A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms.
U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, of the Southern District of Illinois, issued a permanent injunction he said applies universally, not just to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. He decided, however, that the injunction would not take effect for 30 days.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul responded speedily, filing a notice of appeal Friday evening.
The Protect Illinois Communities Act, signed into law in January 2023 by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, took effect Jan. 1. It bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and an assortment of attachments largely in response to the 2022 Independence Day shooting at a parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
The opinion drew heavily from recent landmark Supreme Court rulings expanding on the definition of the Second Amendment’s guarantees.
“Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class,” McGlynn wrote in his opinion. “The oft-quoted phrase that ‘no right is absolute’ does not mean that fundamental rights precariously subsist subject to the whims, caprice, or appetite of government officials or judges.”
Read full story at The Associated Press.
