The Fight for Your Second Amendment Rights

In 2022, Robert Bevis and Law Weapons & Supply filed one of the first federal post-Bruen challenges to the City of Naperville's assault weapons ordinance. When Illinois' Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA) — the sweeping state law that bans the sale, purchase, and transfer of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines — took effect in January 2023, we amended the suit to add the State of Illinois. That case, Bevis v. City of Naperville, became the lead case in the Seventh Circuit and was consolidated with the other major PICA challenges, including Barnett v. Raoul.

We didn't wait for someone else to fight this battle. We filed first, we fought hard, and we are still standing.

On November 8, 2024, after a full bench trial, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn ruled that PICA is unconstitutional — finding that the firearms it bans are in common use by law-abiding Americans and therefore protected by the Second Amendment — and issued a permanent injunction blocking its enforcement. The Seventh Circuit promptly stayed that injunction while the State appealed, so the ban stayed in effect.

At oral argument on September 22, 2025, the Trump administration's Department of Justice stood with the plaintiffs — filing a brief that called PICA “flatly unconstitutional” under the Supreme Court's Bruen standard, and sending Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to argue alongside our side. The message was clear: if the ban were left standing, this question was headed for the Supreme Court.

On July 9, 2026, a divided Seventh Circuit panel reversed Judge McGlynn 2–1 and upheld PICA, sending the case back with instructions to rule for the State. Illinois' ban on so-called “assault weapons” — which sweeps in effectively every semi-automatic rifle, pistol, and shotgun — remains in force today. But that was never going to be the last stop.

The fight has moved to the highest court in the land. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County — a parallel Illinois case challenging Cook County's ban on AR-15-pattern rifles — and consolidated it with Connecticut's Grant v. Higgins. Oral argument is set for December 2, 2026, and the question is the one at the very heart of PICA and our own case: whether the Second Amendment protects AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles that are in common use across the country.

“There is a strong argument that AR-15s are in common use by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment” and the Court “should and presumably will address” this question soon.

— Justice Brett Kavanaugh

Bevis v. City of Naperville — the first federal challenge to PICA, consolidated with Barnett v. Raoul — is expected to petition the Supreme Court for review as well. Whichever case the Court decides, it answers the same question for all of them. The record is fully developed and the DOJ is on our side, and if the Court rules the way the Constitution demands, Illinois gun owners regain the right to buy, own, and sell the firearms that are in common use across the rest of the country.

But make no mistake: a win at the Supreme Court is not the end of this fight. Illinois has made clear it will not stop. The moment the ban falls, we expect the State to pivot — moving to ban individual firearm parts and to build a licensing scheme designed to make these firearms as difficult to buy as possible. Every one of those moves will have to be fought.

And there is more. The monetary-damages phase of Bevis v. City of Naperville begins the moment the Supreme Court rules — a multi-year fight of its own to hold the government accountable for the rights it took and the harm it caused.

Freedom is within reach. But this is not the end — and we will be there for every step that comes after.