Upholder

Last night, the US Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the HPA and SHOT acts did not comport with the Byrd Rule.

Removal of the tax on and the presence in the NFA of suppressors and short barreled rifles and shotguns is, as of now, included in the bill. At the moment, it is being reviewed by the Senate parliamentarian for compliance with the Byrd rule (which requires that it be revenue focused). The parliamentarian has not yet returned a ruling on the NFA related items, but is expected to soon(tm).

The State's Attorneys for 35 Illinois counties have now also filed an Amici

I stand corrected, there were updates posted to the docket on the 9th. NAGR submitted an Amici on the 10th as well.

All four of the plaintiffs filed their response briefs on time, on June 9th. The current docket can be found at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69371605/caleb-barnett-v-kwame-raoul/

The NFA, as originally written, also included handguns. The idea was that if they were going to heavily regulate handguns, they would also need to include short barrelled rifles and shotguns to prevent people from "exploiting a loophole" in the modern parlance. Handguns were removed before it was passed, but the SBR and SBS restrictions remained, One could argue that was an oversight.

Yesterday, 6/2/2025, the 7th circut panel affirmed the lower court's decision, stating that https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca7.51080/gov.uscourts.ca7.51080.55.0.pdf

Bevis is in the Northern District it is not done at the District Court yet as they are still in the motions/discovery phase. Viramontes v. Cook County is also from the Northern District and had oral arguments heard by a 7th Circuit panel Nov 12, 2024. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the opinion to come anytime soon, but it is further along than the Barnett case. which has not yet had oral arguments heard.

The only people that the 7th circuit have to obey are SCOTUS. In theory, SCOTUS could order that they be finished by a particular date (very unusual and they would very much try to avoid "messing with the authority of the 7th circuit to manage their own docket") or simply take the case from them preemptively (which circuits have done to panels and caused much chaos such as Duncan when the 4th En Banc took it from the panel before they had released a decision). I cannot even imagine that SCOTUS would take such a case from the district court in such a manner. Motions can be made, but if the court is willing to blatantly ignore SCOTUS, I wouldn't hold my breath that such a motion would be taken seriously by the 7th circuit.

Barnett is a completed case at the district level. That happened last fall. I set the over/under on 7th sitting on it at 2 years (with the clock starting when they stayed the decision out of the Southern District of Illinois last fall). Who wants the under?

Thomas issued a separate dissent to the denial as well.

SCOTUS has denied this case as well as Snope.

Denied.