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Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Local Assault Weapons Ban

Mark Fischer
/
Creative Commons
The U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has declined a review of the ability of cities and states to ban semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines, leaving in place lower court rulings like those affecting Connecticut.

The case came before the court as an appeal from gun owners who challenged a ban on assault weapons in Highland Park, Illinois, just outside Chicago. That city banned semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines in 2013. 

The federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that local governments have leeway in deciding how to regulate firearms.

Seven states, including Connecticut, have similar bans.

In October, the federal appeals court in New York largely upheld Connecticut's gun laws enacted in the wake of the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. The court ruled that the laws didn't violate the Second Amendment, because restrictions concern the government's interests in public safety and crime reduction.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly turned away challenges to gun restrictions since two landmark decisions that spelled out the right to a handgun to defend one's own home.

From The Washington Post:

After deciding in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 that the Second Amendment provides the right for an individual to keep a weapon in the home, the court has avoided all cases that might clarify if that right is more expansive.
Gun rights advocates say cities and states continue to put unreasonable restrictions on the constitutional right. But the court has not yet found a case it thinks requires its intervention. That could be because a majority of the court thinks the restrictions are legally justified, or because the court is closely divided and neither side is sure of what the outcome of taking a case might be.
By its inaction, the court has left in place lower court rulings that allow restrictions on carrying a weapon outside the home, among other things, and on the kinds of guns that can be prohibited.

This report includes information from The Associated Press.

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