Supreme Court Asked to Halt Gun Ban Passed After Mass Shooting

A gun rights group again asked the US Supreme Court to halt an Illinois ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The ban “is fundamentally at odds with a number” of Supreme Court precedents, the National Association for Gun Rights told the justices in an emergency request for an injunction on Wednesday.

The law was passed after a shooter killed seven people and wounded dozens more at a 2022 Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, outside Chicago.

The group pointed to the court’s 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller and its 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, which both provide for a robust right to carry a gun for self-defense.

A divided US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found the law was likely constitutional because assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are more like military-grade weaponry than firearms used for self-defense.

The group, joined by an individual gun owner and a commercial firearms dealer, asked the justices to stop state officials from enforcing the law while the case makes its way through the federal courts.

The justices denied a similar request by the group in May.

In August, the state’s high court also upheld the law, finding that it didn’t infringe on equal protection rights.

The US Supreme Court is considering the scope of Bruen‘s history-focused test. In US v. Rahimi, the justices are considering whether a ban on gun possession by those subject to a domestic violence restraining order is constitutional, despite that there was no law barring domestic abusers from barring arms at the time of the founding. A ruling in that case is expected by June.

The case is National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, Illinois, U.S., No. 23A486.