The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois are continuing to defend the city and state’s ban on lawful carry on public transportation, even as the criminal justice system shrugs off incidents involving firearms in these “gun-free zones.”
Advertisement
The most recent kid-glove treatment of a criminal defendant came just a few days ago, when 33-year-old Brandon Taylor was handed a two-year prison sentence for firing a gun on a CTA train station platform last year. While that might not sound like much of a sweetheart deal, as the website CWB Chicago reports, Taylor will end up spending just a few weeks behind bars.
Chicago police officers responded to the CTA station at 1200 North Milwaukee after 911 callers reported shots fired on the platform around 1:13 a.m. on February 19, 2024. When cops arrived, CTA workers and passengers directed them to the first car of a train, which was stopped at the station, according to a CPD report.
As officers walked toward the car, they saw Taylor “fall out of the first train car right on his face and stomach,” the report said. They allegedly recovered a handgun from his hoodie pocket and six shell casings from the area.
Prosecutors said CTA video showed Taylor firing a gun into the tunnel. CPD said the gunshots came after Taylor had a disagreement with the train operator. Taylor did not have a license to own firearms or carry a concealed weapon in Illinois, according to the police report.
Records show he has pleaded guilty to reckless discharge of a firearm and aggravated unlawful possession of a firearm.
When prosecutors filed charges against Taylor last February, Judge Susana Ortiz declined a state petition to keep Taylor in jail as a safety threat. Instead, she put him on an ankle monitor and sent him home, where he earned day-for-day credit that is applied toward his prison sentence.
Advertisement
So, even before Taylor was offered a plea deal he was already earning time-served credit while sitting at home with an ankle monitor. And since it took almost a year to resolve his case, his two-year sentence is expected to be complete by Valentine’s Day.
Violent crime, often involving firearms, is fairly common on Chicago’s public transit system, yet the city and state prohibit those with valid carry licenses from bearing arms on CTA property. Last fall a federal judge ruled that ban unconstitutional, at least when it comes to the named plaintiffs, but the prohibition remains in effect for everyone else.
“After an exhaustive review of the parties’ filings and the historical record, as required by Supreme Court precedent, the Court finds that Defendants failed to meet their burden to show an American tradition of firearm regulation at the time of the Founding that would allow Illinois to prohibit Plaintiffs—who hold concealed-carry permits—from carrying concealed handguns for self-defense onto the CTA and Metra,” he wrote.
[U.S. District Judge Iain D.] Johnston cited the 2022 Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which struck down a century-old law in New York requiring individuals to show “proper cause” for needing to carry a firearm before they could be issued a concealed carry permit.
The Illinois case challenged a portion of the state’s 2013 Firearm Concealed Carry Act, which allows certain individuals to obtain permits to carry concealed firearms in many public places.
But the law also lists several prohibited areas where it remains illegal to carry concealed weapons, including “Any bus, train, or form of transportation paid for in whole or in part with public funds, and any building, real property, and parking area under the control of a public transportation facility paid for in whole or in part with public funds.”
Four individuals who hold concealed carry permits filed suit in 2022 to challenge the law, saying it prevented them from carrying their firearms for self-defense on mass transit trains and buses in the Chicago metropolitan area. They included Benjamin Schoenthal, of DeKalb County; Mark Wroblewski, of DuPage County; Joseph Vesel, of suburban Cook County; and Douglas Winston, of Lake County.
Advertisement
Illinois’ prohibition renders the right to bear arms moot for virtually every resident who depends on public transportation to get around, and as Johnston pointed out last fall, the ban simply doesn’t comport with the history and tradition of gun ownership in the United States, much less the text of the Second Amendment.
The Schoenthal case has now moved to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, where earlier this month Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed his first brief in defense of the carry ban. You can follow the case, which is supported by the Firearms Policy Coalition, here. For now, though, the general public is still forbidden from bearing arms on the CTA, even though violations (including the discharge of a firearm) seem to be met with a slap on the wrist.
