“Crowded and Confined” as Sensitive Places: Seventh Circuit Upholds Illinois’s Transit Carry Restriction and Articulates a Five-Factor Limiting Principle under Bruen

Introduction

In Benjamin Schoenthal v. Kwame Raoul, the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court and upheld Illinois’s prohibition on carrying loaded, accessible firearms on public transportation (with an exception for unloaded and secured firearms). Applying New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and United States v. Rahimi, the court held that modern regulations disarming riders while they are in the “crowded and confined” environment of buses and trains fit within the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The panel’s opinion—authored by Judge Kolar and joined by Judges Ripple and St. Eve—does more than resolve a discrete dispute: it crystallizes a historically grounded “crowded and confined places” strand within the sensitive-places doctrine, accepts nineteenth-century railroad rules as probative analogues, clarifies redressability in pre-enforcement challenges with overlapping criminal regimes, and offers a careful five-factor limiting principle to cabin future sensitive-place claims.

The plaintiffs—three Illinois concealed-carry licensees—challenged 430 ILCS 66/65(a)(8), which forbids carrying firearms “on any bus, train, or form of transportation” funded in whole or in part with public funds and on associated property. They argued the ban violates the Second Amendment as incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment. The State and county prosecutors defended the law as consistent with historical tradition. The case arrives in the wake of Bruen’s text-and-history methodology and Rahimi’s elaboration of analogical reasoning.

Summary of the Judgment

Standing: The court held the plaintiffs have standing to seek declaratory relief despite overlapping transit policies (e.g., Metra’s own firearm ban) because (i) they face a credible threat of criminal prosecution under Section 65(a)(8) and removing one layer of criminal liability is redress in itself, and (ii) redressability is assessed by the complaint’s requested relief, which sought a declaration against Section 65(a)(8) “and all related laws, regulations, policies, and procedures.” The court relied on Reporters Committee v. Rokita and Gutierrez v. Saenz, and distinguished Haaland v. Brackeen, Harp v. Chicago Ridge, and Renne v. Geary.
Merits: At Bruen step one, the court assumed the text covers the plaintiffs’ conduct. At step two, the State met its burden by showing a robust tradition of restricting arms in sensitive locations and, more specifically, in “crowded and confined” places (ballrooms, social gatherings) from the Founding through Reconstruction and beyond, including federal prohibitions in air travel and nineteenth-century railroad company rules requiring firearms to be unloaded, cased, or checked.
“How” and “Why” Analysis: The “how” (temporary, location-bound burden with an exception for unloaded and secured arms) and the “why” (heightened safety risks in dense, enclosed, moving venues serving vulnerable populations, operated by government) are comparable to historical analogues. The modern Illinois law is in some respects less burdensome than historical outright bans.
Limiting principle: The court emphasized that sensitive-place reasoning is not a “blank check.” It identified a five-part set of features sufficient (but not necessary or universally applicable) to sustain Section 65(a)(8): a temporary regulation of the manner of carry; in a crowded and confined space; defined by a natural tendency to congregate people at higher density than adjacent areas; serving important societal functions; where firearms materially heighten public safety risks.
Ancillary holdings and cautions: Government ownership of the property is a relevant factor, not a separate “government-as-proprietor” escape hatch from Bruen. The court analogized to time, place, and manner limits in First Amendment sensitive places to underscore parallel reductions of constitutional rights in specially sensitive forums. It also affirmed the law’s application to transit stations and adjacent parking areas.
Disposition: Reversal of the district court and remand.

Case Background and Procedural Posture

Illinois’s 2013 Firearm Concealed Carry Act permits licensed public carry but carves out prohibited locations, including public transportation and associated property. A first violation is a Class B misdemeanor. Plaintiffs Schoenthal, Wroblewski, and Winston—concealed-carry license holders—wish to carry for self-defense on Chicago’s CTA and the Metra commuter rail but refrained due to fear of arrest.

Suing the Illinois Attorney General and relevant State’s Attorneys, plaintiffs sought a declaration that the “Public Transportation Carry Ban”—430 ILCS 66/65(a)(8)—and “all related laws, regulations, policies, and procedures” violate the Second Amendment. The district court granted plaintiffs summary judgment. The State and Cook County appealed separately.

The Issues

Do plaintiffs have Article III standing to seek declaratory relief when other non-challenged rules (e.g., Metra’s code, trespass laws) might also impede their desired conduct?
Is Illinois’s public-transportation carry restriction consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation under the Bruen/Rahimi framework?

Detailed Analysis

A. Standing and Redressability

The plaintiffs alleged concrete, imminent injury: they would carry on public transit but for the credible threat of prosecution under Section 65(a)(8). Traceability to the named prosecutors is clear, and a declaratory judgment redresses this injury by removing one layer of criminal exposure.

Key analytical moves:

Declaratory relief need not be paired with an injunction: The court reaffirmed almost a century of doctrine permitting stand-alone declaratory judgments that satisfy Article III, citing Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. v. Wallace; Skelly Oil; Aetna v. Haworth; and MedImmune. California v. Texas simply confirms declaratory plaintiffs must still establish standing.
Redress despite overlapping rules: The threat of prosecution under Section 65(a)(8) is an independently cognizable injury. Removing “an additional layer of criminal liability” is redress enough, even if other statutes or rules might still constrain conduct. The court relied on Seventh Circuit precedent in Reporters Committee v. Rokita and the Eighth Circuit’s Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Reynolds, distinguishing Harp (a civil zoning case where either of two civil regimes alone blocked a billboard).
Speculation stacked on speculation is not required: Potential trespass prosecutions predicated on Metra’s rules would require several conjectural steps after Section 65(a)(8) falls. Metra’s own sanctions (fare confiscation, suspensions) are qualitatively different from state criminal liability. That gap preserves redressability.
Complaint-centered redressability (Gutierrez v. Saenz): Redressability is gauged by what the complaint sought, not just the narrower declaratory text the district court ultimately entered. Plaintiffs prayed for relief against the statutory ban “and all related laws, regulations, policies, and procedures,” encompassing trespass prosecutions predicated on transit firearm policies.
Brackeen’s preclusion caveat acknowledged but not dispositive: The court noted Brackeen’s emphasis that redress must flow from the judgment’s binding effect, not merely the opinion’s persuasive force, but concluded its judgment would bind the named prosecutors on Section 65(a)(8), and did not need to decide the broader preclusion effect vis-à-vis transit agencies for jurisdiction here.

The concurrence (Judge St. Eve) flags unresolved terrain: Post-Brackeen, when plaintiffs define the injury as the inability to engage in conduct (not merely threat of prosecution), and overlapping non-party rules remain, redressability may fail unless the judgment has preclusive effect against those other rulemakers on the same issues with the same parties. The concurrence highlights tension between Gutierrez’s more forgiving redressability lens and Diamond Alternative Energy’s insistence on “predictable” causation, and warns that Second Amendment plaintiffs will often encounter standing traps where federal, state, and local rules overlap unless all relevant actors are sued.

B. The Second Amendment Framework Applied

The court adopted Bruen’s two-step method, as elaborated by Rahimi:

Step one (text): The right to bear arms for self-defense presumptively covers public carry by licensed individuals. The parties did not dispute this.
Step two (history and tradition): The State must justify the restriction by showing it is consistent with historical tradition, using analogical reasoning focused on “how” and “why” the regulation burdens the right.

C. Sensitive Places and the “Crowded and Confined” Strand

The panel begins with Heller’s and Bruen’s well-known sensitive places—schools, government buildings, legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—then asks what principle unifies them. Rejecting the notion that comprehensive state-provided security is the unifying feature (historically, security was often minimal or irregular), the court identifies a deeper commonality: discrete places with inherent features that magnify risks or societal tensions such that temporarily restricting arms-bearing is consonant with tradition. These are scattered nodes within the community, not the whole community.

The State then situates transit within a longer arc of place-based regulation targeting “crowded and confined” venues:

Medieval through Founding: The Statute of Northampton (1328) forbade going armed in fairs and markets. While later American reception often read a “terror” element into such laws, they still reveal a tradition of regulating arms in crowded public venues.
Early American practice: New Orleans (1817) barred arms at public balls; Founding-era sensitive place bans (polling places, courthouses).
Reconstruction era statutes: Texas (1870–71), Georgia (1870), Missouri (1875), Tennessee (1869–70) prohibited arms in assemblies, ballrooms, social gatherings; New Mexico territorial law (1852) banned arms at balls and fandangos. These laws were upheld under state constitutional analogues (e.g., Andrews v. State; English v. State; Hill v. State; State v. Shelby).
Late 19th–early 20th century continuity: Expanded New Orleans ordinances (1879), territorial enactments (Arizona, Oklahoma, Montana) regulating arms at public gatherings.
Modern federal analogue: Federal criminal ban on carrying concealed weapons aboard aircraft (49 U.S.C. §46505), paired with an unloaded, inaccessible baggage exception—mirroring Illinois’s “unloaded and secured” carveout in transit.
Railroad rules: Nineteenth-century railroad carriers—quasi-public enterprises operating on public rights of way—widely required guns to be unloaded, cased, or checked as baggage; courts recognized their safety-justified reasonableness (e.g., Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Langdon; Poole v. Northern Pacific R. Co.). The panel, echoing the Ninth Circuit in Wolford, treats these rules as persuasive historical analogues, not as binding statutes but as probative of tradition in a mixed public-private setting.

The court emphasizes that Bruen/Rahimi do not demand historical twins. Instead, they require “relevantly similar” comparators and permit higher-level principles when modern problems reflect “dramatic technological changes.”

D. The “How” and the “Why” of Illinois’s Transit Restriction

How (the burden): Section 65(a)(8) imposes a temporary, location-bounded disability with notable lenity—riders may possess firearms if unloaded and secured; they may immediately rearm upon exiting transit. Historically, crowded-place bans were often stricter (complete disarmament at the venue, with rearming only after retrieval). Penalties (misdemeanor fine/jail) align with historical sanctions for sensitive/crowded place violations.

Why (the justification): Buses and trains are discrete, enclosed, often densely populated spaces that magnify the lethality and chaos of gunfire. Movement constrains escape; stray rounds and ricochet risks are heightened in “metal tubes”; the incapacitation of a driver threatens mass casualties; first responders may be unable to distinguish assailant from armed bystander; children routinely ride public transit (e.g., Chicago Public Schools fare programs). Government ownership and operation, though not dispositive, is a historically relevant feature shared with many sensitive places.

E. A Five-Factor Limiting Principle (Guidance, Not a Universal Test)

To avoid sensitive-places creep (e.g., declaring an entire city “sensitive,” which Bruen forbids), the court distilled characteristics sufficient to sustain the transit restriction:

It temporarily regulates the manner of carry;
In a crowded and confined space;
Defined by a natural tendency to concentrate people more densely than adjacent areas;
That serves important societal interests; and
Where firearms materially heighten public-safety risks.

The panel cautions that this synthesis is case-specific, not a universal test for all Second Amendment litigation. It illustrates how to reason analogically without freezing the law “in amber.”

F. Government-as-Proprietor and First Amendment Analogies

The court declined to adopt a “government proprietor” carve-out that would reduce scrutiny to rational basis when the state regulates on its property. Ownership is a factor within Bruen step two but not a doctrinal escape from the history-and-tradition inquiry. The defendants here are prosecutors, not the proprietors of CTA/Metra.

The opinion uses First Amendment time, place, and manner precedents to underscore that constitutional liberties routinely recede in sensitive public forums (e.g., schools, courthouses, polling places, Capitol building) and on buses (Anderson v. Milwaukee County upheld a ban on distributing literature while riding). The court is careful not to import means-ends scrutiny but to recognize the shared constitutional intuition: some places uniquely justify content-neutral restraints tied to safety and function.

G. The Scope: Stations and Parking Areas

Although plaintiffs primarily sought to carry aboard vehicles, Section 65(a)(8) also covers buildings, real property, and parking areas under transit control. The court upheld those applications too, noting the same analogies apply and that administrability favors rules that begin before boarding; parking areas function as reasonable buffer zones where firearms can be secured in vehicles.

Precedents and Authorities Discussed

Heller (2008) and McDonald (2010): Individual right to keep and bear arms; incorporation; caveat for longstanding sensitive-place bans.
Bruen (2022): Text-and-history test; analogical “how/why”; sensitive places as non-exhaustive; rejection of interest balancing; caution against declaring entire urban areas “sensitive.”
Rahimi (2024): Not trapped in amber; comparable burdens and justifications; “particular problems” approach; general principles over twins.
Bevis v. Naperville (7th Cir. 2023) and United States v. Rush (7th Cir. 2025): Seventh Circuit refinement of Bruen’s analogical method; acceptance of mid-to-late 19th-century sources.
Antonyuk v. James (2d Cir. 2024): Sustained several sensitive-place designations; recognized a tradition of regulating firearms in crowded places.
Wolford v. Lopez (9th Cir. 2024): Mixed outcomes; public transit bans likely permissible if they allow unloaded/secured carry; collected private railroad rules as analogues.
Nat’l Rifle Ass’n v. Bondi (11th Cir. en banc 2025): Embraced mid-to-late 19th century evidence confirming Founding-era understandings.
Reporters Committee v. Rokita (7th Cir. 2025): Overlapping criminal statutes do not defeat standing; removing an additional layer of criminal exposure is redress.
Gutierrez v. Saenz (U.S. 2025): Redressability assessed by the complaint’s requested relief; do not “turn standing on its head” by fixating on the remedy granted after merits.
Haaland v. Brackeen (U.S. 2023): Redress stems from the judgment’s preclusive effect, not the persuasive force of the opinion; acknowledged by the panel and explored in the concurrence for future cases.
Nashville v. Wallace, Skelly Oil, Aetna v. Haworth, MedImmune: Declaratory judgments satisfy Article III if an actual controversy exists; injunction is not a prerequisite.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Babbitt v. Farm Workers, Linda R.S. v. Richard D.: Pre-enforcement standing doctrines and limits.
Anderson v. Milwaukee County (7th Cir. 2006): Upheld speech limits on buses; illustrates parallel sensitive-forum logic in First Amendment doctrine.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Bruen’s “how/why” analogical test: Courts compare the burden a modern rule imposes (how) and the justification for imposing it (why) to burdens and reasons in historical regulations. Exact matches are unnecessary; shared principles suffice.
Sensitive places: Not a fixed list. Historically recognized places share a core feature: discrete venues with inherent features that magnify risks or tensions, justifying temporary disarmament compatible with tradition.
“Crowded and confined” strand: Ballrooms, social assemblies, and similar venues historically saw firearm prohibitions. Public transit is analogous: enclosed, dense, moving spaces where gunfire is uniquely dangerous and escape is constrained.
Temporary disarmament vs. categorical disarmament: Transit restrictions operate for the duration of the ride and allow unloaded/secured possession—often less restrictive than some historical bans at crowded venues.
Declaratory judgments and redressability: Plaintiffs need not pursue an injunction. Removing one layer of criminal liability is sufficient redress even if other rules may still apply. Courts assess redressability by the complaint’s requested relief.
Government as proprietor: Government ownership does not downgrade scrutiny; it is a factor in the historical analysis but does not replace Bruen’s test.
Private railroad rules as analogues: Although not statutes, nineteenth-century railroad policies are probative where carriers served public functions, operated on public rights of way, and were judicially recognized as quasi-public with safety obligations.

Impact and Forward-Looking Implications

1) Public transit restrictions nationwide

The decision gives states and transit agencies a roadmap to defend transit carry restrictions. Two features stand out:

Narrow tailoring in practice: The law’s temporary, place-bound nature and the “unloaded and secured” exception matter. Wolford’s caution suggests that transit bans lacking such exceptions are vulnerable.
Evidence playbook: Historical materials should include crowded-venue laws, Founding/Reconstruction sensitive-place bans, nineteenth-century railroad rules, and modern federal airline restrictions to show continuity of principle.

2) Beyond transit: other “crowded and confined” venues

The logic may support bans in comparably discrete, dense, enclosed locations—e.g., stadiums, arenas, amusement rides, ferries, tunnels, certain museum halls—especially where vulnerable populations are present and government control is substantial. The court, however, warns against overreach (no “Manhattan-is-sensitive” logic).

3) Drafting guidance for legislatures

Define the regulated space precisely and discretely (stations, platforms, vehicles, immediate buffer areas).
Preserve the right to possess unloaded, secured firearms where feasible.
Develop legislative findings on risk magnifiers: enclosure, crowding, mobility, ricochet risks, driver incapacitation, presence of children.
Align penalties with historical practice (misdemeanor fines/jail rather than extraordinary sanctions).

4) Litigation strategy and standing

Plaintiffs challenging carry bans where overlapping transit rules exist should consider suing proprietors (e.g., transit authorities) alongside prosecutors to address Brackeen-style preclusion concerns and the concurrence’s warnings.
Complaints should expressly seek relief against “related laws, regulations, policies, and procedures,” as in this case, to strengthen redressability arguments under Gutierrez.
Governments defending bans should marshal a layered historical record tying crowded/confined-venue risks to analogues and highlight temporary scope and exceptions.

5) Relationship to First Amendment doctrine

Without importing interest balancing, courts may look to speech cases for structural analogies about “sensitive forums” where constitutional rights are routinely tempered to protect the core function of the place. This opinion cements that cross-amendment dialogue.

6) Open questions preserved

The precise weight courts should give Founding- versus Reconstruction-era evidence where they conflict.
How many analogues suffice to show a “tradition.”
The exact “level of generality” appropriate in drawing analogies.
How Brackeen’s preclusion-centric redressability operates when non-party local entities have independent rules—a concern highlighted by the concurrence.

Key Takeaways

Transit as sensitive-by-analogy: Public transportation is constitutionally regulable as a “crowded and confined” analogue to historically sensitive venues. The presence of an unloaded/secured exception is a strong indicator of constitutionality.
Five-factor guidepost: The panel’s five factors provide a practical, historically anchored limiting principle to avoid converting broad regions into “sensitive places.”
Private rules can matter: Nineteenth-century railroad policies are probative in the historical inquiry when they reflect public-facing, quasi-public operations recognized in period case law.
Standing clarified: Removing a layer of criminal exposure is redress; redressability is complaint-centered; and declaratory judgments suffice without injunctions. But future litigants should heed the concurrence’s preclusion cautions where non-party regulators independently restrict the same conduct.
First Amendment analogies: Courts may use speech-forum doctrines to understand why constitutional rights recede in sensitive, function-critical spaces without importing means-ends scrutiny.

Conclusion

Schoenthal v. Raoul is a significant post-Bruen decision that fortifies a “crowded and confined places” strand within the sensitive-places doctrine. The Seventh Circuit’s methodical “how” and “why” analysis, its acceptance of railroad-era policies as analogues, and its five-factor limiting principle furnish a durable framework for evaluating place-based carry restrictions without granting states a roving “blank check.” Simultaneously, the court’s standing analysis—grounded in complaint-centered redressability and the sufficiency of removing a layer of criminal liability—keeps pre-enforcement challenges viable, while the concurrence prudently flags redressability complexities that await fuller resolution.

Taken together, the decision both narrows and clarifies: it legitimizes temporary disarmament in discrete, high-risk transit environments consistent with historical practice, and it sets principled boundaries to prevent the sensitive-places doctrine from swallowing the right. In the broader Second Amendment landscape, Schoenthal offers lower courts and legislatures a historically faithful, practically administrable path for addressing modern public-safety challenges posed by firearms in tightly packed, enclosed public conveyances.