After being convicted and sentenced to probation by the trial court, he appealed, arguing that both statutes were unconstitutional infringements of his Second Amendment rights.

[fn 1][2] If the firearm was loaded and not in a locked case, or if it was otherwise available for immediate use, it was a felony offense called Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon (AUUF).

[7] In Heller, the Court ruled that a law of the District of Columbia which had the effect of banning handguns in the city violated the Second Amendment and was unconstitutional.

[22] The court, using an intermediate scrutiny test, determined that the Illinois statute was substantially related to an important governmental objective to protect the public from gun violence.

[24] In 2008, shortly after the Heller decision, three lawsuits[fn 3] were filed in Illinois, challenging the constitutionally of handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park.

[33] In both cases, the plaintiffs claimed that AUUF statute violated the Second Amendment in that it did not allow any method for a citizen to bear arms outside the home.

[39] The Seventh Circuit found that Illinois law did violate the Constitution in that there was no method for a person to carry a weapon for self-defense outside of the home.

[41] The court rejected the state's argument that strict gun regulation lowered crime, noting that the evidence did not support that.

[43] The court then stayed the order for 180 days to give the Illinois legislature an opportunity to amend the law to make it constitutional.

[50] Aguilar also made the argument that the UPF statute was unconstitutional, since at the time the Second Amendment was adopted, 16- and 17-year-olds could lawfully bear arms.

The state claimed that since Aguilar denied having committing the act that the statute prohibited, he could not contest the constitutionality of it.

[54] Since anyone could challenge the constitutionality of a statute when they were charged with violating it, even without admitting the underlying conduct, the state's argument was without merit.

[55] Thomas then evaluated the constitutionality of the AUUF statute, noting that the Heller court had "concluded that the second amendment 'guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation .

[60] Thomas rejected the argument on the unconstitutionality of the UPF statute, noting that all courts that had addressed this issue had found that persons under 21 could be barred from possessing firearms.

[65] A number of law enforcement agences, such as the Springfield Police and the Sangamon Sheriff's Office, made a plea to the public to not immediately begin to carry concealed handguns.