Seventh Circuit Upholds Illinois Assault Weapons Ban
A federal appeals court has upheld Illinois’ landmark ban on semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines, overturning a lower court ruling that had struck down the law and delivering a significant victory for gun control advocates just days after the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of such bans nationwide.
In a 2-1 decision on July 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that the Protect Illinois Communities Act does not violate the Second Amendment and is “consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation,” according to AP News.
The Law and Its Origins
The Protect Illinois Communities Act was signed into law by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker in January 2023, roughly six months after the Highland Park July 4th parade mass shooting. During that attack, a gunman used a legally purchased Smith & Wesson M&P 15 — an AR-15-style rifle — to fire 83 rounds from a rooftop in 40 seconds, killing seven people and wounding dozens more.
The law prohibits the sale and possession of more than 100 types of semiautomatic firearms, large-capacity magazines (over 10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns), and various attachments. It does not affect handguns or traditional hunting rifles.
In 2024, a federal district court judge overturned the ban, finding it unconstitutional under recent Supreme Court precedents that strictly interpret the Second Amendment. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul immediately filed a notice of appeal, and the injunction was stayed pending the appeal, as reported by CBS News Chicago.
The Seventh Circuit’s Reasoning
The majority opinion was written by Judge Amy St. Eve, a Donald Trump appointee, and joined by Judge Frank Easterbrook, a Ronald Reagan appointee. The fact that both judges in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents lent the ruling additional weight in the contentious gun rights debate.
“Whatever else may be contributing to America’s mass-shooting epidemic, the record makes one thing clear: The more people killed, the more likely it is that the killer used an assault weapon and large-capacity magazines,” St. Eve wrote in the opinion, according to Capitol News Illinois via Shaw Local.
The court drew a historical analogy to 19th-century regulations of Bowie knives, citing an 1859 ruling that called the Bowie knife an “instrument of almost certain death.” The majority found that modern assault weapons bans are analogous: both target weapons that are particularly dangerous and capable of inflicting mass casualties.
The opinion also relied on the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which found that while the Second Amendment protects handguns, military-style firearms like the M-16 can be banned. The court noted that “when chambered with identical bullets, the AR-15 and the M-16 fire rounds at approximately the same velocity — about 3,100 feet per second” — roughly three times the velocity of a handgun bullet.
The Dissent
Chief Judge Michael Brennan, also a Trump appointee, wrote a 50-page dissent arguing that the AR-15 is “the people’s weapon of choice” and thus protected by the Second Amendment. “Because the people have overwhelmingly chosen the AR-15 rifle and its magazine as their weapon of choice, they are protected by the Second Amendment,” Brennan wrote, as AP News reported.
Reactions
Gov. JB Pritzker celebrated the ruling, calling it “a victory in the fight to end gun violence that helps keep our communities safe.” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement, “We have seen the damage that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines can inflict, and these weapons of war have no place in our communities.”
Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, praised the decision, saying in a press release that “the Seventh Circuit’s ruling adds to an unbroken front of federal appeals court decisions that have consistently found that assault weapon and large-capacity magazine bans are constitutional.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry trade association that is a plaintiff in the case, said it is disappointed with the ruling and plans to file a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Context
The Seventh Circuit’s decision comes at a pivotal moment. Just one week earlier, on June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in two cases — Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins — which challenge assault weapons bans in Cook County, Illinois and Connecticut, as AP News reported. Oral arguments are expected in fall 2026.
Similar laws are in place in approximately a dozen states, covering major cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Congress allowed a federal assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.
What’s Next
The NSSF is expected to file a cert petition in this case, which could be consolidated with the existing Supreme Court cases. A Supreme Court ruling upholding assault weapons bans would validate laws in approximately a dozen states, while a ruling striking them down could invalidate such laws nationwide.
The Supreme Court’s current conservative majority has significantly expanded Second Amendment rights in recent terms, including striking down Hawaii’s gun carry restrictions and upholding a federal ban on gun ownership by domestic violence offenders. How the Court will apply its historical-tradition test from the 2022 Bruen decision to assault weapons bans remains the central question as the nation awaits what could be a landmark ruling on the constitutionality of these laws.