Illinois Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over "Assault Weapons" Ban

While the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to weigh in on a case dealing with the right to carry, the seven justices on the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a challenge to a Chicago suburb’s ban on so-called assault weapons. The city of Deerfield, Illinois put its ban in place back in 2018, and the following year a judge in Lake County ruled that the the new law was preempted by the state’s Firearm Owners Identification Card Act and the Firearm Concealed Carry. Last year, however, the state’s Court of Appeals reversed that opinion, finding that the city did have the ability to impose a ban on so-called assault weapons and high capacity magazines did not violate state law.

The issue here isn’t one that hinges directly on whether or not the ban violates the Second Amendment rights of residents, but rather whether the city had the authority to create a new ban by amending an existing ordinance.

The challenges argued the ban was forbidden under the 2013 laws that created a new legislative framework for legal firearm ownership after a federal court in found Illinois’ previous gun laws were unconstitutional the year before.

Those new laws — the Concealed Carry Act and the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act, or FOID Card Act — allowed local governments to pass their own assault weapons regulations as long as they did so within 10 days of the Concealed Carry Act’s passage in July 2013. The law also specifically allowed for those regulations to be amended in the future.