DECATUR, Ill. (WTVO) — An Illinois judge deemed Friday that the state’s ban on high-powered guns is unconstitutional.

Macon County Judge Rodney Forbes said in his ruling that the ban violates the equal protection and special legislation clauses of the Illinois Constitution, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The ban was first passed in response to the Highland Park Fourth of July parade mass shooting, where seven people were killed and 50 others injured.

“We expected political grandstanding from those more beholden to the gun lobby than to the safety of their constituents and today’s ruling comes as no surprise,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker spokesman Alex Gough.

Gough added that Pritzker is “confident” that the law will eventually be held as constitutional.

There have been questions on the scope of Forbes’ ruling.

Jerrold Stocks, attorney for lead plaintiff in the Macon County lawsuit, State Representative Dan Caulkins, said that the ruling applies statewide. Pritzker’s offices, however, maintains that this is not the case.

Stocks said that the ruling means the ban “is void, as if the law never existed, and is unenforceable in its entirety, in all applications,” under “well-established Illinois authority.”

Caulkins’ lawsuit alleged that the ban violates a provision in the state constitution that guarantees “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor be denied the equal protection of the laws.”

Stocks said that Friday’s ruling “represents a victory in one battle that is not, necessarily, the end of the war against the subject legislation.”