Justice Barrett Refuses to Block Illinois Assault Weapons Ban

Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a request from a gun rights group seeking a court order blocking Illinois’ ban on assault weapons.

Barrett acted Wednesday without commenting or referring the emergency application to the full court.

Law-Abiding Gun Owners of Macon County and two of its leaders asked Barrett for the injunction to stop the law from being enforced while the justices decide what to do with its pending challenge to the state Supreme Court’s decision that upheld the ban.

The group is arguing the Protect Illinois Communities Act is unconstitutional both under the Second Amendment and the equal protection clause because it bans some gun owners, but not others, from owning assault weapons. The law, which passed after a mass shooting in 2022 at a Fourth of July parade outside Chicago, bars anyone from owning an assault weapon and magazine unless they owned it prior to the law’s enactment on Jan. 10, 2023.

A similar request from the National Association for Gun Rights was denied by the court in May. That group had been fighting the law in federal court, arguing it’s unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The case Caulkins v. Pritzker, U.S., U.S., No. 23A527, 12/13/23.