A three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Governor J.B. Pritzker’s gun and magazine ban will remain in effect through the appeals process.  Last month, US District Court Judge Stephen McGlynn ruled the so-called “Protect Illinois Communities Act” gun and magazine ban largely unconstitutional.  However, he issued a 30-day stay, which allowed the Land of Lincoln’s Attorney General Kwame Raoul a chance to appeal, which Raoul promptly did.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, we on the pro-gun side (I’m the Executive Director of Guns Save Life, one of the many organizational plaintiffs) had hoped that the Seventh Circuit would put an end to this charade and allow the stay to lapse during the appeal.  However, given the subject matter, it is understandable that the Seventh Circuit judges would stay the decision striking down most of the law while it’s appealed.

There are several rays of good light though.

First and foremost, the good guy plaintiffs drew a Trump-appointee judge to replace the rabidly anti-gun Diane Wood who retired earlier this year. In 2023, Diane Wood authored the 2-1 decision overturning a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law.  Wood invented a whole new two-part test that clearly ran afoul of Bruen.  The mental gymnastics of these gun-hating judges continues to astound those of us who can read the law—and follow it.

Amy St. Eve has replaced Diane Wood, so at least (it would seem) we’ll have a chance for an appellate court decision that follows the rule of law instead of gun-hating judicial activism.

What else? For those who have watched, the Blue-State government lawyers have been playing a hard game of “DELAY DELAY DELAY” on these cases. Their goal? To have the cases outlive the current conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Their long-term plan involved replacing the Clarence Thomases and Sam Alitos with Satomayors and Brown-Jacksons.

Speaking of Thomas and Alito, word has it that they are hiring clerks.  From David Lat’s Original Jurisdiction Substack:

  • Although it’s not infallible, clerk hiring can offer clues to a justice’s retirement plans—and hiring a full complement of four clerks generally means that the justice plans to stick around for the Term in question. So I’m guessing that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kagan, and Kavanaugh aren’t going anywhere, at least through the end of OT 2025 (which will conclude in June or July of 2026).

However, this last election put Republicans in charge of the U.S. Senate and Donald Trump in the White House. For at least the next two years, and quite possibly four years, Donald Trump will make Supreme Court nominations, not Kamala Harris. Moreover, there’s certainly a non-zero chance that J.D. Vance will win the 2028 Presidential Sweepstakes, and he’ll continue the trend of appointing those who will respect and defend the Constitution and not “reshape” it.

In other words, that “delay” defense the gun haters have played for the last four years may well bite them on the ass as the federal courts are likely to become more solidly supportive of gun rights, and not filled with more partisan gun-control activists.

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20 COMMENTS

  1. MAJOR BREAKING 2A NEWS: FEDERAL COURT STAYS ASSAULT WEAPON BAN INJUNCTION.

    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWJyYVQR9f8

  2. Until further notice you Slaves continue to pick cotton and you Jews bow to the fatface IL Gun Control fuhrer gov. pritzker.

  3. A FOID card, my oh my.
    Never should have happened.
    Judge judge here comes the judge.
    Men in Black protecting the universe.
    Not quite.
    Biden lined his Pampers with the U.S.Constitution and the crowd stood by all cheering.

  4. Afraid Vance will be bypassed by Trump’s family (including “the Donald”). The family always comes first. Everything is politics, and politics is everything. This is how Trump gets a full pardon.

    Many have concuded that Presidential Pardons cannot touch criminal charges by individual states. Curious. A federal pardon seems a clear case of application of the “supremacy clause”, against the individual state criminal charges. But then, I only play being an attorney in Marvel Comics.

    • The president cannot grant pardons for state charges – their clemency power is limited to federal offenses against the United States. Only state governors have the authority to pardon state convictions.

      The Constitution gives the president the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.”

      SCOTUS has previously ruled a presidential pardon “carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.”

      But SCOTUS has also ruled that pardoned conduct can be considered in some subsequent proceedings, such as to enhance a defendant’s sentence in a subsequent state-court proceeding.

      Trump should not accept a pardon, its an admission confession of guilt.

      • “Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States…”

        When the constitution was ratified, the common phrase “United States” was understood as a collection of states, rather than just the central committee. Ex: Prior to Civil War 2.0, the language usage indicated such a situatyion with the phrase “The United States are…”. After CW2.0, we begin to see, “The United States is…”

        My reading of the pardon power is that it applies to all the states, not just the entity of a federal government. The assumed limit derives not from the words and intent of the founders, but from reading the Constitution backwards from a perch 150yrs after the conclusion of CW2.0.

    • sam you are…Never fear POTUS DJT would have never selected VANCE if he had reservations of one day VANCE having to captain the ship. Unlike pence VANCE is not acting the part of a loyal VP. So providing the next 4 years are prosperous and embarrasses the fools who voted for harris/waltz I predict a VANCE/? ticket.

      Hopefully you are not one of the media infected spineless bozos who took the kangaroo courts and the concocted FELON label seriously?

  5. Unsurprising, and perhaps discouraging, the panel seems to imply that its decision is already determined by similar cases raising the same issue, and that the trial court decision is an outlier.

  6. Time to make judges pay for restricting your god given rights. If you lose money , you get that back. You lose your rights for years , they say you won . What about the years your rights were refused. If you are arrested for owning a illegal ,at this time, you will do jail time.

      • And because they did/still do this will likely proceed to an end neither political party expected with the American people seeing a win. Still a lot that can go sideways and plenty more nonsense to fight but some of the bigger threats and obstacles may see their end before the decade closes out.

  7. SCOTUS decides?
    I never did trust my Rights to the whims of others.
    Had the Democrats had won we may have been singing a different tune about the decisions of The Supreme Court

  8. 9 high mucky mucks who don’t know what infringed means.
    Err maybe they do and just don’t care.
    A gay marriage gets more play then a constitutional right.

  9. MAJOR CONSTITUTIONAL WEAPON AGAINST ATF APPROVED BY FEDERAL APPEALS COURT.

    “US Court of Appeals for 9th Circuit in Washington State issued a major decision speaking to the relationship between the federal government and local governments and it is good news for those worried about ATF overreach. Mark Smith Four Boxes Diner discusses.”

    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URqbY6CIFgE

  10. The Trace Alerts Gun Control Flying Monkeys That Gun Rights are On the Agenda at Mar-A-Lago.

    h ttps://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/saf/the-trace-alerts-gun-control-flying-monkeys-that-gun-rights-are-on-the-agenda-at-mar-a-lago/

    • Florida District Sued for Suspending Student Who Brought 3 Bullet Casings to School.

      h ttps://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/law/florida-district-sued-for-suspending-student-who-brought-3-bullet-casings-to-school/

  12. .40Cal.
    Now why in the hell would some kid bring bullet casings to school and show them off in today’s age of gun haters.
    I suppose it’s best he learned now then later on.
    No use going through life deluded by the idea that Your Right To Bear Arms is an actual right.

    • If anything it is teaching the kid power seeking assholes will do their best to ruin his life over trivial things and they must be fought against with every level of aggressive defiance necessary to eliminate their ability to influence the lives of others.

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