“Crowded-and-Confined” Sensitive Places: Seventh Circuit Upholds Illinois’s Transit Firearm Restriction under Bruen

Introduction

This Seventh Circuit decision addresses whether Illinois may bar concealed-carry licensees from carrying loaded, accessible firearms on public transit. The plaintiffs—Benjamin Schoenthal, Mark Wroblewski, and Douglas Winston—hold concealed-carry licenses and wish to carry for self-defense on systems such as the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and Metra. They challenged Section 65(a)(8) of Illinois’s Firearm Concealed Carry Act (430 ILCS 66/65(a)(8)) as violating the Second Amendment. The district court agreed and entered declaratory relief in plaintiffs’ favor.

On appeal, a panel consisting of Judges Ripple, St. Eve, and Kolar (opinion by Judge Kolar) reversed. Applying the Supreme Court’s historical-analogy framework from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and refined by United States v. Rahimi, the Seventh Circuit held that Illinois’s prohibition on loaded, accessible weapons on public transit—subject to an exception for unloaded and secured firearms—is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of regulating arms in “sensitive” and, more broadly, in crowded and confined spaces. The court also affirmed plaintiffs’ Article III standing notwithstanding overlapping, unchallenged rules (e.g., a Metra firearm ban) that might carry trespass exposure.

Summary of the Judgment

Standing: Plaintiffs face a credible threat of prosecution under Section 65(a)(8) and thus suffer a redressable injury. Declaratory relief may redress that injury even if other rules (e.g., Metra’s firearm ban) also constrain the same conduct. The court relied on long-standing declaratory-judgment principles, reaffirmed that partial redress suffices, and explained why overlapping criminal exposure does not defeat redressability.
Merits (Bruen/Rahimi framework):
- Step 1: All agree the Second Amendment’s text covers plaintiffs’ desired conduct (carrying for self-defense in public).
- Step 2: The government met its burden to show consistency with the Nation’s historical tradition. The court:
  - Located public transit within a tradition of regulating arms in “sensitive places” and, crucially, in crowded and confined settings (e.g., ballrooms, social gatherings, theaters), from the Founding through Reconstruction and beyond.
  - Emphasized the “how and why” of historical analogues: temporary place-based disarmament where firearms uniquely heighten risks to safety and social functioning.
  - Noted Illinois’s less-restrictive features (carriage of unloaded, secured firearms is allowed), paralleling modern federal air travel rules.
Limiting principle: The court articulated a five-part set of features that, taken together, place modern place-based firearm rules within historical bounds: (1) temporary regulation of manner; (2) in crowded and confined spaces; (3) where the space naturally concentrates people relative to adjacent areas; (4) serving important societal functions; and (5) where firearms create a heightened public-safety risk.
Disposition: Reversed and remanded.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Role

Second Amendment Canon

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010): Established the individual right to keep and bear arms (Heller) and incorporated it against the states (McDonald). Heller also recognized a non-exhaustive category of “sensitive places” where firearms have historically been prohibited (schools, government buildings). The Seventh Circuit draws directly on this “sensitive places” foundation.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022): Provided the controlling two-step method: (1) textual coverage; (2) consistency with historical tradition via analogical reasoning focused on the “how” and “why” of burdens. Bruen’s guidance on “sensitive places”—and its caution against declaring entire cities sensitive—frames the inquiry.
United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024): Clarified Bruen’s analogical method: courts compare principles, not demand “dead ringers.” It emphasized that modern laws can be constitutional if they address comparable problems with comparable justifications.
Bevis v. City of Naperville, 85 F.4th 1175 (7th Cir. 2023) and United States v. Rush, 130 F.4th 633 (7th Cir. 2025): Seventh Circuit decisions tracing and applying Bruen/Rahimi. Rush underscores that historical laws addressing particular problems can support modern laws addressing similar problems for similar reasons.

“Sensitive Places” and Crowded-and-Confined History

Statute of Northampton (1328) and colonial/early American successors: Laws restricting arms in fairs and markets illustrate a longstanding practice of regulating arms where crowds gather. Even accepting a “terror” element, the court treats these as evidence of a principle: crowded places historically drew special regulation.
Early American ordinances: 1817 New Orleans ordinance banning arms in public ballrooms—“within the lifespan of the Founding generation” and apparently uncontroversial.
Reconstruction-era state statutes: Texas (1870, 1871), Georgia (1870), Missouri (1875), Tennessee (1869–70) banned arms at social gatherings, educational or literary assemblies, and the like. State high courts upheld them under state analogues to the Second Amendment:
- Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165 (1871)
- English v. State, 35 Tex. 473 (1871)
- Hill v. State, 53 Ga. 472 (1874)
- State v. Shelby, 2 S.W. 468 (Mo. 1886)
Further late 19th-century and territorial laws: 1879 New Orleans ordinance (theaters, halls, taverns), Arizona (1889), Oklahoma (1890), Montana (1903) continued the pattern of prohibiting weapons in venues of public congregation.
Federal air travel: Congress criminalizes firearms on aircraft, allowing unloaded carriage in inaccessible baggage, 49 U.S.C. § 46505—a modern analogue showing enduring legislative treatment of weapons in metal, enclosed transit tubes.
Nineteenth-century railroad rules: Private (quasi-public) railroads commonly prohibited or restricted passenger firearms carriage (e.g., unloaded, cased, checked). The court, following the Ninth Circuit in Wolford v. Lopez, treats these rules as probative, given railroads’ mixed public-private role and close resemblance in “how and why” to the transit rule.

Contemporary Circuit Guidance on Place-Based Bans

Antonyuk v. James, 120 F.4th 941 (2d Cir. 2024), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1900 (2025): Upheld many sensitive-place designations (e.g., parks, bars, theaters), though transit was not at issue on appeal. The Seventh Circuit draws on its treatment of crowded spaces and the general method of analogical reasoning.
Wolford v. Lopez, 116 F.4th 959 (9th Cir. 2024): Found California’s transit ban likely unconstitutional only because it lacked an “unloaded and secured” exception. The Seventh Circuit notes Illinois has precisely that exception and otherwise aligns with Wolford’s historical analysis.

Standing and Redressability Precedents

Declaratory-judgment lineage: Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Wallace (1933); Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. (1950); MedImmune (2007); Aetna v. Haworth (1937): Establish declaratory relief as a live case or controversy when an actual, credible threat exists; injunction not required.
Credible threat and partial redress: Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010) (pre-enforcement standing); Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021) (partial redress suffices); Seventh Circuit in Reporters Committee v. Rokita (2025) (removing an additional layer of criminal liability is redress).
Redressability caution: Haaland v. Brackeen (2023) (redress must come from the court’s judgment, not its opinion’s persuasive effect) and California v. Texas (2021) (standing requires a remedy that could be granted).
Gutierrez v. Saenz, 145 S. Ct. 2258 (2025): Redressability is judged from the complaint; the relief need not guarantee ultimate success if it removes an unlawful barrier. The Seventh Circuit uses Gutierrez to reinforce that plaintiffs’ prayer for declaratory relief could have encompassed related criminal enforcement of transit-carriage bans (e.g., trespass) even if the district court crafted narrower relief.
Harp Advertising Illinois, Inc. v. Village of Chicago Ridge (7th Cir. 1993) and Renne v. Geary (1991): Earlier strands of “unchallenged-law defeats redress” doctrine are cabined; the panel distinguishes Harp (purely civil zoning overlap, no criminal layering) and reads Renne as inapposite to the plaintiffs’ direct exposure to criminal prosecution.

Legal Reasoning

1) The Bruen/Rahimi Method, Applied

The court accepts that the Second Amendment covers the desire to carry on public transit (Step 1). It then applies Step 2—historical analogical reasoning—asking whether the law’s burden (how) and justification (why) are comparable to regulations that our historical tradition permits. Several features do the work here:

Limited, temporary, place-based burden (the “how”): The Illinois law disarms only in a discrete, well-defined space—transit vehicles and related controlled property—and allows unloaded, secured firearms. Compared to 19th-century bans that required full disarmament at social gatherings, Illinois’s regime is materially less burdensome.
Comparable justification (the “why”): Public transit vehicles are crowded and confined metal tubes, often in motion, where escape is difficult, a stray bullet risks mass injury, and drivers are vulnerable. These are precisely the types of setting-specific safety concerns that historically justified disarmament at ballrooms, theaters, assemblies, and later on trains and (today) airplanes.

2) Sensitive Places and the “Crowded-and-Confined” Thread

Although schools, legislatures, polling places, and courthouses differ from one another, the court identifies their common denominator: each is a discrete place where the ordinary balance between armed self-defense and social order changes because of context—children and learning, the administration of justice, the conduct of elections, or the chambers of democratic deliberation. That principle extends to crowded and confined settings where firearms predictably heighten risks. The court carefully rejects a “security-staffing” litmus test (historically, many such places lacked modern security screening).

In relying on ballrooms, social assemblies, and theaters, the court treats “crowded-and-confined” as a historically grounded reason for location-specific regulation. It also draws a principled line against overbreadth: the State may not declare entire neighborhoods or cities (e.g., “all of Chicago”) to be “sensitive” solely due to general crowding or crime.

3) Railroad Rules and Mixed Public-Private Analogues

The court embraces the Ninth Circuit’s insight that 19th-century railroad rules—though enacted by private entities—are probative in context. Railroads were quasi-public, performed public functions, and exercised delegated police powers (e.g., railway police), so their uniform restrictions on passenger firearms (often requiring unloading, casing, or checking) are historically resonant. They match Illinois’s “how” and “why” almost exactly: the safety of many people in fast-moving, enclosed conveyances.

4) Government Ownership as a Factor, Not an Escape Hatch

Because public transit is government-operated, the State’s property-management interests are relevant to the analogical analysis. But the court rejects any freestanding “government-proprietor” exception that would bypass Bruen. The State remains constrained by the Second Amendment, though public ownership can be part of the relevant historical analogy (e.g., government buildings on Bruen’s list).

5) A Concrete Limiting Principle

To guide lower courts while avoiding “a regulatory blank check,” the panel synthesizes a five-part set of features that collectively place a restriction within the historical tradition:

It temporarily regulates the manner of carrying firearms;
In a crowded and confined space;
Where the space naturally concentrates people more than adjacent areas;
That space advances important societal interests (e.g., mass transit, education, justice, elections); and
Firearms in that space create a heightened public-safety risk.

The court emphasizes this is descriptive guidance, not a new universal test, and reaffirms that courts must still conduct Bruen’s regulation-specific historical analysis.

6) First Amendment “Time, Place, Manner” Parallels

Without importing means-ends scrutiny, the court notes that speech is lawfully constrained in Bruen’s sensitive places (schools, legislatures, polling places, courthouses) and even on buses (Anderson v. Milwaukee County upheld a ban on distributing literature aboard buses). This cross-Amendment observation underscores a constitutional common sense: some places demand context-specific limits to preserve their core functions and protect the people within them.

Impact

A. Sensitive-Places Doctrine: A Sharper, Historically Grounded Contour

“Crowded and confined” emerges as a historically validated through-line: Courts and legislatures now have a workable, tradition-rooted rationale for certain place-based restrictions beyond Bruen’s short list—if they fit the five features and pass Bruen’s “how/why” comparison.
Transit bans with exceptions are on stronger footing: The Ninth Circuit suggested as much in Wolford; the Seventh Circuit makes it explicit. A transit ban that allows unloaded, secured firearms (or comparably narrow, historically analogous exceptions) is likely constitutional.
Guardrail against overreach: The opinion warns against declaring entire neighborhoods/cities “sensitive,” maintaining Bruen’s limits and protecting the core right.

B. Legislative Drafting Guidance

Define narrowly and temporally: Restrictions should be tethered to discrete, easily identifiable spaces where people naturally concentrate and the risks of firearms are uniquely elevated.
Include less-restrictive features where historically congruent: Exceptions for unloaded and secured carriage track history (e.g., air travel and railroad practices) and reduce burdens under the “how” prong.
Articulate the contextual risk: The “why” should be place-specific safety concerns historically recognized as justifying special rules (mass crowding, confinement, vulnerable users, operational hazards).

C. Litigation Strategy and Standing

Partial redress suffices in pre-enforcement challenges: Plaintiffs can challenge one layer of criminal exposure without nullifying standing merely because other overlapping constraints exist.
Draft the prayer for relief thoughtfully: The court cites Gutierrez v. Saenz: standing is assessed by the complaint’s requested relief. A broader prayer (e.g., “and related laws, regulations, policies, and procedures”) can preserve redressability.
But beware the concurrence’s caution: Judge St. Eve highlights unresolved tensions—especially where injuries are framed as inability to engage in conduct (not exposure to prosecution) and where non-party actors enforce overlapping rules. Future cases may turn on preclusion mechanics under Brackeen.

D. Beyond Transit

Nuclear facilities, munitions depots, critical infrastructure: The court’s guidance invites historically anchored analogies even where exact Founding-era twins are unavailable—so long as the principle (unique, heightened risk in a discrete place) is sound.
Parking areas and transit property: The court is comfortable with bans extending to buildings, platforms, and reasonable buffer parking areas under the control of public transit (with in-vehicle storage allowances preserved), though it leaves other categories (e.g., museums, parks) for another day.

Complex Concepts Simplified

1) Bruen’s Two-Step Test

Step 1—Text: Does the Second Amendment text (as interpreted by Heller/McDonald) cover the conduct? Here, yes: carrying for self-defense in public.
Step 2—History: Is the modern regulation consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition? Courts compare how a law burdens and why it does so to past laws. The modern law need not be a “dead ringer,” but must be “analogous enough.”

2) “Sensitive Places” vs. “Crowded-and-Confined Places”

“Sensitive places” are historically recognized venues (e.g., schools, courthouses) where firearms could be barred.
“Crowded-and-confined places” are a broader, historically attested category (e.g., ballrooms, theaters, later trains) where density and enclosure make firearms uniquely risky. Transit fits this tradition.

3) Redressability and Declaratory Judgments

Redressability: A plaintiff must show a favorable judgment will likely remedy their injury—not necessarily every conceivable obstacle, but at least remove the challenged unlawful barrier.
Declaratory vs. injunctive relief: Plaintiffs can seek declaratory relief alone. Standing does not evaporate simply because they forgo an injunction.
Overlap with other laws: The existence of an unchallenged, overlapping law (e.g., trespass or a transit rule) does not automatically defeat standing, particularly when it would stack criminal penalties or when the complaint’s prayer for relief is broad enough to encompass the “related” enforcement.

4) Government-as-Proprietor

When the government acts like a property owner, some doctrines temper constitutional scrutiny (particularly in speech law). But this decision holds that Second Amendment scrutiny under Bruen still applies; government ownership is a factor for analogy, not an exemption.

Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit’s decision provides one of the most comprehensive post-Bruen treatments of place-based firearm restrictions. It does not expand “sensitive places” indiscriminately; rather, it grounds modern transit restrictions in a robust historical continuity: centuries of regulating arms in crowded and confined settings where the risks of gunfire and the inability to exit safely are uniquely acute. The court’s careful “how/why” analysis, embrace of railroad and air-travel analogues, and articulation of a five-feature limiting principle together supply a workable template for legislatures and lower courts.

On justiciability, the court fortifies pre-enforcement standing in the face of overlapping laws, emphasizing partial redress, the propriety of declaratory relief, and complaint-centered redressability under Gutierrez. Judge St. Eve’s concurrence responsibly flags the open questions: how Brackeen’s insistence on judgment-based redress, preclusion rules, and multi-layered regulatory schemes will play out where the injury is framed as inability to act and essential enforcers are not parties.

The key takeaway is measured but significant. Legislatures can constitutionally tailor place-based restrictions where history supports them, especially for crowded and confined environments like public transit—and they should draft with precision, temporality, and exceptions that track historical practice. Courts, for their part, should continue to focus on the genuine logic of historical analogues—what problems those laws solved and why—so that the Second Amendment remains neither “trapped in amber” nor reduced to a mere balancing test divorced from our constitutional inheritance.