Matthew D. Wilson, et al. v. Cook County, Illinois, et al.

This Court has held that the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). Cook County, Illinois, prohibits its residents from possessing a class of rifles and magazines that are among the most commonplace in the United States. The questions presented are:

1. Whether the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution allows a local government to prohibit law-abiding residents from possessing and protecting themselves and their families with a class of rifles and ammunition magazines that are “in common use at [this] time” and are not “dangerous and unusual.”

2. Whether the Seventh Circuit’s method of analyzing Second Amendment issues – a three-part test which asks whether (1) a regulation bans weapons that were common at the time of ratification or (2) those that have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia and (3) whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense – is consistent with this Court’s holding in Heller.