Highland Park, Illinois banned assault rifles a decade ago. Yesterday, however, the suburb experienced a terrible mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade. The ban, in 2013, was challenged as it made its way to the Supreme Court. The court eventually rejected to hear it. Unsurprisingly, as he is experiencing massive loads of shit, Clarence Thomas happened to be a part of the vote in which he wrote that the "overwhelming majority" who use such weapons use them lawfully in his dissent.

In the dissent, Thomas wrote, "The ordinance criminalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semi-automatic rifles), which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting." The ban was then criticized by Thomas as being "highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes."

Clarence Thomas continued in the dissent by saying, "Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting."

The city of Highland Park was then sued by the Illinois State Rifle Associate and a local doctor which led the United State Court of Appeals to uphold the assault weapon ban. The Appellate court wrote in a 2015 opinion, "[A]ssault weapons with large‐capacity magazines can fire more shots, faster, and thus can be more dangerous in aggregate. Why else are they the weapons of choice in mass shootings?" and added, "A ban on assault weapons and large‐capacity magazines might not prevent shootings in Highland Park (where they are already rare), but it may reduce the carnage if a mass shooting occurs."