Gun rights groups ask U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Cook County assault weapons ban
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Case seeks to overturn recent ruling by 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
ARTICLE SUMMARY
• The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn Cook County’s assault weapons ban in June.
• Two gun rights groups are appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• They hope the court rules in their favor and that the decision will overturn similar bans across the U.S.
• Illinois enacted a statewide ban in 2023 that is also being challenged in the courts.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on the story.
Two national gun rights organizations are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Cook County’s ban on assault-style weapons in hopes that such a decision would overturn similar bans nationally, including the statewide ban Illinois lawmakers enacted in 2023.
The Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation filed a petition with the court Wednesday, asking it to reverse the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In June, the 7th Circuit said plaintiffs in the case had shown no reason for the court to reverse its own precedents that have upheld assault weapons bans, including a 2019 decision upholding the Cook County law.
The petition was filed on the same day two children were killed and 17 other individuals were injured in a mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis. As of Thursday, authorities had not yet publicly identified the specific weapons used in that shooting, only to say one of them was a rifle.
It also came as the 7th Circuit is still weighing arguments in a challenge to Illinois’ statewide assault weapons ban, known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office filed its final brief in that appeal Aug. 14. The court has not yet set a date for oral arguments.
“The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America, owned by millions of peaceable people for lawful purposes every day,” Coalition President Brandon Combs said in a statement. “The Bill of Rights is not a suggestion, and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.”
Cook County’s ban
Cook County first adopted a local assault weapons ban in 1993, and it has been updated at least twice since then. It is now officially known as the Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, named after a Chicago teen who was killed in a 2007 shooting while protecting a high school classmate.
The law prohibits the possession, acquisition and transfer of a variety of firearms, including semiautomatic rifles that can accept large-capacity magazines. It specifically names 125 prohibited rifles, including the AR-15.
In 2018, a federal judge in Chicago upheld the law, citing a 7th Circuit decision from three years earlier upholding a nearly identical city ordinance in Highland Park. The case was appealed and in 2019, and the 7th Circuit reaffirmed its position that “bans on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines do not contravene the Second Amendment.”
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of that decision.
The current challenge was filed in 2021, when the two gun rights organizations went back to court seeking to have both the Highland Park and Cook County decisions reversed. The plaintiffs include two Cook County residents, Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya.
Recent decisions
While that case was proceeding through court, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark gun rights decision in 2022, New York State Rifle and Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen. That ruling held that to pass constitutional muster, gun control laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Also while the case was pending, the Illinois General Assembly passed a statewide assault weapons ban, officially known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
In November 2023, the 7th Circuit issued a ruling in a consolidated appeal involving the statewide ban as well as local bans in Chicago, Naperville and Cook County. In that ruling, the court refused to issue preliminary injunctions to block enforcement of any of those laws, saying its original ruling upholding the Highland Park ordinance still stood.
As a result, in March 2024, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer granted Cook County’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs appealed that ruling to the 7th Circuit, hoping for a reversal of the appellate court’s earlier decisions. But in a simple three-page opinion June 2, a three-judge panel said the plaintiffs had provided no compelling reason for the court to reconsider its earlier decisions.
Now, the plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 7th Circuit. But in recent months, the nation’s high court has been reluctant to take up the question of assault weapon bans.
In July 2024, the court declined to hear an appeal of the 7th Circuit’s decision not to issue preliminary injunctions on the state and local assault weapons bans. And in June, the court also declined to hear appeals involving Maryland’s assault weapons ban as well as Rhode Island’s ban on large-capacity magazines.
In denying to hear the Maryland and Rhode Island appeals, however, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a statement that he felt the issue of assault weapons was not yet ripe for review, but that the court probably would address it “in the next Term or two.” He also specifically cited the Cook County case as one of several that the court might decide to review.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.