Illinois Supreme Court issues ruling on state’s new gun restrictions

The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s sweeping gun ban, fending off the first major challenge to the landmark law which now awaits its fate before a federal appellate court.

The state high court’s 4-3 ruling is a victory for gun control advocates who pushed for the law following a mass shooting during last year’s Fourth of July parade in Highland Park that claimed the lives of seven people and left dozens injured.

Four of the court’s Democratic justices — Elizabeth Rochford, Joy Cunningham, P. Scott Neville and Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis — ruled in favor of the state, while the two Republicans, justices Lisa Holder White and David Overstreet, dissented jointly. Democratic Justice Mary Kay O’Brien wrote a separate dissenting opinion.

The decision came on the same day that Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to visit Chicago to make a speech at the annual conference for Everytown for Gun Safety, a national gun control group that supported Illinois’ ban on certain high-powered guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Friday’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of plaintiffs led by Republican state Rep. Dan Caulkins that argued the weapons ban violates the Illinois Constitution’s requirement that state laws should be applied equally to all citizens.

In late April, Macon County Judge Rodney Forbes found that the ban caused an “irreparable harm” by denying plaintiffs the ability to “purchase their firearm of choice” and “exercise their right to self-defense in the manner they choose.” The decision was then appealed by Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office.

During arguments before the state Supreme Court in May, attorneys with Raoul’s office said the plaintiffs failed to prove the weapons ban violated the state constitution. To prove the equal protection clause was violated by the ban, the state argued, the lawsuit would have to show that Caulkins and the other plaintiffs are “similarly situated,” or alike, as are the specifically defined groups exempted from the weapons ban.

“Members of the general public are not similarly situated to those (exempted under the law) because members of (the exempted groups) are sort of presumed to exercise greater responsibility in the safe handling and storage of firearms,” Assistant Attorney General Leigh Jahnig said.

The exemptions include retired and current police and military personnel and prison wardens, as well as those who already owned the prohibited guns prior to the ban. Those gun owners can keep those firearms but are now required to register them with the Illinois State Police.

Jerry Stocks, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued the law is therefore not applied equally, and also contended it’s improper to allow the “grandfathered” gun owners to own the prohibited firearms but to not allow anyone to purchase those guns.

Stocks also argued the ban violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. All citizens “have the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms” in their homes for self-defense, Stocks said. “The Second Amendment elevates above all interests.”

Chief Justice Theis appeared to push back on that argument, suggesting that Stocks could have filed his lawsuit in federal court and consolidated it with other cases that have presented Second Amendment challenges to the weapons ban.

The ban has faced a slew of lawsuits on the federal level alleging that the law violates the Second Amendment. Those lawsuits, filed by the Illinois State Rifle Association and other gun rights groups, were consolidated into one case that was argued in June before a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel has yet to issue its ruling.

The law bans the delivery, sale, import and purchase of a long list of so-called “assault weapons.” Also banned are the delivery, sale or purchase of large capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns.