Pearlstein v Raoul - IL waiting period

[Euler]

On July 7, ISRA and NRA filed the complaint in Federal District Court for Northern Illinois. (docket)

Complaint said:

This suit challenges an Illinois law, 720 ILCS 5/24-3(A)(g), that forces law-abiding adults to wait 72 hours before they can acquire a firearm even if they pass a background check instantly, as most do. Illinois's law does not purport to be tethered to the time it takes to run a background check, or to any other investigatory efforts into whether someone is disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights. It is instead just an unadorned effort to delay the exercise of Second Amendment rights, on the theory that people who seek to acquire firearms are likely animated by violent intentions that may subside if they are forced to "cool off" for three days.

That kind of "cooling-off period" measure has no historical pedigree whatsoever -- and, indeed, would have been unimaginable at the Founding. To be sure, a few states adopted waiting periods to acquire a firearm in the early twentieth century to facilitate the advent of then-novel background checks, which at the time were a cumbersome and time-consuming endeavor. ...

There is some previous discussion in Illinois Right to Keep and Carry > ISRA looking for FFL plaintiffs - Waiting period.

There are both individual plaintiffs and FFL plaintiffs.

Edited July 8, 2026 at 08:33 PM by Euler

[Yeti]

I appreciate the effort and believe this should be a "slam dunk" win.  While the wheels often turn slowly, I hope a win happens before I give up and relocate to a free state.