The National Rifle Association (NRA) has Illinois’ waiting period law in its crosshairs with a lawsuit filed earlier this month.
The organization filed the complaint on July 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of gun owner Gayle Pearlstein and several other plaintiffs, including some gun retailers.
Illinois law makes it a Class Four felony to transfer any firearm until at least 72 hours after the purchase. This applies even after the buyer passes a background check and already owns firearms. There are no exceptions for those carrying a concealed carry license or those facing imminent threats.
The complaint came out of a series of similar challenges to other laws across the country. Most recently, in Florida, the state declined to defend against a lawsuit challenging its waiting period requirements.
The plaintiffs contend that waiting period laws have no historical roots in laws passed during the Founding era, as required by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association. It notes that when the National Instant Criminal Background Check System made most background checks instant, many states did away with their waiting periods.
🚨 BREAKING: The NRA has filed a lawsuit challenging Illinois’ 72-hour waiting period requirement for firearm purchases.
— NRA (@NRA) July 8, 2026
It's currently a felony in Illinois to transfer a firearm in a sale unless the seller waits 72 hours after the buyer and seller agree to the purchase. pic.twitter.com/DPD1LQ7Reu
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Laws requiring “cooling-off” periods that force a delay just for the sake of it did not come about until the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The lawsuit points out that the Tenth Circuit recently struck down New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period. Currently, 13 states, plus Washington, D.C., have these laws.
The 72-hour rule violates the Second Amendment, according to the complaint, because it “burdens the people’s right to keep and bear arms in an ahistorical manner for an ahistorical reason.” It compels almost every adult in the state to wait three full days before taking possession of their firearms.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the statute unconstitutional both on its face and how it is applied to citizens who pass background checks and to permanently prohibit the state from enforcing it.
Kerry Slone, founder of We The Female, argued that waiting period laws aren't only unconstitutional, but "can be deadly."
"A domestic violence or sexual assault survivor being stalked by an abuser can’t tell their attacker to come back in three to ten days," she added. "Those looking to cause harm to another will ALWAYS find a way, and no 'cooling off period' or other government overreach will change that."
Pearlstein, a firearms instructor and founder of the Lox and Loaded Jewish gun club and lead plaintiff, told Townhall the rule hits the people she trains the hardest. “You can’t expect Bubbie, which is grandma in Jewish, to run away or jump out a window when she’s in fear of death or great bodily harm.”
She pointed out that the law adversely impacts domestic violence victims. “When you have a woman that comes in because her spouse is beating her and beating her, and she has no place to go, and she’s scared for her life, and he’s following her and stalking… and she is honestly scared for her life, and she goes to exercise her constitutional right, and she is told that she has to wait 72 hours and to pick up her weapon in order to protect herself from death or great bodily harm.”
Pearlstein said she joined the case because the government is violating people’s rights. “I’m really thinking that my constitutional rights and my freedom in Illinois are just dwindling away,” she said. “For the amount of taxes that I overpay to live in Illinois, I don’t get anything free from the government. I never have. And I truly believe that for the amount of money that I pay in taxes and my community service and being a small business owner, that I should be able to have constitutional rights.”
Justin Davis, the NRA’s director of public affairs, explained that this lawsuit is part of a larger patchwork of legal actions aimed at striking down these laws. “These waiting periods across the country are really coming into focus about their constitutionality,” he said. “And of course they’re unconstitutional, especially under Bruen, the landmark Supreme Court decision.”
He stressed that during the Founding era, there were no laws requiring waiting periods and that “people were able to make firearms in their home” or “buy them from gunsmiths.”
“A right delayed is a right denied,” he added.
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