The results are decidedly mixed, as the high court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a case brought by concerned organizations and individuals against Illinois’ controversial ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Instead, the litigation will continue in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
This case is Harrel v. Raoul, and the Supreme Court denied the petitioners’ request for writs of certiorari.
There were indications that jurists were favorable toward the plaintiffs’ arguments. Justice Samuel Alito noted he supported favorable actions on the petitions, and Justice Clarence Thomas expressed his desire for the bench to review the Seventh Circuit’s conclusion.
Thomas wrote that if the appeals court rules in favor of the Illinois prohibition on “America’s most common civilian rifle,” the court should review the decision after the final judgment.
He added that the Seventh Circuit should not be permitted to relegate the Second Amendment “to a second-class right.”
Though the current court greatly re-established gun rights in the U.S. with 2022’s monumental Bruen decision, it has been noticeably hesitant to intervene in cases still in the appeals process.
That ruling sent some states into a legal frenzy as they attempted to work around the high court’s explicit intent and enact bans on many popular sporting rifles. There are also concerted efforts to greatly expand “sensitive places” where gun rights are null and void.
In May, the Supreme Court refused to address Maryland’s ban on “assault weapons” and allowed the case to proceed through the Fourth Circuit. That decision left the prohibition in place in the state as the legal proceedings continued.
However, it is highly likely that justices will take up the issue depending on the appeals court’s outcome. This could also be the result of the case brought by gun rights activists against the Illinois ban.
In Maryland’s case, the state’s 2013 ban on semi-automatic rifles survived a legal challenge in the Fourth Circuit. However, the Bruen decision sparked a new lawsuit by a different group of plaintiffs who argued that the state ban did not pass the test established by the Supreme Court.
The issue has languished in the appeals court for two years without a ruling, prompting Second Amendment advocates to request that the high court intervene.
This is an unusual step in the U.S. legal system, and the court in both the Illinois and Maryland cases refused to step into the fray.
Justices last month issued a ruling on another high-profile gun rights case by striking down the federal ban on bump stocks. The 6-3 majority determined that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) erred when it used an existing law to justify the blanket ban on the popular accessories.
The agency successfully rewrote Congress’ definition of a machine gun to now include semi-automatic weapons equipped with a bump stock. This change made them virtually illegal to own, as federal laws concerning such weapons are stringent.
Thomas also wrote in favor of gun rights in Cargill v. Garland. “In any event, Congress could have linked the definition of ‘machine gun’ to a weapon’s rate of fire, as the dissent would prefer. But, it instead enacted a statute that turns on whether a weapon can fire more than one shot ‘automatically…by a single function of the trigger.’”
This is clearly not the case with bump stocks, and that distinction brought down the federal ban.
Thomas added that it is not the job of federal agencies or the courts to speculate on what Congress might have done but rather to work with existing law.
This dealt a sharp setback to the power of bureaucrats to unilaterally alter the law of the land. In doing so, it struck a mighty blow for gun rights.
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