The U.S. Supreme Court has refused, again, to step into the legal battle over the fight of Illinois' law banning so-called "assault weapons," signaling that, while the constitutionally questionable law may yet be struck down, for now, the law will almost certainly take effect on Jan. 1, threatening to leave thousands or even millions of Illinois residents at risk of criminal charges if they don't comply.
On Thursday, Dec. 14, the full U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for an injunction from a Naperville gun shop owner and the National Association for Gun Rights which challengers hoped would block the state from enforcing the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act while constitutional challenges to the law continue in federal courts.
That denial comes a day after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett also refused an invitation from Illinois State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, and gun owners from downstate Macon County, to step in and block the gun ban while they seek review of the Illinois Supreme Court's decision upholding law.
Barrett is the justice assigned to hear such urgent appeals from courts within the U.S. Seventh Circuit, which includes the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The denials of the injunction requests were issued without comment or dissent.
The denial of the request from the NAGR marked the second time since the court battle over the fate of the law erupted earlier this year that the Supreme Court has turned down an injunction request from that group and Naperville gun shop owner Robert Bevis.
Signed by Pritzker in January, the law is set to take full effect on Jan. 1, including a provision requiring current owners of the otherwise-banned weapons to register their weapons with the state. The registration period began in October. To date, only a small fraction of the state's gun owners have complied with the registration demand.
Those in defiance of the law after Jan. 1 could face criminal charges, which could subject them to steep fines or imprisonment.
Pritzker and other supporters of the law say it is needed to reduce the risk of future mass shootings, such as the massacre carried out by a lone gunman possessing an "assault rifle" at the 2022 Fourth of July parade in Highland Park.
The law, however, has been the subject of lawsuits for most of 2023, which generally assert the law tramples Illinoisans' rights under the Second Amendment, particularly as defined under recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the cases known as District of Columbia v Heller and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen.
Those rulings require states that want to ban certain guns to prove that the weapons being banned are both dangerous and unusual, and require lawmakers to demonstrate the regulations are in keeping with the United States' history and tradition dating back to ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
Attempts to block the law from taking effect, however, have failed. In November, after months of delay, a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied a consolidated appeal of several cases asking for such an injunction.
In the Seventh Circuit's reasoning, Illinois' law should be allowed to take effect, because judges believe the Second Amendment doesn't necessarily protect "assault weapons," or any other weapon that state lawmakers may believe is too dangerous or too closely resembles "military-grade" weapons.
Following that decision, the NAGR filed its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 27.
The NAGR petition asserted the Seventh Circuit badly misinterpreted recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, and must be addressed immediately, if those Supreme Court decisions mean anything.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul responded to the NAGR petition, asserting the Seventh Circuit got the case right, and Illinois has the authority to ban a wide range of guns in the name of public safety, without running afoul of the Second Amendment.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, Barrett referred the matter to the full Supreme Court, but the request for injunction was quickly denied.
The NAGR is represented by attorney Barry K. Arrington, of Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Illinois Supreme Court challenge
The NAGR petition was one of two filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
In mid-November, Caulkins and his fellow Macon County gun owners asked the U.S. Supreme Court to potentially overturn another decision from the Illinois Supreme Court upholding the gun ban.
In that petition, Caulkins argued the Illinois Supreme Court's Democratic majority had all but thumbed its nose at the U.S. Supreme Court by allowing two justices who received big campaign donations from Gov. JB Pritzker and the state's top Democratic lawmakers to participate in deciding the case.
The petition centers on the refusal by Illinois Supreme Court Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary K. O'Brien to step aside from hearing Caulkins' challenge to the gun ban when it landed before the state high court.
The petition notes that both Rochford and O'Brien received millions of dollars from Pritzker and his campaign organization, as well as from campaign committees led by Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch, D-Hillside, and State Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park.
Further, a supplemental filing to Caulkins' petition noted Rochford and O'Brien received millions of dollars more in indirect support from a political committee set up by a lawyer who is a top Harmon ally - and who also represented Harmon in court - specifically to smear Rochford's and O'Brien's Republican opponents in an advertising blitz, asserting the Republican candidates could somehow strip away abortion rights in a state dominated by Democrats.
That same campaign committee, All for Justice, has since been socked with one of the largest ever fines in Illinois history for violating campaign finance rules.
At the same time as the All for Justice committee was accusing the Republicans of judicial bias, Rochford and O'Brien were touting their progressive political stances, and receiving endorsements from prominent left-wing organizations, including from gun control groups, who typically require endorsed candidates to pledge to support "assault weapons" bans, among other gun control measures.
Caulkins' petition asserts the Illinois Supreme Court's behavior in the case violated the due process rights of Illinois gun owners to a fair hearing. Specifically, they note the campaign donations received by Rochford and O'Brien far outstrip the campaign support for a state Supreme Court justice in West Virginia which led to the landmark Caperton v Massey decision in 2009.
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court determined a West Virginia Supreme Court justice had violated the due process rights of litigants before that court when he refused to step aside from hearing a case, despite having received campaign support from a businessman involved in the case.
In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said no one needed to prove “actual bias.” Rather, it was enough, they said, that there was a “serious risk of actual bias – based on objective and reasonable perceptions – when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge’s election campaign when the case was pending or imminent.”
In the supplemental brief, Caulkins noted the West Virginia justice had received only $3 million in indirect campaign support. In Illinois, however, Rochford and O'Brien received more than $10 million in direct and indirect campaign support from Pritzker, Harmon, Welch and All for Justice.
"Comparatively, it eludes reconciliation to find intolerable unconstitutional bias or appearance of bias in Caperton and reject the same finding as it respects Justices Rochford and O’Brien," Caulkins' lawyers wrote in the supplemental brief.
Caulkins and the Macon County gun owners are represented by attorneys Jerrold H. Stocks, Brian D. Eck and Patrick C. Sullivan, of the firm of Featherstun Gaumer Stocks Flynn & Eck, of Decatur.
Pritzker and his allies chose not to respond to the Caulkins petition.
While Barrett denied the request for injunction, Barrett and the other justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are expected to consider whether to take up Caulkins' full petition for intervention during the Supreme Court's conference on Jan. 5.