Fifth Circuit: Suppressors Are Arms — Illinois Implications

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in United States v. Comeaux that suppressors, standing alone, constitute "arms" protected by the Second Amendment. Not accessories. Not afterthoughts. Arms — the same category as the rifles Illinois is currently trying to ban under PICA. That ruling creates a direct circuit split on whether attachments and accessories to firearms fall under Second Amendment protection, and it may force the Supreme Court's hand in ways that matter well beyond Texas.

Let me explain why this is worth your attention if you're an Illinois gun owner.

What the Fifth Circuit actually held in Comeaux

The court's reasoning in United States v. Comeaux is straightforward: a suppressor is a component of a functional arm. Under the Bruen framework, if the government wants to restrict it, the burden falls on the government to show that restriction is consistent with the historical tradition of firearms regulation. The Fifth Circuit found no such tradition. That's the same analytical engine driving our challenge to PICA right now in the Seventh Circuit.

The significance isn't just the outcome — it's the methodology. The court refused to carve suppressors out of Second Amendment protection by calling them "mere accessories." That logic has direct application to Illinois' argument that 30-round magazines are somehow a lesser, unprotected category of arm. The State has been making exactly that argument in Bevis v. City of Naperville and Barnett v. Raoul. If the Supreme Court takes Comeaux and affirms the Fifth Circuit, that argument collapses.

The circuit split that may leave the Supreme Court no exit

Other circuits have gone the other direction — treating suppressors and similar accessories as outside the core of the Second Amendment. That disagreement between circuits is exactly the condition under which the Supreme Court typically steps in. When federal courts in different parts of the country are reaching opposite conclusions on the same constitutional question, the Court has to resolve it eventually.

The circuits are now split on whether Second Amendment protection extends to firearm components and accessories — and the Supreme Court will likely have to settle it.

If the Court grants cert on a suppressor case and applies the Bruen historical-tradition test broadly, the resulting opinion would be binding on the Seventh Circuit — the same court currently sitting on our PICA challenge. A ruling that firmly plants accessories and components inside Second Amendment protection would undercut one of Illinois' central arguments: that magazines can be banned because they're separable from the rifle itself. A firearm that can't be loaded to its designed capacity isn't a meaningful arm. We've argued that from the beginning.

Illinois has already seen this argument play out

In the briefing for our case, the State leaned hard on the idea that magazines occupy some lesser constitutional tier — that the Second Amendment protects the rifle but not what makes it function as designed. We pushed back on that at every stage. So did the DOJ when it filed its amicus brief siding with the plaintiffs in our case earlier this year. The government's own lawyers argued that the Seventh Circuit needed to apply Bruen faithfully — not invent subcategories that the text and history don't support.

The Fifth Circuit just made that same point about suppressors. The principle travels.

You can find our ongoing coverage of how national rulings are shaping the PICA litigation on the Law Weapons blog. The legal picture is moving fast, and I've been tracking every development that has a real bearing on Illinois gun owners.

Where things stand as of late June 2026

As of this writing, United States v. Comeaux is a Fifth Circuit decision — it does not directly bind the Seventh Circuit. But the circuit split it creates puts suppressor rights on the path toward Supreme Court review. If the Court takes the case, the opinion it issues will either broaden or narrow Second Amendment protection for firearm components — and that answer will land squarely on the Seventh Circuit's desk while Bevis and Barnett are still pending.

The Illinois Attorney General knows this. The State's legal team has been watching these circuit developments closely. Every time a court applies Bruen faithfully and refuses to invent unprotected subcategories of arms, it gets harder to defend PICA's magazine ban in the Seventh Circuit.

If you're curious about the firearms and equipment we carry — including products the State of Illinois would prefer you not own — head over to our online store. Law Weapons has been serving Illinois gun owners for 30 years, and we're not about to stop now.

Watch this space. The next update could be the one that matters.

— Robert Bevis, Law Weapons & Supply