Supreme Court Declines To Consider Illinois’ ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

The Supreme Court declined to take up a case involving a ban on certain semiautomatic firearms Tuesday, with Associate Justice Clarence Thomas issuing a statement on the denial.

Several pro-Second Amendment organizations, including Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), sued over the legislation banning multiple semiautomatic guns in January 2023. While Thomas did not join Associate Justice Samuel Alito in calling for the cases to be heard, he did say that the court should hear the cases “after final judgment.”

“This Court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture. But, I hope we will consider the important issues presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment. We have never squarely addressed what types of weapons are ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.,” Thomas wrote. “To be sure, we explained in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Second Amendment’s protection ‘extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’ And, we noted that ‘the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,’ recognizing ‘the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.’ But, this minimal guidance is far from a comprehensive framework for evaluating restrictions on types of weapons, and it leaves open essential questions such as what makes a weapon ‘bearable,’ ‘dangerous,’ or ‘unusual.’”

“Assault weapons” is a euphemism that gun-control advocates use to gain support for banning certain semi-automatic firearms with features that provide a cosmetic similarity to firearms capable of fully-automatic operation. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated