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Gun Rights Advocates Ask Supreme Court to Block Illinois, Naperville Assault Weapons Bans
Gun Rights Advocates Ask Supreme Court to Block Illinois, Naperville Assault Weapons Bans-December 2024
Dec 22, 2024 3:13 AM

(Stefani Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images)(Stefani Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images)

(CNN) — Challengers of state and local bans on assault weapons in Illinois asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the Supreme Court on Monday to block the bans, saying that courts are ignoring last year’s ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights.

The gun rights advocates are challenging both a city ordinance passed last year by Naperville that bans the sale of assault rifles, and an Illinois state law enacted this year prohibiting the sale and possession of assault weapons and magazines.

Both a federal district court and an appeals court declined the request from a gun rights group, an Illinois gun shop and its owner for a preliminary injunction.

Monday’semergency application was submittedto Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals coming from that region of the country.

The challengers say the courts are ignoring last year’s Supreme Court ruling known as Bruen v. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, and a previous decision, known asHeller v. District of Columbia.

“Since the Second Amendment presumptively protects Plaintiffs’ conduct, Respondents must justify the challenged laws by demonstrating that they are consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the new application said, while referencing the test the Supreme Court’s conservative majority laid out in itsBruenruling last year. “But because the banned arms are commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, it is impossible for Respondents to carry their burden underHellerandBruen. The reason for this is apparent from Heller and Bruen themselves — there is no historical analogue to such a ban.”

A response to the request for Supreme Court intervention was requested by noon on May 8.

Since handing down the Bruen ruling last year, the Supreme Court so far has avoided jumping back into the fray around the Second Amendment disputes thathave proliferated in the ruling’s wake.

In theBruenopinion,Justice Clarence Thomas said that gun lawsregulating conduct protected by the Second Amendment are constitutional only if they have a parallel to the firearm measures in place at the time of the Constitution's framing.

The ruling has led to several lower court decisions knocking down gun laws, while some restrictions have survived legal challenges. Some judges haveexpressed frustrationwith the difficulties in applying the high court’s historical test, while gun rights advocates have returned to the Supreme Court when they have felt the precedents were not being adequately followed by lower courts.

Most recently, the Supreme Court declined to intervene in an emergency dispute over a law in New York that places restrictions on carrying a concealed firearm,with the justices in January allowingthe law to remain in effect while the legal challenges played out.

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