The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Illinois’ ban on concealed carry permit holders from carrying concealed loaded guns on public transit Monday, leaving intact the state’s more than a decade old prohibition on firearms on buses and trains.The Cook County State's Attorney’s office, alongside Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and DuPage County state’s attorney, had challenged a lower court ruling overturning the ban in 2024. A federal appeals court backed the law in a September decision.“Everyone deserves to feel safe on public transit,” Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke said in a statement. “Minimizing the risk from dangerous weapons is crucial to protect members of the public who use this vital public resource. We are pleased the Supreme Court agreed with our arguments, which will allow Illinois’ commonsense law banning firearms on public transportation to stand." Raoul, who was also a party to the suit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.David G. Sigale, who represented the plaintiffs, said they were "very disappointed" in the decision."Law-abiding public transportation riders in Illinois are less safe as a result of the law," he said in a statement. "We know that groups like the (Illinois State Rifle Association) will continue to fight this prohibition in the legislative and political arenas, as well as the courts, so that Illinoisans' Second Amendment rights will be respected."Four concealed carry permit holders sued over the Illinois law in 2022, claiming it prevented them from carrying weapons for self-defense when traveling on the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra.In August 2024, a federal judge in Rockford's U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of the four plaintiffs who argued that prohibiting guns on public buses and trains was unconstitutional.That decision relied on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Bruen that said restrictions on carrying guns in public must be “relevantly similar” or consistent with conditions that existed in the late 18th century when the Bill of Rights was composed. It said there were no analogous conditions that justified the transit ban.Then, last September, Judge Joshua Kolar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit wrote in the majority opinion for a three-judge panel that the law “is comfortably situated in a centuries-old practice of limiting firearms in sensitive and crowded, confined places.”The public transit ban was imposed in 2013 when Illinois became the last state in the nation to OK carrying concealed weapons in public. In addition to buses and trains, the law nixed gun possession in places such as public arenas and hospitals.Contributing: Associated Press ...read more read less