In 2024, Pallmeyer ruled in favor of the defendants — Cook County, Sheriff Tom Dart, Board President Toni Preckwinkle and then-State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. The plaintiffs appealed to the 7th Circuit, which ruled against them, arguing they “failed to develop a record” to support a favorable ruling.

Darrell Miller, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said the stakes for any Second Amendment case are “high” since the Bruen decision.

“Every time (the court) writes an opinion applying the Bruen test, the consequences expand beyond the discrete regulation being challenged,” Miller said.

Miller said there’s some indication the high court and particularly some of the conservative justices are “very much in the Second Amendment rights-protecting frame of mind,” but that because assault weapons bans are such a politically fraught issue, it’s difficult to predict an outcome.

He said there’s uncertainty on where Justice Amy Coney Barrett or Chief Justice John Roberts would land.

“It’s not a fait accompli in any way,” Miller said. “Of the people that I’m in conversation with, some see this as an opportunity for the court to hold that these bans are unconstitutional, but some are a little less optimistic or pessimistic, depending on your politics, about where the court’s going to land on this.”

Read more at Chicago Tribune