Supreme Court leaves Illinois semiautomatic gun ban in place

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday left in place an Illinois ban on AR-15 semiautomatic weapons.

Two lower courts have upheld the law, and Thursday's Supreme Court action marked the second time in six months that the justices have declined to intervene.

Illinois passed the ban on assault weapons after the 2022 Independence Day parade shooting that left seven people dead and 48 wounded. The gunmen in the July 4th shooting fired 83 rounds in under a minute using an AR-15. The ban prevents people from owning semiautomatic weapons, such as the one used in that shooting, as well as magazines that enable handguns and rifles to fire off many rounds without reloading.

Last year, the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled that gun restrictions, in order to be constitutional, must be analogous to laws on the books at the nation's founding. As a result, an Illinois gun retailer and a gun rights advocacy group challenged the state's law, contending that the "ban is not consistent with the nation's history and tradition of firearms regulation and fails constitutional muster."