The US Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the constitutionality of the Illinois assault weapons ban before July 2027.
Second Amendment challenges to Illinois's Protect Illinois Communities Act are navigating federal appeals. Resolves positive if SCOTUS hands down an opinion on the merits by the end of the 2026-2027 term.
Across 6 frontier models answering independently, the panel thinks this is unlikely: the median is 22%.
They do not agree: GPT puts it at 57% and DeepSeek at 12%, 45 points apart. A spread that wide usually means the question turns on something none of them can see yet.
Nothing is settled until 9 Nov 2027, when the outcome is checked against sources and every number above gets a permanent score.
What each one said
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GPTOpenAI
It turns on whether the Seventh Circuit produces a clean final judgment soon enough for certiorari in the 2026–27 Term.
- Illinois must first get a final Seventh Circuit decision; Supreme Court merits review normally follows a cert petition and months of briefing.
- The Court often takes major circuit-split Second Amendment cases, but it denies far more petitions than it grants and may await more appellate rulings.
- A Seventh Circuit judgment by early 2027, or a clear split with other circuits, would materially raise the chance of a June 2027 merits opinion.
57% -
GeminiGoogle
Timing is extremely tight; SCOTUS is more likely to resolve an AWB ban via Maryland's Snope or defer Illinois on interlocutory posture.
- From November 2026, cert must be granted by January 2027 to hear argument and issue an opinion before the term ends in June 2027.
- The 4th Circuit's en banc Maryland decision (Snope v. Brown) offers a cleaner, mature vehicle than Illinois's fractured dockets.
- A grant on another state's ban would likely result in Illinois petitions being held and GVR'd rather than fully decided on the merits.
27% -
ClaudeAnthropic
Hinges on SCOTUS granting cert on an assault weapons ban case and deciding it by June 2027.
- 7th Circuit has not yet issued a final en banc merits ruling, so cert petition timing is uncertain going into 2026-2027.
- SCOTUS has repeatedly denied cert on assault weapons bans (e.g., Bianchi, NAGR) despite circuit splits, showing reluctance to take this issue.
- A cert grant in late 2026 with expedited briefing could allow a 2026-2027 term decision, but this requires several unlikely steps to align quickly.
22% -
GrokxAI
SCOTUS must grant the Illinois AWB case this term and issue a merits opinion by late June 2027.
- From Nov 2026 a cert grant by January is required for April argument and a June opinion; later grants slip to OT27.
- Base rate is low: Court takes few 2A cases and has repeatedly denied AWB petitions post-Bruen while waiting for splits.
- A 7th Circuit decision plus cert grant this fall would raise odds sharply; continued percolation or a different state's case would not.
22% -
QwenAlibaba
SCOTUS has repeatedly declined cert on AWB cases despite multiple petitions; no clean circuit split forces their hand.
- Multiple circuits (7th, 4th) have upheld bans post-Bruen, so there's no conflict requiring resolution—SCOTUS typically needs a split to justify granting cert on a…
- If cert were granted in the 2025-26 term, a merits decision would have landed by June 2026; absence of that suggests deliberate avoidance, and granting now leaves only a…
- A development that would raise this significantly: a circuit court striking down an AWB (e.g., 5th or 9th), creating the split that compels SCOTUS to act.
22% -
DeepSeekDeepSeek
SCOTUS would need to grant cert in the next few months and decide by June 2027; no circuit split has ripened yet.
- The Seventh Circuit upheld Illinois's ban in 2023, and en banc or panel rehearing has kept the case from generating a clean, final appellate judgment.
- SCOTUS typically waits for a circuit split or a final judgment below; with only one circuit ruling and other AWCA cases still percolating, cert is unlikely this term.
- Even if cert were granted in early 2027, briefing and argument would push a merits opinion past June 2027, making a pre-July ruling very unlikely.
12%
6 of 6 models answered · 45 points between the highest and lowest. None was shown the market price.
Question sourced from a news sweep on 9 Nov 2026. Forecast by google/gemini-3.8-flash, anthropic/claude-sonnet-5, openai/gpt-5.6-terra, x-ai/grok-4.6, deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash, qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902 via OpenRouter.