7th Circuit Extends Stay; Gun Owners Stuck with Gun Ban Through State’s Appeal

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.