Illinois state court allows limited pause on state’s gun ban backed by Pritzker
By Whitney Wild and Shawna Mizelle, CNN
An Illinois judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order barring the enforcement of a new Illinois gun control law against roughly 800 plaintiffs.
The law, signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, caps the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines, bans “switches” that allow semiautomatic firearms to fire rounds automatically and “extends the ability of courts to prevent dangerous individuals from possessing a gun through firearm restraining orders.”
So-called “switches” that effectively turn a semiautomatic firearm into an automatic firearm are already prohibited in most circumstances under federal firearms laws.
The lawsuit, with hundreds of Illinois residents as plaintiffs, argued that the ban violates the Illinois Constitution and was led by Thomas DeVore, a former Republican nominee for Illinois attorney general.
The suit is one of several that were filed swiftly after the enactment of the new gun law. One is filed in the Southern District of Illinois by multiple gun-rights groups and another was filed in Crawford County. Both are presently awaiting court dates.
Pritzker on Wednesday pushed back against the lawsuits, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he is confident the law will stand up in court because Illinois is the ninth state in the US to enact a so-called assault weapons ban.
“The fact that there are — have been challenges of other states’ assault weapons bans. We’re simply copying, frankly, what’s done in other states. In fact, ours is one of the most stringent but fits within the confines of what is constitutional and acceptable. Lots of scholars have said that about our law,” Pritzker said on “CNN This Morning.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid contributed to this report
