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Page Number: 2.0

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FRIEDMAN v. HIGHLAND PARK 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

nalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic 
rifles),  which  many  Americans  own  for  lawful  purposes 
like  self-defense,  hunting,  and  target  shooting.  The  City
also  prohibited  “Large  Capacity  Magazines,”  a  term  the 
City used to refer to nearly all ammunition feeding devices 
that  “accept  more  than  ten  rounds.”    §136.001(G),  id., 
at 70a. 

The City gave anyone who legally possessed “an Assault 
Weapon  or  Large  Capacity  Magazine”  60  days  to  move 
these items outside city limits, disable them, or surrender
them  for  destruction.    §136.020,  id.,  at  73a.  Anyone  who
violates  the  ordinance  can  be  imprisoned  for  up  to  six 
months, fined up to $1,000, or both.  §136.999, id., at 74a. 
Petitioners—a  Highland  Park  resident  who  sought  to
keep now-prohibited firearms and magazines to defend his
home,  and  an  advocacy  organization—brought  a  suit  to
enjoin  the  ordinance  on  the  ground  that  it  violates  the 
Second Amendment.  The District Court for the Northern 
District of Illinois granted summary judgment to the City. 
A  divided  panel  of  the  Seventh  Circuit  affirmed.    The 
panel majority acknowledged that the prohibited weapons 
“can be beneficial for self-defense because they are lighter 
than many rifles and less dangerous per shot than larger-
caliber  pistols  or  revolvers,”  and  thus  “[h]ouseholders  too
frightened or infirm to aim carefully may be able to wield
them more effectively.”  784 F. 3d, at 411. 

The  majority  nonetheless  found  no  constitutional  prob-
lem  with  the  ordinance.  It  recognized  that  Heller  “holds 
that  a  law  banning  the  possession  of  handguns  in  the
home . . .  violates”  the  Second  Amendment.    784  F. 3d,  at 
407.  But beyond Heller’s rejection of banning handguns in 
the  home,  the  majority  believed,  Heller  and  McDonald 
“leave  matters  open”  on  the  scope  of  the  Second  Amend-
ment.  784 F. 3d, at 412.  The majority thus adopted a new 
test for gauging the constitutionality of bans on firearms:
“[W]e  [will]  ask  whether  a  regulation  bans  weapons  that