Madigan and other named Defendants were considering an appeal to the United States Supreme Court prior to July 2013, but the legal case became mooted once the Illinois legislature passed a shall issue concealed carry law that month.

In 2009, Mary E. Shepard, a member of the advocacy group the Illinois State Rifle Association, was performing volunteer duties as treasurer at her church, when she was assaulted and beaten by an intruder and left for dead.

Her injuries were numerous and major, including skull fractures, hearing loss, shattered teeth, and vertebral damage, which required many surgeries and extensive physical therapy.

Despite possessing a handgun and maintaining the State-required Firearms Owner Identification card (FOID), Shepard was unarmed as required by Illinois statutes during the attack, and asserts that if she had had access to her weapon, she could have fought off her assailant and avoided the injuries to herself and her co-worker.

[1] On May 12, 2011, plaintiffs Michael Moore, Charles Hooks, IllinoisCarry, and the Second Amendment Foundation filed suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Springfield Division, alleging that the same areas of the Illinois State Statutes mentioned in Shepard were facially violative of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment as interpreted by the landmark Supreme Court Cases D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, and sought an injunction barring enforcement of the statutes.

While twenty-first century Illinois has no marauding Indian tribes, the threat, from gangs and street thugs, continues, and, says the decision, "a Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower."

The decision also rejected the argument that the Illinois laws had an effect on gun crime, noting that Chicago's criminal element was undeterred by the ban on handguns overturned by McDonald.

As such, the court held that although the State of Illinois would logically have a substantial interest in reducing gun-related crime and injury/death, the carry ban is not reasonably adapted to this goal and therefore fails even intermediate scrutiny.

[6] After the initial panel decision, the Chicago aldermen and mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed to continue the fight, both by supporting appeals to the Supreme Court and to craft a city ordinance reaffirming the ban on public carry, even in opposition to any State statutes.

After the full court denied en banc hearing, the Chicago Tribune reported[8] that Illinois law enforcement, prosecutors and judges are continuing to arrest, charge and convict persons accused of illegally carrying concealed firearms in certain parts of the state, while law enforcement and prosecutors in a number of rural counties had stopped prosecuting individuals for simply carrying firearms without a demonstration of some other malicious intent.

reject this, stating that while the decision does not apply to the actual courts, the law enforcement officials and prosecuting attorneys can face federal contempt-of-court charges for these actions.

In a compromise between representatives of the Chicago area and other large cities, and those from smaller cities and rural areas, the bill preempts any local ordinances governing possession and use of handguns, allows storage of a handgun by a person with a carry permit in an automobile, even if that vehicle is parked in an otherwise prohibited place, and allows concealed carry into food service establishments that make less than 50% of their revenue from sales of alcohol "by the drink" (a common delineation point in the laws of many States between "restaurants" and "bars").

However, in concession to the interests of the Chicago area, mass transit buses and trains, schools, other government buildings, parks, hospitals and street festivals are designated "gun-free".

[9] On June 4, the 7th Circuit issued one 30-day extension of the original stay, allowing Governor Quinn and his staff time to review the law passed by the Legislature and decide on a course of action.