WASHINGTON (CN) — For the second time, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday turned down an opportunity to pause an assault weapons ban in Illinois implemented in response to a deadly shooting.
A gun rights group brought the case to the Supreme Court for a second time in November to ask the justices to put the law on pause while a challenge to it is on appeal. The justices refused to do so in May.
The emergency application was denied on its second trip to the court on Thursday. The justices did not explain their ruling, and there were no noted dissents.
In January, Illinois enacted the Protect Illinois Communities Act in response to the deadly Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park in 2022. A gunman used a semiautomatic AR-15 to fire 83 rounds into a parade crowd, killing seven people.
The sale of assault weapons was already prohibited in Highland Park at the time of the shooting, but the shooter had not purchased the weapon in the Chicago suburb. Instead, the gunman bought the assault weapon in nearby Naperville.
Illinois and the city of Naperville passed prohibitions on the sale and possession of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. AR-15 and AK-47 rifles are specifically identified as banned weapons under the law, along with other firearm characteristics that result in assault-style weapons like barrel shrouds.
Excluded from the prohibitions are all antique firearms, air rifles, and handguns without features named in the law. Any resident who lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the law can also continue to do so with an endorsement from the state police.
The National Association for Gun Rights, a gun store, and the store’s owner sued Naperville — and later Illinois — claiming the new ordinance violated the Second Amendment. Two lower courts refused to block the regulations, leading to the group’s first trip to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.
The justices’ denial left the law in place while the challenge was under review. While this case was proceeding two other lower courts upheld the law in five different cases challenging the ban. The Seventh Circuit consolidated all six cases.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court declined to grant preliminary relief, finding that the gun advocacy group was not likely to prevail on its Second Amendment challenge.
The gun advocacy group then returned to the high court for relief. The group says the law would ban the most popular rifle in America, and therefore, in unlawful because it bans weapons in common use.
“The Act is unconstitutional, because it bans certain handguns and because the so-called ‘assault weapons’ and ‘large capacity magazines’ that it bans are possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans who overwhelmingly use them for lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home,” Barry Arrington, an attorney with Arrington Law Firm representing National Association for Gun Rights, wrote in the group’s application.
Illinois urged the justices to deny the application because it asked questions the justices already answered.
“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.” Jane Elinor Notz, Illinois solicitor general, wrote. “Applicants have not attempted to make, and cannot make, the necessary showing that this court is likely to grant certiorari in this interlocutory appeal.”
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