WASHINGTON (CN) — After upholding some limits on Second Amendment rights this term, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away an opportunity to weigh in on Illinois’ assault weapons ban.
The court did not explain its decision not to hear an appeal from gun owners and advocacy groups who wanted the state’s law to be blocked while litigation over its constitutionality continues.
Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that the posture of the case could have been a deciding factor. Hearing it would have forced the justices to weigh in before the lower court completes its review.
“This court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture,” the George H.W. Bush appointee wrote in a statement on the court’s denial.
He expressed interest, however, in hearing the case in the future.
“We have never squarely addressed what types of weapons are ‘arms’ protected by the Second Amendment,” Thomas wrote.
Almost exactly two years ago, a gunman used a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle and 30-round magazines to fire 83 rounds into a crowded downtown street in Highland Park, Illinois. In less than a minute, the shooter killed 7 people and left 48 wounded in the 2022 Fourth of July parade shooting.
The state's ban on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices followed.
With the Protect Illinois Community Act, enacted in January 2023, lawmakers targeted the devices mass shooters use: combat-specific weapons that would be ill-suited for civilian self-defense. The crackdown included semiautomatic rifles with a pistol grip or thumbhole stock that can use detachable magazines and firearms that use flash suppressors, grenade launchers, barrel shrouds or other stocks that make them easier to conceal.
Also under the state's restrictions are semiautomatic pistols, shotguns and round-capacity limitations that cover firearms with magazines capable of holding over 10 rounds.
Gun owners who already possessed these weapons before the ban could keep their weapons if they were registered with the state. The law contained exemptions for law enforcement, members of the military and other professionals with firearm training.
Naperville, Chicago and Cook County adopted similar ordinances following the Highland Park shooting.
In six different challenges, gun owners, sellers and advocacy groups sought to block the new restrictions, but their efforts were dashed at every turn. Several courts declined to issue preliminary injunctions to pause the laws — and the Supreme Court declined the plaintiffs' emergency appeal for the first time — before the Seventh Circuit consolidated the cases and denied injunctive relief to all the parties in a 2-1 ruling.
The high court again refused to take emergency action after the circuit ruling.
The third time around, the gun owners and advocacy groups returned to the Supreme Court with the benefit of a full briefing. They accused the Illinois legislature of ignoring the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen, which created a history-based test for firearm regulations.
Thomas on Tuesday indicated at least some agreement with the gun advocates. He lambasted the appeals court ruling and said it illustrated that the Supreme Court needed to provide further guidance on which firearms the Second Amendment covers.
"By contorting what little guidance our precedents provide, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the Second Amendment does not protect 'militaristic' weapons," Thomas wrote. "It then tautologically defined 'militaristic' weapons as those 'that may be reserved for military use.' The Seventh Circuit’s contrived ‘non-militaristic’ limitation on the arms protected by the Second Amendment seems unmoored from both text and history.”
He also cast doubt on the constitutionality of banning assault weapons, saying he found it difficult to understand how a court could conclude that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles were not protected.
Thomas said the court could not allow the Seventh Circuit to relegate the Second Amendment to a second-class right.
Gun advocates, however, viewed the court’s denial as doing just that.
“Today’s decision tells the lower courts they’re more than welcome to trample Bruen to their hearts’ content — at least for the time being,” Hannah Hill, executive director for the National Foundation for Gun Rights, said in a statement.
There were no noted dissents to the ruling. Justice Samuel Alito said he would have granted the petition.
The high court on Tuesday also ordered a redo in a challenge to gun laws New York state passed a week after the Supreme Court struck down its proper-cause requirement as unconstitutional.
With its Concealed Carry Improvement Act, the state amended a longstanding good moral character requirement for a firearm license and mandated training for public carry licenses. It also banned firearms in sensitive places like government buildings, schools and public parks.
Gun owners who challenged the law had some initial success when a federal court put a temporary pause on some of the law’s licensing requirements and sensitive locations — but the Second Circuit stayed that ruling while the state appealed, and the Supreme Court refused to intervene. The circuit court went on to uphold the bulk of New York's concealed-carry law.
Now vacating that ruling, the justices on Tuesday ordered the Second Circuit to revisit the case with the help of the high court's own recent ruling upholding firearm restrictions for domestic abusers.
Follow @KelseyReichmann
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