Supreme Court refuses to block Illinois assault weapons ban

The Supreme Court refused, again, to block Illinois’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines Thursday.

A gun rights group and gun shop owner argue the bans violate their Second Amendment rights and asked the justices to step in on an emergency basis to block enforcement. The plaintiffs made a similar request in the spring, which was rejected.

In a brief order with no noted dissents, the high court again rejected their motion.

The decision leaves in place the laws, for now, although the issue could ultimately return to the justices.

Illinois Democrats passed the gun control measures following a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., which killed seven people while wounding dozens of others.

In Naperville, a city located about 35 miles southwest of Highland Park, officials there passed a similar ordinance that bans the sale of assault rifles, defined to include 26 categories of weapons or other firearms that meet certain criteria. 

But the plaintiffs — the National Association for Gun Rights, along with Robert Bevis and his firearm store, Law Weapons and Supply — contend the laws violate the Supreme Court’s new test for assessing Second Amendment violations.

In a landmark decision last year, the high court’s six conservative justices ruled that gun control measures must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

A federal district judge in a preliminary ruling declined to block either the state law or the city ordinance in February.

Last month, a three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. The plaintiffs then asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block the new laws as the appeals process continues.

“In summary, the Seventh Circuit’s decision was manifestly erroneous,” the plaintiffs wrote in court filings. “In the meantime, Plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Illinois citizens are suffering irreparable injury because their fundamental right to keep and bear arms is being infringed.”

Illinois responded in court papers by arguing the plaintiffs did not satisfy the Supreme Court’s high criteria for emergency relief.

“Applicants’ request, which was not made by any other plaintiff in the six cases consolidated below, should be denied for essentially the same reasons that the Court denied their application in May,” the state wrote.           

The Supreme Court has declined multiple emergency requests to block gun control measures since handing down their landmark expansion of Second Amendment rights last year.

On their normal docket, the justices are currently weighing a case challenging a federal law criminalizing gun possession for people under restraining orders. The decision in that case, which is expected by the end of June, could clarify the court’s test.