2nd Amendment Violation – Privileges and Immunities Clause

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kevin W. Culp, et al. v. Kwame Raoul, et al.

Case No.: 17-2998

Officials: MANION, HAMILTON, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 2^nd Amendment Violation – Privileges and Immunities Clause

Before us is a challenge to the scheme Illinois has enacted to license the concealed carry of firearms. The plaintiffs are out-of-state residents who contend that Illinois law discriminates against them in a way that forecloses their receiving a license in violation of the Second Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Two years ago we considered and rejected the same challenge from the same parties in an appeal from the denial of their request for a preliminary injunction. The case returns on the same evidentiary record following entry of summary judgment for the State.

The State has sought to overcome this information deficit not by holding out-of-state residents to different standards than residents for obtaining a concealed-carry license, but by issuing licenses only to nonresidents living in states with licensing standards substantially similar to those of Illinois. In this way, Illinois’s “substantially similar” requirement functions as a regulatory proxy, as the State’s indirect means of obtaining adequate assurances that individuals licensed to carry a firearm in public remain fit and qualified to do so.

We conclude that Illinois’s substantial-similarity requirement—the centerpiece of its approach to nonresident concealed-carry licensing—respects the Second Amendment without offending the anti-discrimination principle at the heart of Article IV’s Privileges and Immunities Clause.

Affirmed

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