The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to take up a challenge to Highland Park's ban on assault weapons protects similar restrictions in Chicago and other parts of Illinois and sends a message that municipalities have the right to determine how to best protect their communities, according to legal experts.
The lack of action was a blow to the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun advocates who had hoped the high court would issue a ruling that once and for all clarified whether weapons such as AK-47s, AR-15s and Uzis are protected under the Constitution.
The court's decision to reject the case comes on the heels of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in which AR-15-style rifles were used to carry out what officials have determined was a terrorist act.
The case placed Highland Park, a mostly affluent suburb on the North Shore, in the midst of the heated battle over Second Amendment rights, but city officials said their goal always has been simply to keep mass shootings such as the one in Newtown, Conn., from happening there.
With its ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines intact, Highland Park Mayor Nancy R. Rotering said the city and other cities and villages in Illinois are now better equipped to protect their citizens.
"No parent sending a child to school, to the park or to the movies should have to worry about whether they will come home or not," Rotering said. "Banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines is one common-sense action to reduce gun violence and protect our children and our communities from potential mass violence and grief."
The Supreme Court effectively let stand the decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that Highland Park and about 20 other Illinois cities hurriedly passed two years ago.
Highland Park, whose defense was backed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, likened itself to communities such as Newtown, where a gunman murdered 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Attorneys for Highland Park argued that "military-style" weapons with high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition were a threat to the public and that banning them was the city's best effort to prevent such a massacre.
While the appellate court ruling allows the law to remain on the books for now, the battle is not over in Illinois. Another lawsuit brought against an assault weapons ban in Cook County is still pending in the Illinois Supreme Court.
The larger question of whether assault rifles are protected by the Second Amendment was left unanswered in Heller v. Washington D.C. in 2008 and McDonald v. Chicago in 2010, the two recent Supreme Court rulings that reaffirmed citizens' rights to have firearms for self-defense.
