'Assault Weapons' Ban to Take Effect in Just a Few Weeks After Supreme Court Declines to Block It
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to issue a temporary block of a radical Illinois law that bans so-called “assault weapons,” leaving the state clear to launch the far-reaching ban on Jan. 1.
The high court issued its unsigned brief that listed no dissenters and offered no explanation for why the Supremes did not feel disposed to put a halt to the gun ban while it is being challenged in a lower court, Axios reported.
The brief leaves the state free to kick off the state’s Protect Illinois Communities Act as scheduled.
The law restricts the sale and purchase of semi-automatic “assault weapons,” including AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, and purported large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, which the law states is more than 10 rounds for long arms and 15 rounds or more for handguns. These magazines, though, are standard sizes for the gun industry, so the ban is not eliminating “large capacity” devices, but normal, everyday ones. The law also requires citizens who already own weapons and accouterments covered by the law to register themselves with the Illinois State Police by Jan. 1, when the law is set to take effect.
The left-wing, Democrat-controlled state legislature passed the bill and it was signed into law by Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2022. The law was hastily passed after a maniac used a semi-automatic rifle to kill seven people and wound 48 during an Independence Day parade in the Chicago area town of Highland Park.
The Supreme Court’s rule is the third time those suing the state to stop the law have failed to convince a court to block the law while their lawsuit goes on.
The 7th District U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago voted to uphold the law in November, ruling that the law properly distinguishes between legally owned firearms and those reserved for “trained professionals,” meaning semiautomatic weapons, including the popular AR-15, and can lawfully be banned, the Associated Press reported.
The Democrat-dominated Illinois Supreme Court also upheld the law in August.
The state supreme court’s ruling came after Trump-appointed Judge Stephen McGlynn of the Southern District of Illinois ruled that the law cannot be enforced until a ruling is made on its constitutionality.
However, this does not mean that the law is a legal order because it is still being heard by a lower court.
Despite the penchant of these courts to uphold the outrageous ban and self-registration rules, it appears that relatively few Illinois gun owners are complying. Thus far, only about 0.1 percent of the 2.4 million registered gun owners in the state have registered their firearms as required by the new law — amounting to only about 3,400 registrations — the Chicago Tribune reported in November.
Furthermore, a large number of sheriffs in Illinois’ 102 counties have already warned that they will refuse to enforce this gun ban in their jurisdictions.
In January of this year, more than half the sheriffs had already signaled that they won’t enforce the ban.
LaSalle County Sheriff Adam Diss said the radical gun ban is a “clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.”
The Illinois ban absolutely seems to violate the very “shall not be infringed” clause of the Second Amendment, especially with its rule that only supposedly “trained” people — such as soldiers and cops — be allowed to own a semi-automatic firearm.
After all, the Founding Fathers wanted all Americans who could be called to the militia to have the same firearms as the U.S. military. That was the main point of the amendment, after all.
But with this law that maintains only state operatives may own the firearms in question, that is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution and in fact runs contrary to the very idea that the people reign supreme. In this law, the government owns and rules the people, not the other way around, as the Founders intended.
This is a temporary defeat for lawful gun owners and Americans everywhere — not just in Illinois. But the fight continues against this outrageous ban, so the war is not yet lost.
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