Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Ezell v. City of Chicago

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 2011 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawSecond AmendmentPreliminary InjunctionsStandingFacial ChallengesSecond Amendmentfiring rangesrange training

Facts

After McDonald, Chicago repealed its handgun ban and enacted the Responsible Gun Owners Ordinance. The Ordinance required applicants for a Chicago Firearm Permit to complete at least four hours of classroom firearm instruction and one hour of range training, but it simultaneously prohibited all shooting galleries and firearm ranges in the city and broadly prohibited firearm discharge within the city. Individual plaintiffs were Chicago residents who owned firearms or sought to possess them lawfully and wanted to practice or complete required training, while organizational plaintiffs included a firing-range supplier and associations connected to firearms training and advocacy. Chicago defended the ban on public-safety grounds, citing concerns about accidental injury, theft, and lead contamination, but presented no empirical evidence or expert opinion supporting a citywide prohibition.

Issue

Whether plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction against Chicago's citywide ban on firing ranges under the Second Amendment. More specifically, the court had to decide whether range training is protected by the Second Amendment, whether the ban inflicted irreparable constitutional harm, and what level of scrutiny applied to the ban.

Rule

In evaluating a Second Amendment claim, a court first asks whether the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the historical scope of the right as publicly understood at the relevant time; if so, the law is categorically unprotected and the inquiry ends. If not, the court must apply a form of heightened means-end scrutiny, with rigor depending on how close the law comes to the core Second Amendment right and how severely it burdens that right. A severe burden on the core right of armed self-defense requires an extremely strong public-interest justification and a close fit between means and ends; constitutional harm of this sort is not measured by the availability of exercise of the right in another jurisdiction and is not adequately remedied by damages.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Madison, Wisconsin enacts an ordinance forbidding all indoor and outdoor archery-style firearm simulation centers where residents can practice aiming and trigger control with unloaded firearms. Residents who lawfully keep handguns at home sue, arguing the practice is necessary to maintain proficiency. The city responds by citing a handful of 19th-century municipal rules restricting gun discharge in crowded streets and argues the activity is categorically outside the Second Amendment.

Under the governing framework, how should a court analyze the residents' Second Amendment claim?

Explanation. The majority adopted a two-step approach. A court first asks whether the regulated activity falls outside the historical scope of the Second Amendment as publicly understood at the relevant time. If the government cannot establish categorical exclusion, the court proceeds to heightened means-end scrutiny, with rigor depending on how near the law comes to the core right and how severe the burden is. The opinion rejected rational-basis review and did not hold that strict scrutiny applies to every firearm regulation. (Derived from Ezell v. City of Chicago (2011).)