Supreme Court leaves Illinois restrictions on military-style weapons in place

The Supreme Court on Wednesday left in place for now Illinois’ new ban on the purchase and sale of AR-15-style rifles and large ammunition magazines, in the court’s first consideration of gun-control legislation since its conservative majority made it more difficult for governments to justify such restrictions.

The court without comment turned down a request from a gun shop owner from Naperville and a national gun rights organization to keep both the state law and a local measure passed by Naperville from being implemented while legal battles continue. The order comes as the nation has recently weathered dozens of mass killings, many of them involving the kinds of weapons Illinois and the city seek to ban.

It is not unusual in emergency requests for the court not to provide its reasoning. There were no noted dissents to the order.

The Supreme Court’s action follows a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to allow the laws to take effect while courts consider constitutional challenges. Gun shop owners and other organizations have said the laws violate the Supreme Court’s decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen that extended Second Amendment protections.

The 7th Circuit has scheduled a hearing on the issue for next month. Because of the preliminary status of the litigation, the Supreme Court’s decision not to upend the lower court’s consideration of the laws does not necessarily provide guidance for how the justices would rule if they were to consider the merits of the challenge.

Naperville and the state acted after a mass killing in the state last July 4. A shooter armed with a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle opened fire on a parade in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb. The shooter fired 83 rounds in less than a minute, killing seven people and wounding 48. The alleged gunman was apprehended and charged with murder.

A Highland Park ordinance prohibited the sale of such weapons, but the assailant bought the weapon elsewhere in the state. Soon after the shooting, Naperville, west of Chicago, passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale of “assault weapons.” In January, the state legislature passed the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA), which restricts the “sale, purchase, manufacture, delivery, or importation of ‘assault weapons’ and ‘large capacity ammunition feeding devices,’” subject to exceptions for law enforcement, members of the military and others with similar firearms training.

Gun groups immediately challenged the law, with differing results.

U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall turned down a request to put the laws on hold - the case now at the Supreme Court.

“The text of the Second Amendment is limited to only certain arms, and history and tradition demonstrate that particularly ‘dangerous’ weapons are unprotected,” Kendall wrote.

She added: “Because assault weapons are particularly dangerous weapons and high-capacity magazines are particularly dangerous weapon accessories, their regulation accords with history and tradition. Naperville and Illinois lawfully exercised their authority to control their possession, transfer, sale, and manufacture by enacting a ban on commercial sales.”

But U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, acting on a challenge to the Illinois law brought in a different part of the state, disagreed.

“Can the senseless crimes of a relative few be so despicable to justify the infringement of the constitutional rights of law-abiding individuals in hopes that such crimes will then abate or, at least, not be as horrific?” McGlynn wrote. “More specifically, can PICA be harmonized with the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and with Bruen? . . . The simple answer at this stage in the proceedings is ‘likely no.’”

The 7th Circuit, though, allowed the laws to proceed while appeals continued.

Robert Bevis, owner of Law Weapons and Supply in Naperville, and the National Association for Gun Rights brought the case to the Supreme Court seeking an emergency stay. Bevis claims that the laws have cost him thousands of dollars in lost sales.

His lawyers said Kendall’s ruling did not comply with the Supreme Court’s findings.

“An arm cannot be subjected to a categorical ban unless it is both dangerous and unusual,” they told the Supreme Court, noting that at least 20 million AR-15s and similar weapons are owned by millions of Americans. “An arm that is commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes is, by definition, not unusual.”

Naperville and Illinois argued that there was no reason for the court to step in at this time, when the 7th Circuit already is scheduling a hearing on the law.

Most district courts have said such bans on sales are constitutional, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul (D) told the Supreme Court, and no appeals court or state high court has ruled on the issue. “At the very least, further percolation is warranted” before the justices get involved, he wrote.

Layers for Naperville argued that the request from Bevis was not an emergency. “The loss of business from being unable to sell one category of one possible product line at a gun store simply cannot carry sufficient weight against the danger of a murdered or permanently maimed Naperville resident, senselessly shot by an assault rifle,” the city said in its brief.

The case is National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville and State of Illinois.