On July 2, 2024, the United States Supreme Court rejected certiorari in National Association for Gun Rights v. Naperville. The case is currently going through the discovery, trial, and summary judgment phases at the district court.
“Today’s decision tells the lower courts they’re more than welcome to trample Bruen to their hearts’ content – at least for the time being. The question all along has been whether the Supreme Court was okay with the lower courts’ outright and unanimous defiance of the plain holdings of Bruen. Today we got our answer: for now at least, the Second Amendment IS a second-class right, and it will remain so until the Supreme Court decides to stop ducking the issue,” declared Hannah Hill Executive Director for the National Foundation for Gun Rights.
The US District Court rejected a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the law, which plaintiffs subsequently appealed to the 7th Circuit. The 7th Circuit issued a ruling upholding the district court’s denial of preliminary injunction, determining that AR-15s are not firearms under the Second Amendment in complete defiance to multiple precedents established by the Supreme Court.
The National Association for Gun Rights appealed to the Supreme Court, calling on the high court to overturn the 7th Circuit’s ruling and establish a nationwide precedent definitively throwing out gun prohibitions.
Justice Clarence Thomas published a statement describing the 7th Circuit’s ruling “nonsensical” and declared “It is difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment.” Thomas added that when the case returns to the Court in a final judgment posture, the Supreme Court “can – and should” review the 7th Circuit’s decision if it maintains it preliminary injunction reasoning.
Hellbound and Down 