After missing on several earlier emergency requests for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, pro-Second Amendment rights groups and the gun shops and firearms owners they represent have formally asked the highest court to strike down Illinois' ban on so-called "assault weapons."
On Feb. 12, attorneys representing the National Association for Gun Rights, the National Shooting Sports Federation, and the Firearms Policy Coalition, with the Illinois State Rifle Association and others, filed three separate petitions asking the U.S. Supreme Court for permission to appeal a decision from the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which allowed the state gun ban law to take effect this year.
The plaintiffs said the Supreme Court needs to step in now to end the "defiance" of Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Democrats and judges in Illinois and elsewhere who, the petitioners say, have all but thumbed their nose at recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Americans' rights to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
“The Seventh Circuit’s decision ... is a direct and open challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority," said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. "Left unchecked, the Seventh Circuit’s flagrant disobedience will give license to states and other courts to ignore the fundamental liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.”
Representatives of the other Second Amendment rights groups agreed.
“As we’ve said from the beginning, this is a very simple case," said Hannah Hill, executive director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, which is the legal arm of the National Association for Gun Rights.
"Under the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s Heller and Bruen precedents, you can’t ban so-called ‘assault weapons.’ The 7th Circuit had to actually rule that AR-15s aren’t guns at all in order to uphold the gun ban. That’s how open and shut our case is, and we look forward to the Supreme Court striking down these unconstitutional gun bans once and for all,” Hill said.
Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s Vice President and General Counsel said the Seventh Circuit's reasoning had "strayed far" from tests established by the Supreme Court to determine if state or local laws banning firearms and accessories are constitutional.
“It is clear what the circuit has done is wrong, and the peaceable individuals in Illinois deserve to have their rights vindicated as soon as possible," said Wisniewski.
The petitions take aim at the decision from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which in November ruled 2-1 to toss out a Southern Illinois federal judge's injunction, which would have blocked the state's so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA) from taking effect on Jan. 1.
The PICA law was signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in January 2023.
The law includes several provisions which bans a long list of semiautomatic firearms and so-called "large capacity magazines," which the state defined as any ammunition magazines which can hold more than 10 rounds.
The law would allow those who owned such weapons before the law was enacted to continue owning them, so long as they register the weapons with the Illinois State Police and follow rules governing how the weapons can be transported and used.
Since that registration period opened in October, only a small fraction of the state's legal gun owners have registered their weapons.
Those in defiance of the law, however, 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 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.
Nearly from the moment it was signed into law, however, the gun ban has been the subject of long-running legal challenges in many Illinois courts, as gun owners and supporters of broad Second Amendment rights assert the law tramples Illinoisans' constitutional rights, 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 to prove any gun bans apply to weapons that are both dangerous and unusual, and that the bans are in line with U.S. history and tradition dating back to the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
Attempts to block the law from taking effect failed, as federal judges in Chicago rejected petitions for injunctions, and the divided Seventh Circuit panel declared they believed the law did not clearly violate the Second Amendment.
In that decision, the two Seventh Circuit judges, Frank Easterbrook and Diane Wood - who have upheld other gun ban laws in the past - ruled that the Second Amendment doesn't protect "assault weapons," or other weapons that state lawmakers may believe are too dangerous or which too closely resemble "military-grade" weapons.
To this point, the gun rights supporters have also failed to win relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has rejected several petitions for emergency relief, all without comment.
The new petitions from the Second Amendment rights supporters don't ask for any such emergency relief. Rather, the petitions seek a full hearing before the Supreme Court and a decision declaring that Pritzker, Illinois' Democratic supermajority and the two Seventh Circuit judges have violated the Constitution.
The petitions note that no federal courts have yet delivered a final ruling on whether the "assault weapons" ban is constitutional.
But the petitions assert there is no need to wait months or even years for such a ruling, and in the meantime allow Illinois to continue trampling the rights of gun owners in the state.
The NAGR, for instance, notes in its petition that forcing gun owners to again go before the Seventh Circuit would merely require the courts to weight their arguments against the Seventh Circuit's earlier holdings, which they said the Supreme Court should recognize as out of line with the Supreme Court rulings in Heller and Bruen.
The petitions further note that other federal appeals courts and state Supreme Courts elsewhere have repeatedly upheld gun bans in other parts of the country. The gun rights groups say this amounts to defiance of the Supreme Court's authority.
They urged the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the Illinois ban to fully assert the high court's authority and to clearly state that the high court majority meant what it said in Heller and Bruen.
"Unfortunately, it has become apparent that it likely will take this Court’s review for the clear teaching of Heller to take hold in the lower courts, and this case presents a perfect opportunity for the Court to settle the matter once and for all," the FPC wrote in its petition.
The NSSF petition similarly called on the high court to end the open defiance by state lawmakers and courts who essentially have ignored or rewritten the Bruen and Heller decisions to justify the laws.
Their petition, like others, alluded to a recent decision by the Hawaii State Supreme Court which directly clashed with the U.S. Supreme Court's Second Amendment rulings and eviscerated a fundamental individual right to gun ownership in the Aloha State, in part, because such constitutional rights are not in keeping with Hawaii's traditional "Aloha Spirit."
They assert such a decision was emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to this point to act affirmatively to drive the point home to federal appeals courts and state supreme courts that the majority meant what it said in Heller and Bruen.
"When a federal appellate court reduces a recent and emphatic Supreme Court decision to a mere speed bump in reviving pre-Bruen caselaw and greenlights state laws passed more in protest of than in compliance with this Court’s decisions, it emboldens others to do them one better in 'the Aloha spirit,'" the NSSF wrote.
"This Court needs to intervene before this open defiance spreads further. The Court has repeatedly reminded courts and legislatures that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.
"Unfortunately, the Court now needs to instruct them that Bruen - a recent, emphatic 6-3 decision of this Court - is not a second-class precedent."
The NSSF petition was filed by attorneys Paul D. Clement, Erin E. Murphy, Matthew D. Rowen and Mariel A. Brookins, of the firm of Clement & Murphy, of Alexandria, Virginia; and Gary C. Pinter, of Martin Swanson & Bell, of Edwardsville.
The National Association for Gun Rights petition was filed by attorney Barry K. Arrington, of the Arrington Law Firm, of Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
The Firearms Policy Coalition petition was filed by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William V. Bergstrom, of the firm of Cooper & Kirk PLLC, of Washington, D.C.; and attorney David Sigale, of Lombard.