Despite growing constitutional concerns and a landmark Supreme Court precedent affirming Americans’ Second Amendment rights, the nation’s highest court has once again refused to intervene in Illinois’ sweeping gun control law — a move gun rights advocates say is an unacceptable delay of justice.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court declined a request by gun store owner Robert Bevis and the National Association for Gun Rights to temporarily block the enforcement of Illinois’ ban on so-called "assault weapons" and high-capacity magazines. The unsigned order came without explanation and no noted dissents from the justices — a troubling silence from a court that only last year reaffirmed the importance of historical tradition in evaluating gun laws.

“Delaying a right results in its denial, and enforcing these gun bans every day is an affront to freedom,” said Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights. “We will be back to the Supreme Court as soon as our legal team finishes drafting our cert petition, and they will have to decide if they meant what they said in Heller and Bruen.”

The Illinois law was rushed through the Democrat-controlled state legislature following the Highland Park mass shooting in 2022 — an emotional response that ignored core constitutional protections in favor of political optics. Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the legislation in January, criminalizing the manufacture, sale, purchase, or possession of commonly owned firearms and magazines, including .50 caliber rifles, certain semi-automatic weapons, attachments, and high-capacity magazines.

Critics note that the law’s vague language and sweeping restrictions effectively criminalize law-abiding gun owners for possessing equipment that has been legal and widely used for decades.

The plaintiffs argue that the law stands in direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which reaffirmed that the Second Amendment protects ownership of weapons "in common use" and that modern gun laws must align with historical tradition.

“In summary, the Seventh Circuit’s decision was manifestly erroneous,” the plaintiffs wrote in their appeal to the court. “In the meantime, plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Illinois citizens are suffering irreparable injury because their fundamental right to keep and bear arms is being infringed.”

Lower courts have so far refused to block the law. In February, a federal district judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction, and last month, a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court for emergency relief — and were denied once more.

Illinois state attorneys argued that the plaintiffs had not met the Court’s “extraordinary” standard for emergency relief, insisting that the lower courts’ rulings were consistent with precedent. Yet this rationale sidesteps the deeper concern that, by allowing such broad prohibitions to remain in effect, courts are effectively suspending constitutional rights for political convenience.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has declined to weigh in on restrictive gun laws via emergency appeals. Since the Bruen decision, the Court has shown increasing hesitation to intervene quickly, despite the mounting pressure from lower courts and blue states to sidestep or reinterpret its guidance.

At the same time, the Court is currently reviewing a separate case challenging a federal law that prohibits individuals under restraining orders from possessing firearms — a decision expected by the end of June that could further define how lower courts apply the Bruen standard.

For now, Illinois gun owners — and Americans across the country — are watching closely to see whether the judiciary will uphold its promises, or continue to allow state governments to trample on constitutional rights under the guise of public safety.