‘how’ and ‘why’ each challenged law burdens the Second Amendment right,” she wrote. “Against this backdrop, it seems improbable that challenges to two different laws would raise the exact same issues. So a judgment declaring one law unconstitutional would not preclude enforcement of the other.”

St. Eve warned, though, that “federal courts’ approach to redressability is in flux” and “absent further guidance, we must proceed cautiously.”

Judge Kenneth Ripple also sat on the panel.

The plaintiffs are represented by David G. Sigale of Lombard, Ill., and Cooper & Kirk. The Illinois attorney general and DuPage County state’s attorney are represented by the Illinois Office of the Attorney General. The Cook County state’s attorney is represented by her office.

The case is Schoenthal v. Raoul, 7th Cir., No. 24-2643, 9/2/25.