SCOTUS Rejects Challenge to Highland Park Assault Weapons Ban

When Illinois amended its concealed carry law in 2013, municipalities had a 10-day window in which they could enact a weapons ban and Highland Park did so, passing an ordinance prohibiting the possession, sale, or manufacture of certain military-style weapons and large capacity magazines.

The US Supreme Court handed gun control advocates a modest victory on Monday, deciding not to hear a challenge from gun rights activists to a Chicago suburb’s ordinance banning assault weapons.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to an IL ordinance that banned semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

“The justices appear anything but eager to enter into the Second Amendment fray again”, he added.

Similar laws in CT and NY were upheld by a NY federal appeals court in October.

If Kansas were to have an assault weapons ban, it (the Supreme Court decision) would still only be just a persuasive argument for any court that would have jurisdiction.

Lawyers for Dr. Arie Friedman and the Illinois State Rifle Association, who sought to overturn the Highland Park ban, paint an entirely different picture even as to the definition of the weapons at issue.

But assault weapons with large‐capacity magazines can fire more shots, faster, and thus can be more risky in aggregate. He said the decision guards the right of communities to protect themselves against large-scale gun violence.

But one of the plaintiffs in the case said his organization would continue challenging such bans.

Most of the justices declined to take up the case except for Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who say they are frustrated with the highest court in the land treating the Second Amendment like a “second class right”. The appeals court cited a 2008 Supreme Court decision that preserved gun-ownership rights under the Second Amendment but said the Constitution did not apply to “those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes”, such as sawed-off shotguns.

The justices gave no reason for turning down the appeal after months of reviewing the case, but their decision was likely not affected by recent mass shootings, SCOTUS blog reporter Lyle Denniston contends. In his opinion, Thomas attempts to recast the court’s two Second Amendment precedents as guaranteeing gun owners a near-absolute right to own any firearm which “private citizens commonly possess”. But last April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found the measure was reasonably focused on public safety and thus did not violate the Second Amendment’s grant of the right to bear arms. Deerfield approved an ordinance requiring safe storage of assault weapons while reserving the right to further regulate them in the future, according to statements made by Mayor Harriet Rosenthal at the time.

The decision leaves in place a lower court ruling that allows local governments some leeway in regulating the high-powered weapons.