For Gayle Pearlstein, the importance of self-defense is not an abstract principle discussed in history books or debated in courtrooms.
It is deeply personal.
Gayle grew up around firearms. Some of her earliest lessons about responsible firearm ownership came from her grandfather, a man who escaped the pogroms in Ukraine and understood firsthand what can happen when ordinary people are left unable to protect themselves and their communities. He taught her that self-defense is not about fear. It is about responsibility—being prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones when no one else can.
Those lessons stayed with Gayle.
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Today, Gayle is a firearms instructor, entrepreneur, and community leader in the Chicago area. She has dedicated much of her professional life to teaching others how to safely and responsibly exercise their Second Amendment rights. As co-founder of Lox & Loaded, a national organization dedicated to strengthening Jewish communities through responsible firearm ownership, safety education, and structured training, Gayle has helped countless individuals gain the knowledge and confidence necessary to safely protect themselves and their families.
In recent years, that mission has become increasingly important.
As antisemitic incidents have risen across the country, many Jewish Americans have become more aware of the need to take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of their communities. For Gayle, empowering others through education and training is one way to ensure that individuals are prepared should they ever need to defend themselves or those around them.
Yet despite her decades of experience, extensive training, and unwavering commitment to responsible firearm ownership, Illinois law arbitrarily delays Gayle’s ability to possess a firearm – asserting that she and all other Illinoisians who exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms are inherently impulsive and need to “cool-off” for 72-hours before taking possession of the firearms they are legally entitled to own.
Mountain States Legal Foundation believes that requirement violates the Constitution.
At the heart of this case is a simple question: after the government has already determined that an individual may lawfully possess a firearm, what legitimate constitutional basis exists for forcing that person to wait an additional three days before exercising that right?
Illinois has no satisfactory answer.
The state’s waiting period applies equally to every law-abiding citizen, regardless of experience, training, or circumstance. It does not matter whether the purchaser is a lifelong firearm owner, a certified instructor, or someone seeking a firearm because of an immediate concern for personal safety. The law imposes the same arbitrary delay on everyone.
That delay is particularly troubling because the need for self-defense rarely arises on the government’s timetable.
A woman facing threats from a former partner cannot schedule danger. A small business owner concerned about targeted violence cannot predict when a threat may become immediate. Members of religious communities experiencing increased hostility cannot know when they may need to defend themselves or others.
Constitutional rights exist precisely because certain liberties are too important to be left to the discretion of government officials.
Americans would never tolerate a law requiring citizens to wait three days before attending church, publishing a newspaper editorial, or speaking in public. Such delays would be recognized immediately for what they are: unconstitutional burdens on fundamental rights.
The Second Amendment deserves the same respect.
The right to keep and bear arms is not a second-class right. It is a fundamental liberty explicitly protected by the Constitution and guaranteed to all law-abiding Americans.
Illinois’s waiting period burdens not only individual citizens like Gayle, but also firearm retailers throughout the state. Businesses such as Shooting Sports in Moline, Illinois, must operate under the constant threat of criminal penalties if they transfer a firearm before the waiting period expires—even when the customer has passed a background check and is fully authorized to possess it under state and federal law.
For Joseph Schiavone, owner of Voodoo Firearms in Minooka, responsible firearm ownership extends far beyond completing a background check. He spends time getting to know customers, teaching safe firearm handling, and, when necessary, refusing sales to people he believes should not own a firearm—even if they pass every legal requirement.
Ironically, Illinois’s waiting period undermines those very safeguards.
Joseph says the mandatory delay has pushed many customers toward online purchases, reducing meaningful face-to-face interactions and turning local dealers into little more than transfer agents. The law has also cost his business sales, particularly among travelers who cannot return days later to complete a purchase, and among experienced firearm owners who already lawfully possess firearms but must still wait 72 hours after passing another background check.
Most troubling, Joseph has personally seen the waiting period prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining firearms when they feared for their safety—including victims of violent assaults and domestic abuse who had already passed every legal requirement to purchase a firearm.
For our clients, this case is about preserving the ability of law-abiding citizens to exercise a fundamental constitutional right without arbitrary government interference.
For all Americans, it is about something even larger.
If the government may place unnecessary delays between citizens and one constitutional right, no constitutional freedom is truly secure.
Mountain States Legal Foundation is asking the court to declare Illinois’s 72-hour waiting period unconstitutional and to prevent the state from enforcing it against law-abiding citizens and firearm retailers.
Because constitutional rights should not depend on a government countdown. and because a right delayed is a right denied.