Portal:Chicago/Selected article/149

People v. Aguilar, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ill. 2013), was an Illinois Supreme Court case in which the Court held that on its face, the Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon (AUUF) statute violated the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The Court stated that this was because the statute amounted to a wholesale statutory ban on the exercise of a personal right that was specifically named in and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court. A conviction for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm (UPF) was proper because the possession of handguns by minors was conduct that fell outside the scope of the Second Amendment's protection. In 2008, Alberto Aguilar, then 17, was arrested and charged with AUUF and UPF. After being convicted and sentenced to probation by the trial court, he appealed, arguing that both statutes were unconstitutional infringements of his Second Amendment rights. The Illinois Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, and he appealed that ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court. While Aguilar's appeal was pending, the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the AUUF statute was unconstitutional.