The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will not immediately review Illinois’ assault weapons ban, leaving the law in place at least until challenges to the law have been fully heard in lower courts.
The announcement came just two days before the two-year anniversary of a mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and dozens more injured or traumatized.
That shooting served as the impetus for state lawmakers to pass the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which bans the sale and possession of a long list of semi-automatic rifles and handguns as well as various kinds of attachments and large-capacity magazines.
The court’s announcement came in a batch of orders issued Tuesday morning, one day after the court released the final opinions from its 2023-2024 session. Most of the orders dealt with petitions for cases to be heard when the court’s next session begins in October.
Usually, the court issues only a one-sentence order either granting or denying a petition to review a case. Occasionally, though, one or more of the justices will attach a statement explaining their reason for the decision.
Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative justices, issued such a statement, noting the court is often “wary” about taking up “interlocutory” appeals – that is, appeals of decisions made during the course of a proceeding, before a final verdict is reached.
In April, a judge in the Southern District of Illinois granted a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law while it was being challenged, saying it would likely be found unconstitutional. But in separate cases in the Northern District of Illinois, two other judges came to the opposite conclusion and declined to grant injunctions.
Those cases were eventually consolidated in an appeal to the Seventh Circuit, which lifted the Southern District injunction and allowed the law to remain pending a final resolution.
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