The U.S. Supreme Court has turned aside a long-shot bid to secure an order blocking the state of Illinois from enforcing its ban on so-called “assault weapons” while legal challenges to the law continue to play out in lower courts.
This means the law, which bans the sale and purchase of a long list of semiautomatic firearms and related accessories will most likely remain in effect throughout much of the summer.
On May 17, the high court announced it had denied the petition from Naperville gun shop owner Robert Bevis and his co-plaintiffs from the National Association of Gun Rights.
The court did not provide an explanation for the denial. There were no dissents noted.
According to the online docket, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had referred the matter to the court. Then, the court denied the request for injunction pending appeal.
The denial comes less than a week after a federal appeals court in Chicago announced it would set an expedited briefing schedule for a consolidated appeal in a group of cases all challenging the constitutionality of Illinois’ new gun ban.
Under that order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals indicated it would seat a hearing for June 29 for oral arguments on the question of whether Illinois state officials should be barred from enforcing the “assault weapons” ban during the months or potentially even years that the legal challenges wend through the court, potentially on a path for a full hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In that order, the Seventh Circuit judges indicated they would award no extensions of filing deadlines nor accept any delays or late filings.
Some observers, particularly on the side of the challengers, said they believed the move, which set up a quick hearing schedule by federal appellate standards, was intended to head off an intervention from the high court by indicating to Justice Barrett and her colleagues in the high court’s conservative majority that the Seventh Circuit was not dragging its feet on taking the appeals, or playing procedural games to extend the life of a gun ban that may not survive a trip to the Supreme Court.
If so, the move appears to have worked, as the high court has opted not to step into the controversy, for now, denying Bevis’ petition.
Bevis and the NAGR had lodged the petition in late April, after the Seventh Circuit, also without explanation, refused their request for an injunction blocking enforcement of the law. The petition was first delivered to Justice Barrett, who is the justice assigned to handle such emergency appeals from the states within the Seventh Circuit, including Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The petition gained support from others suing the state over the gun ban law after Seventh Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook moved swiftly to pull the plug on an injunction entered by a federal judge in southern Illinois, which had blocked the state from enforcing the gun-banning provisions of the law known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
In briefs filed in support of the petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs acknowledged their request for intervention from the high court at this stage in the litigation was unusual. But they said action by the high court was needed in this case, to deliver a message to lower courts and state officials who the Second Amendment-rights advocates said are defying recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
In response, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul urged the Supreme Court to remain on the sidelines. Raoul’s office said lower courts have at best been divided on the question of whether “assault weapons” should be as protected by the Second Amendment as handguns and shotguns.
In Illinois, for instance, federal judges have split on the question of whether the state can enforce the law while the courts decide whether the PICA law actually is constitutional.
Two federal judges in Chicago denied requests for an injunction from plaintiffs in different cases. In those decisions, U.S. District Judges Lindsay Jenkins and Virginia Kendall sided with the state, declaring the state was free to ban any weapons it believes are “particularly dangerous,” even if those weapons are owned by millions for lawful purposes.
Kendall’s ruling came in the case brought by Bevis and the NAGR.
U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn, in the Southern District of Illinois, granted the injunction sought by a group of plaintiffs challenging the law in four consolidated cases.
In that ruling, McGlynn backed the assertions of gun owners and firearm shop owners that the state law falls far short of being constitutional, particularly under the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Pistol & Rifle Association v Bruen.
After one weekend in place, Easterbrook shelved McGlynn’s ruling, granting a request from Raoul to put the Illinois gun ban back in effect. He did so without giving the plaintiffs the opportunity to respond to Raoul’s petition, and in a manner the plaintiffs have pointed out likely violated federal appellate court procedural rules.
Nonetheless, Easterbrook and his colleagues will keep the gun ban in place until the Seventh Circuit can rule on the consolidated appeals of the rulings from McGlynn, Kendall and Jenkins on the injunctions.
In the meantime, the Illinois Supreme Court could also step further into the fray. On Tuesday, May 16, justices of the state Supreme Court appeared unsure of how to address a challenge from a group of gun owners in and around Decatur. That lawsuit, led by State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, argued the state violated the rights of Illinoisans under the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, by banning most people from acquiring “assault weapons,” while also allowing members of other groups, seemingly favored by lawmakers, to continue owning and using the otherwise banned firearms.
The lawsuit did not directly implicate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, but instead argued the state has no authority to deny that right to most Illinoisans, while granting that right to others based on their professions or other standards set by the state.
It is now known when the Illinois Supreme Court may rule in that case. Democrats hold a 5-2 majority on that court.
The case is also notable, as it has included a petition from plaintiffs, demanding two justices, Elizabeth Rochford and Mary K. O’Brien, step aside from hearing the case, because they received $1 million each in campaign donations from Gov. JB Pritzker, as well as endorsements from prominent gun control organizations that have demanded political candidates support “assault weapons” bans.
The plaintiffs noted prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent has declared state Supreme Court rulings can be voided over the “risk of actual bias” from judicial campaign donations.
Those two justices denied the request to recuse themselves, and participated in oral arguments on May 16.