The U.S. Supreme Court on April 6 rejected a group of Illinois residents’ challenge to a state law banning firearms on public transportation.

The justices denied the petition in Schoenthal v. Raoul in an unsigned order. The court did not explain its decision. No justices dissented.

The challengers cited the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

In that case, the court found that New York’s restrictive handgun licensing law violated the Second Amendment. The ruling affirmed the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, and it created a legal test requiring that gun laws be consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation” to survive constitutional scrutiny.

The challengers argued that the state ban violates the Second Amendment and the 14th Amendment.

“There is no historical tradition of banning law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms in crowded public locations where they may be more vulnerable,” their petition states.

“To the contrary, a number of colonies ‘required individual arms bearing for public-safety reasons’ in such circumstances.”

The residents sued in September 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and that court ruled in their favor.

The court applied the Bruen test and held that the state had failed to justify the ban on the ground that it was part of a legitimate historical tradition of firearm regulation. The court found that the ban was unconstitutional, the petition said.

However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that the ban was constitutional because “a consistent historical thread prohibits firearms in analogously crowded and confined locations.”

The appeals court said there was also a tradition of restricting firearms in locations where “vulnerable populations” can be found and in places “owned and operated by the government,” the petition said.

The appeals court also said the rules that railroad companies used in the 1800s regarding carrying firearms in passenger cars justified the state ban.

“[Under Bruen,] we are not concerned with whether the government has demonstrated a compelling interest in regulating firearms on public transit. Maybe Illinois has made a good policy choice, maybe not,” the appeals court said.

“Our concern is whether the law aligns with the nation’s tradition. We hold that [the ban] is constitutional because it comports with regulatory principles that originated in the Founding era and continue to the present.”

The residents argued in the petition that the court decision conflicts with the Bruen precedent because the United States doesn’t have a tradition of banning firearms in crowded places or to protect so-called vulnerable populations.

The Supreme Court should take up the appeal because the case “presents an excellent vehicle for this Court to offer its first in-depth analysis of the ‘sensitive places’ doctrine” and to offer guidance to lower courts that are now examining similar Second Amendment challenges, the petition said.

Illinois Solicitor General Jane Elinor Notz had filed a brief urging the Supreme Court not to take up the case.

“The Seventh Circuit correctly applied Bruen to the case when it found that the restriction of carrying firearms on public transit was constitutional both as an analog of historically sensitive-place regulations and as a descendant of firearm restrictions on nineteenth-century passenger railroads,” the brief said.

The challengers’ attempts “to rebut those conclusions are meritless.”

After the new ruling, the challengers’ attorney, David H. Thompson of Cooper and Kirk in Washington, told The Epoch Times, “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not take up this important case.”

“We remain committed to vindicating the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding citizens,” he said.

April McLaren, deputy press secretary to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, hailed the new ruling.

“This law is an important public-safety measure, and we are pleased that it will continue to be enforced in Illinois,” she told The Epoch Times.

Eileen O’Neill Burke, state’s attorney for Cook County, Illinois, also praised the court’s decision. Burke was a co-respondent in the case.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe on public transit,” she told The Epoch Times.

“Minimizing the risk from dangerous weapons is crucial to protect members of the public who use this vital public resource.

“We are pleased the Supreme Court agreed with our arguments, which will allow Illinois’ commonsense law banning firearms on public transportation to stand.”

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared April 7, 2026, in The Epoch Times. It was updated April 8, 2026.