The US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled late yesterday that Governor JB Pritzker’s gun and magazine ban will remain in effect through the appeals process. Translation: We’re stuck with it through at least next summer. There’s some good news in the order though, no doubt about it.
In a nutshell, Trump-appointee Amy St. Eve has replaced the gun control jihadist Diane Wood following Wood’s retirement.
That’s hugely good news.
In a quick review, last month Judge Stephen McGlynn ruled the so-called “Protect Illinois Communities Act” gun and magazine ban largely unconstitutional. (He allowed the ban on .50 calibers to remain… which may result in additional litigation down the road.)
At the same time McGlynn issued a 30-day stay which allowed the Land of Lincoln’s Attorney General Kwame Raoul a chance to appeal, which Raoul promptly did.
We had hoped the Seventh would refuse to grant an extension on the stay, but people a whole lot closer to great legal minds have told me that simply wasn’t going to happen. The stay will remain in place, they said. You don’t have to like it, but that’s just the way they do things. (After all, this isn’t a decision the Left loves…)
Amy St. Eve’s assignment to the 3-judge panel isn’t the only good news though.
Gun hating jihadists in government have played the “delay” defense for years. They hoped to have the cases outlive the current conservative justices on the US Supreme Court. Their long-term plan involved replacing the Clarence Thomas / 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 US 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. And the Senate will approve the nominations.
Moreover, there’s certainly a non-zero chance that JD 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.
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