Expect Lawsuits!! Illinois Passed a Sweeping Ban on High-Powered Guns

When Illinois legislators passed a far-reaching ban last week on selling certain high-powered guns and high-capacity magazines, the Democrats who run the state celebrated it as a lifesaving law that would help prevent mass violence. But on Friday, in the law’s first judicial test, a state judge in Effingham County temporarily blocked it from being enforced against hundreds of people and several gun dealers who sued.

That ruling, a preliminary step and one of several legal tests the law is likely to face, came amid broad uncertainty about whether sweeping gun controls like those in Illinois can withstand judicial scrutiny following a Supreme Court decision in a New York case last year.