FOUR YEARS IN. ONE FIGHT. THE SUPREME COURT IS NEXT.
On December 2, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States hears oral argument on the exact question my family put into federal court four years ago: whether the government can ban the most commonly owned rifles in America.
My name is Robert Bevis. I own Law Weapons & Supply, a family run gun shop and gunsmithing business that has served Illinois since 1995. In September 2022 my family and I filed the first federal post Bruen challenge to the City of Naperville's so called assault weapons ordinance. When Governor Pritzker signed HB5471 into law at 8:00 p.m. on January 10, 2023, we took on the state ban too. That case is Bevis v. City of Naperville, and it has been the lead case in this fight ever since.
We did not wait for someone else to do it. We filed first. We are still standing.
WHAT THE LAW DID
The Protect Illinois Communities Act banned the sale, purchase, and transfer of a sweeping category of semi automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns, along with rifle magazines over 10 rounds and pistol magazines over 15. It forced registration of firearms Illinois residents already lawfully owned. It restricted how those firearms can be carried and transported. It did all of this to people who had broken no law.
For a small dealer, it was not a policy debate. It was the inventory on my shelves turned into contraband overnight, orders cancelled, and a customer base told that what they had every right to own the day before was now off limits. PICA is the reason Law Weapons no longer operates in Naperville. We moved the business to Aurora because that ban gutted our ability to run lawfully where we were. That move cost real money, real customers, and real shelf space.
WHAT THE COURTS HAVE DONE
November 3, 2023: A divided Seventh Circuit panel ruled against us at the preliminary injunction stage, holding that the banned rifles could be treated as military weapons outside the Second Amendment's protection. The Supreme Court declined emergency relief. The ban stayed in force.
November 8, 2024: After a full bench trial, United States District Judge Stephen McGlynn held that PICA is unconstitutional, found that the firearms it bans are in common use by law abiding Americans, and issued a permanent injunction. The Seventh Circuit stayed that injunction within days. The ban stayed in force.
September 22, 2025: At oral argument, the Department of Justice stood with us. DOJ filed a brief calling PICA flatly unconstitutional under Bruen and sent Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to argue alongside our side. The federal government told a federal appeals court that Illinois had violated the Constitution. That cannot be walked back.
July 9, 2026: A divided Seventh Circuit panel reversed Judge McGlynn 2 to 1 and upheld PICA, with the Chief Judge dissenting and applying Bruen's historical tradition test the way the Supreme Court wrote it. The ban stays in force today.
Four years. Two trips through the Seventh Circuit. One trial win taken away by a stay. And the ban is still on the books.
HOW OUR CASE PUT THIS IN FRONT OF THE SUPREME COURT
Here is the part most people do not know.
Every one of these Illinois cases runs through Bevis. When the Seventh Circuit turned away Viramontes v. Cook County, the challenge to Cook County's AR-15 ban, it did so on the strength of the rule it announced in our case. That ruling is what teed Viramontes up for review. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Viramontes and consolidated it with Grant v. Higgins out of Connecticut. Argument is December 2, 2026.
The question presented is our question: whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect AR-15 platform and similar semi automatic rifles in common use.
The Court has been circling this for years. On June 2, 2025, when the justices declined to take up Maryland's rifle ban in Snope v. Brown, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to explain why the issue could not be avoided much longer. He noted that Americans possess an estimated 20 to 30 million AR-15s and that they are legal in 41 of the 50 states. Then he wrote this:
"petitioners have a strong argument that AR-15s are in 'common use' by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected"
He added that the Court "should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two."
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, statement respecting the denial of certiorari, Snope v. Brown, No. 24-203 (U.S. June 2, 2025).
That was one year and one month before the Court granted review in Viramontes. Soon has arrived.
The fight we started in a small Illinois gun shop is now the fight in front of the highest court in the country.
WE ARE NOT FIGHTING ALONE
This has never been one shop against the State of Illinois by itself. Bevis was consolidated with Barnett v. Raoul on appeal. I am part of the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois network, a plaintiff group in that same consolidated litigation. Dealers, owners, attorneys, and organizations across this state have been carrying different pieces of the same load for four years. What happens in December decides it for all of us at once.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER A WIN
A ruling in our favor is not the finish line, and anyone telling you otherwise has not been watching Illinois.
The moment the ban falls, expect the State to pivot. Bans on individual parts. A licensing scheme built to make these firearms as difficult and expensive to buy as the law will allow. Magazine capacity limits defended as a separate battle, because a rifle you cannot load to standard capacity is not a fully functional arm. Every one of those moves has to be fought, and fought fast, or the ban comes back wearing different clothes.
There is also the damages phase of Bevis v. City of Naperville, which begins once the Supreme Court rules. That is a multi year fight of its own to hold a government accountable for the rights it took and the harm it caused. It is how you make the next legislature think twice.
WHAT YOUR DONATION PAYS FOR
Litigation at this level is not cheap and it does not pause. Appellate briefing. Supreme Court filing and printing. Expert witnesses. Transcripts and the trial record. Discovery in the damages phase. Years of attorney time against a state with an unlimited budget and no obligation to win, only to delay.
Law Weapons has carried much of this as a small family business standing against the full resources of the State of Illinois. Funds were raised early for the state court action. The federal Second Amendment fight, the one now at the Supreme Court, is what still needs help.
WHAT YOUR SUPPORT COVERS
$25 | Transcript and record pages. Every hearing, every trial day, every appeal is built on a paid transcript, and this case has four years of them.
$50 | A share of the filing and printing costs. Supreme Court practice has its own rules, its own formats, and its own bills.
$100 | An hour of the paralegal and research work behind a brief. The historical record that Bruen demands does not assemble itself.
$250 | A block of attorney time on appellate briefing, the writing that actually decides cases at this level.
$500 | Expert witness preparation. Proving common use means putting real evidence and real experts in front of a court, and the State has no shortage of its own.
$1,000 and above | Direct support for the Supreme Court phase and the damages case that follows it, the fight to hold the government accountable for four years of rights taken.
Any amount | Keeps the case moving. There is no filing fee small enough to skip and no deadline a court will move because a small business ran short that month.
No amount is too small. Every dollar keeps this case alive and makes sure that when the ruling comes, we are ready for what comes next.
WHY THIS MATTERS IF YOU DO NOT LIVE IN ILLINOIS
Illinois was the test. If a state can ban the most popular rifle in America, register the ones you already own, and hold that in place for four years while the courts work, then it can happen in your state next. It already has been tried in others. What the Supreme Court says this Term answers it for every one of them.
This is not about politics. It is about the Constitution, and what it plainly says.
STAY WITH US
We update our blog at lawweapons.org with every development in this case. When the Supreme Court rules, you will hear it from us first.
"It's fatal to enter any war without the will to win. If we don't fight hard for the things we stand for, at some point we recognize that we don't really stand for them."
Thank you.
Robert Bevis
Law Weapons & Supply, and family
Aurora, Illinois
Sources used for the case facts and the quotation: Kavanaugh statement in Snope v. Brown · Viramontes v. Cook County docket · Seventh Circuit, July 9, 2026 · your support page
