SCOTUS won’t hear challenge to IL transit gun carry ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Illinois will be allowed to continue banning gun owners from carrying their firearms for self defense on the L and other forms of public transportation, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court's ruling declaring the state ban constitutional.

On Monday, April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for appeal filed by gun owners who had asked the high court to take up the Second Amendment rights case.

The petition had been opposed by both Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke, both Democrats who have generally supported laws which ban a long list of guns and related firearm accessories and other policies to narrow Second Amendment rights in Illinois.

Following the ruling, Raoul did not issue a release or social media statement concerning the Supreme Court's ruling.

O'Neill Burke, however, released a statement, applauding the Supreme Court for refusing to hear the appeal challenging "Illinois' commonsense law banning firearms on public transportation to stand."

“Everyone deserves to feel safe on public transit," O'Neill Burke said in the statement. "Minimizing the risk from dangerous weapons is crucial to protect members of the public who use this vital public resource."

In the challenge to the law, however, gun owners had told the courts it was their desire to "feel safe on public transit" that led them to sue to overturn the law, in the first place.

In 2025, violent crime on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) trains and buses remained near the highest levels in a decade, according to Chicago Police data.

Overall, the data indicated crime on the CTA edged down slightly in 2025 vs. 2024.

But that overall decline masked a surge in some of the most serious crimes, including batteries and assaults, which surged 33% in 2025, and a spate of headline-grabbing, shocking incidents.

These incidents have included stabbings on trains and platforms, and a number of attacks on elderly people and women. Notably, the latter included an incident in which a woman riding a CTA Blue Line train was set on fire randomly by a man who was supposed to be on electronic home monitoring for a different assault.

And those violent crimes come amid ongoing robberies and other offenses committed on and around CTA vehicles and stations.

In response to the sustained high crime rates on Chicago's transit system, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold billions of dollars in funding, unless the CTA increases security and deploys other measures to keep passengers safe.

Following that threat, the CTA and the the Cook County Sheriff's Office have partnered to deploy deputies and other officers on CTA trains to aid in a so-called security surge.

The gun owners, however, have argued the crime surge has been enabled, in part, by the state's public transit carry ban, which they say leaves would-be criminals more certain they will not themselves be injured or killed while attempting to commit a violent crime on CTA trains or buses.

They have argued the Illinois public transit carry ban violates their Second Amendment rights to keep and carry a firearm for self defense in public transit situations that are difficult for city dwellers, in particular, to avoid when going about daily life.

However, those arguments were rebuffed by a unanimous panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared Illinois' public transit carry ban constitutional.

In the ruling, the unanimous panel said Illinois is allowed to ban people from carrying loaded, unsecured weapons on trains and buses and in stations, bus stops and "adjacent parking areas," because firearms are particularly dangerous in such crowded and confined public environments

The Seventh Circuit judges further said they believed the state could constitutionally prohibit people from carrying guns on trains and buses and on public transit property, in part, because the vehicles and associated property are owned and operated by the government.

The decision did not address concerns raised by Second Amendment rights advocates that disarmed citizens inside those trains and buses could be relatively easy victims of criminals or terrorists, who likely would not respect the carry ban on public transportation, and could take advantage of the very conditions cited by the judges to commit violent crimes or acts of terror without fear of meeting immediate armed resistance.

Essentially, the judges said anyone who doesn't want to leave their guns at home or another secured location should just choose not to take public transportation.

The Seventh Circuit ruling overturned the decision of U.S. District Judge Iain D. Johnston, who had said he believed the Illinois carry ban likely violated the Second Amendment under the U.S. Supreme Court's recent landmark holdings, including New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen.

The legal challenge dates to 2022, when attorney David Sigale, of Wheaton, filed suit in Rockford federal court on behalf of plaintiffs Benjamin Schoenthal, Mark Wroblewski, Joseph Vesel and Douglas Winston.

The lawsuit was supported by the non-profit Second Amendment rights advocacy organization, the Firearms Policy Coalition.

All of the plaintiffs are Illinois residents who claim they desire to carry concealed firearms on Metra trains and CTA trains and buses in and around Chicago for self defense. But they said they fear being arrested and prosecuted by Illinois law enforcement under the Firearm Concealed Carry Act, a state law that generally bans people from carrying guns on trains, buses and other forms of public transit and at transit stations and on property held by transit agencies in Chicago and elsewhere in the state.

Under the law, concealed carry permit holders are allowed to transport their weapons on trains and buses, but only if they are secured in a locked container and unloaded.

Raoul and Cook County's most recent state's attorneys, including O'Neill Burke and her predecessor, former State's Attorney Kim Foxx, opposed the lawsuit, arguing the transit carry ban is needed to promote public safety.

Following the Seventh Circuit's decision, the gun owners and Second Amendment rights advocates appealed to the Supreme Court. They asserted the Seventh Circuit judges have joined a growing number of lower court judges, primarily from Democrat-controlled states and cities, who have exploited language in the Bruen ruling to all but ban the carry of firearms by allowing states and other governments to prohibit guns in a growing list of so-called "sensitive places."

The challengers had hoped the Illinois case could win a hearing from a potentially friendly court, as the country awaits a ruling from the high court on laws in Hawaii and California concerning such "sensitive places" bans.

The California and Hawaii bans further assert to flip longstanding law on its head, and allow the state to presume firearms are banned from being carried in nearly all non-public spaces, unless a property owner specifically authorizes it.

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled in that case.

But like that case, the Illinois challengers assert the state public transit is part of the overall campaign by Democratic law and policy makers to impinge gun owners' constitutional rights.

"... The lower courts have been using this Court’s language about sensitive places to uphold restrictions on carrying firearms in locations where the need for self-defense is, if anything, enhanced," the plaintiffs wrote in their brief in support of their petition.

In response, Raoul and O'Neill Burke continued to argue the ban was needed to promote public safety. They further urged the court to reject the petition, as they said there was no need to step into a court fight in which every federal appeals court to have heard the question on such bans has upheld such transit carry bans.

Raoul noted the Seventh Circuit decision is in keeping with other decisions from the New York-based Second Circuit Court of Appeals; the Virginia-based Fourth Circuit; and the California-based Ninth Circuit.

All four of those courts are generally regarded by Second Amendment rights advocates as hostile to gun owners' rights, based on their history of decisions generally upholding states' abilities to restrict gun ownership and carry rights, despite Supreme Court decisions appearing to broaden those rights.

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court opted to reject the gun owners' petition. The denial came without comment or dissent.