A federal appeals panel says Illinois' ban on so-called "assault weapons" and other gun restrictions will remain in effect while state officials appeal a ruling from a southern Illinois federal judge that struck the gun ban down as an "unconstitutional affront" to the Second Amendment.
On Dec. 5, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted the request from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul for an indefinite stay of the ruling from U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn, which declared the state's so-called Protecting Illinois Communities Act (PICA) unconstitutional.
The appeals' court's ruling means the state can continue to enforce the law, despite McGlynn's ruling, at least until either the Seventh Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court upholds McGlynn, either directly or through a decision in a case pending before the highest court that could apply to Illinois' law.
The appellate ruling came from a panel that included Seventh Circuit judges Frank H. Easterbrook, Michael B. Brennan and Amy J. St. Eve.
In the ruling, the judges said there was no reason not to put McGlynn's ruling on the shelf, for now, noting that the Seventh Circuit has already rejected an attempt by gun owners and Second Amendment rights groups to secure a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing the law.
The Seventh Circuit panel that delivered that ruling included Easterbrook and Brennan, along with former Seventh Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood.
Wood, who authored the earlier ruling, has since retired and has been apparently replaced on the panel by St. Eve.
Brennan dissented from the earlier ruling, and would have granted the injunction blocking the enforcement of the gun ban.
Both Brennan and St. Eve were appointed to the Seventh Circuit by former president and current President-Elect Donald Trump.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has so far refused to step in to stop Illinois from enforcing the law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has notably criticized that ruling, blasting Wood's and Easterbrook's reasoning as "nonsensical," "contrived" and "highly suspect."
And while the Supreme Court hasn't taken up the Illinois case, it is posed to accept a challenge to a similar "assault weapons" ban in Maryland, which could result in a ruling that ultimately decides the fate of the Illinois gun ban.
However, to this point, the Seventh Circuit panel noted that no other federal appeals courts that have addressed similar gun bans under current U.S. Supreme Court case law has delivered a different result.
When the case landed before McGlynn, however, he struck the law down, saying "concerns about public safety and about mass shootings ... do not rise to the level of eliminating constitutional rights present since the time of the founding," which include citizens' rights under the Second Amendment.
The PICA was signed into law by Pritzker in January 2023, and took effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
The law includes several provisions banning a long list of semiautomatic firearms and so-called "large capacity magazines," which the state defined as ammunition magazines which can hold more than 10 rounds.
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 suburban Highland Park.
Second Amendment rights supporters, however, say the law is a blatant violation of the Second Amendment, particularly as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent decisions known as District of Columbia v Heller and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen.
In those decisions, the Supreme Court created tests for states and courts to use when evaluating if such restrictions are constitutional. Those tests require courts and lawmakers to evaluate if the weapons being banned are both dangerous and unusual, and if the restrictions are in keeping with U.S. history and tradition dating back to the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
Illinois gun store owners, gun owners and Second Amendment rights advocacy organizations filed suit quickly after the law was signed, seeking court orders declaring the law unconstitutional. They also sought injunctions preventing Pritzker and the state from enforcing the law while their overall challenges played out in court.
In his ruling striking down the law, McGlynn said there is no constitutional reasoning under Heller and Bruen that would allow Illinois' gun ban to stand under the Second Amendment.
While saying he did so with respect, McGlynn said the Seventh Circuit decision denying the injunctions was badly wrong.
He said American rights under the Second Amendment should not be treated as a "second class right" compared to the rest of the rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
And McGlynn said appeals to tragedies carried out by armed criminals should not enable the Pritzker, Illinois Democratic state lawmakers and judges to simply ignore the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court's holdings.
"Disarming law-abiding citizens does not also bring about happy endings," McGlynn wrote. "Disarming law-abiding citizens does not inoculate us from the evil, hatred, and psychosis or from the tyranny of others.
"... Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class.
"... The oft-quoted phrase that 'no right is absolute' does not mean that fundamental rights precariously subsist subject to the whims, caprice, or appetite of government officials or judges," McGlynn wrote.
McGlynn agreed to stay his decision until Dec. 8, to allow the state time to appeal.
The Seventh Circuit panel then granted the state's request to keep McGlynn's ruling on hold indefinitely, pending appeal, a process which could take months or even years.
In response to the Seventh Circuit's decision, the Illinois State Rifle Association said they were "disappointed - but not surprised" at the decision to put McGlynn's ruling on hold.
"When this unconstitutional bill was signed by Gov. Pritzker in January 2023, we promised to see the State of Illinois in Court – and we’ve held firm on that promise – and we won’t back down until our 2nd Amendment rights are restored in Illinois," the ISRA said in a statement posted to their website.