Illinois Supreme Court hears arguments on Illinois’ assault weapons ban
Assault style weapons are displayed for sale at Capitol City Arms Supply on Jan. 16, 2013, in Springfield, Ill. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023, asked a state appellate court to dismiss a temporary restraining order on Illinois' new ban on semiautomatic weapons. The two-week-old law was adopted in response to the 2022 mass shooting at the July 4th parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. Seth Perlman/AP Photo, File
Tomorrow, the Illinois Supreme Court will hear the last case of its May term. It involves the state’s recent ban on assault weapons as well as large-capacity magazines. Almost as quickly as Governor JB Pritzker signed the ban into law earlier this year, gun rights advocates challenged it in state and federal court. In March, Macon County Circuit Court Judge Rodney Forbes ruled in that case that exceptions in the ban violated multiple clauses in the state constitution. Attorney General Kwame Raoul appealed the case directly to the state Supreme Court, and the court agreed to take it on.
To talk about what to expect in tomorrow’s hearing, The 21st was joined by a journalist who's been following the story, as well as a pair of constitutional law professors.
GUESTS:
Peter Hancock
Statehouse Reporter, Capitol News Illinois
Jason Mazzone
Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Director of the Illinois Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
David Franklin
Associate Professor of Law, DePaul College of Law (Chicago) | Solicitor General of Illinois, 2016-2019 | Clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1999-2000
Prepared for web by Owen Henderson
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