In a 2-1 ruling on Friday, a federal appeals court declined to block enforcement of Illinois’ assault weapon ban as well as similar local ordinances, saying the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are not absolute.

The judges sided with two lower court decisions from the Chicago area but overturned the ruling of a federal court in southern Illinois, stating the plaintiffs “have not shown the likelihood of success on the merits, based on the fact that military weapons lie outside the class of arms to which the individual right applies.”

Friday’s decision applied only to the preliminary injunction and did not amount to a definitive ruling on constitutionality, the court noted.

The decision involved three consolidated cases that challenged the state’s assault weapon ban as well as local ordinances enacted in Cook County, Chicago and Naperville. Both the state law and the Naperville ordinance were passed in response to a mass shooting last year at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and dozens more injured and traumatized.

Illinois lawmakers passed the state law during a special lame duck session in January, and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed it within hours of its passage out of the General Assembly.

That new law sparked immediate challenges in both state and federal courts. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the law in August against narrow challenges under the state constitution. But the broader legal issues were aired in federal courts, where judges in different districts reached different conclusions.

One judge in the Southern District of Illinois ruled in April that the law violated the Second Amendment of the constitution. But two judges in the Northern District came to the opposite conclusion. Those three cases were then consolidated in the appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Gun control advocates issued immediate statements praising the decision.

“This is an important victory in the fight against gun violence, and a victory for all states and municipalities that are fighting to keep their residents safe,” Douglas Letter, chief legal officer for the anti-gun violence group Brady, said in a statement. “States and cities should have the right to stop these weapons of war from decimating our communities, and this ruling demonstrates that assault weapon bans are indeed constitutional.”

Gov. JB Pritzker praised the court’s opinion, saying the majority recognized the assault weapons ban as a “commonsense law” and urging U.S. Congress to pass an assault weapons ban “so Illinois is not an island surrounded by states with weak protections.”

Friday’s opinion comes in the midst of a series of Illinois State Police hearings on the part of the assault weapons ban law that allows gun owners who already possess banned weapons and high-capacity magazines to be able to keep them so long as they’re registered with the state.

The Illinois State Rifle Association says it intends to appeal Friday’s ruling. 

(Reporting courtesy of Capitol News Illinois)