Supreme Court will decide a gun-rights challenge to blue-state bans on assault weapons
WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a 2nd Amendment challenge to gun laws in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, which ban most semiautomatic assault weapons.
Before going on summer recess, the judges issued orders for new cases to be heard in the fall. The new 2nd Amendment case is seen as an important test of what kinds of firearms and ammunition are prohibited by state or federal regulations.
The outcome will affect California and all Democrat-led states that strictly regulate or ban semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15.
Gun rights advocates say they are among the most common and popular weapons in the country and should not be banned in some states.
In response, Connecticut state prosecutors said only 2% of Americans own assault weapons and rarely use them for self-defense.
Since 1989, California has banned the sale and possession of most semi-automatic rifles and handguns that can fire more than 10 shots before reloading. Nine other Democratic-led states have similar laws.
State lawmakers said these rapid-firing weapons were not necessary for self-defense but could be weapons of mass murder. All blue state bans could be repealed next year if the court’s conservatives rule in favor of the 2nd Amendment claim.
Gun rights advocates say the government cannot ban firearms that are in “common use” by law-abiding owners.
Four of the court’s conservatives have said in past dissenting opinions that they believe state bans on assault weapons violate the 2nd Amendment. They are Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
This suggests that the fate of state laws rests with Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
State attorneys from Montana, Idaho and 25 other Republican-led states also joined in supporting the fight for gun rights.
They urged the court to prevent liberal justices and Democratic-led states from “rewriting the 2nd Amendment in a way that allows hostile jurisdictions to continue violating their citizens’ fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
In 2016, California voters approved a ballot measure that made it illegal to possess large-capacity magazines. At least 10 states have similar laws, but they apply only to the production and sale of large-capacity magazines.
Gun rights advocates filed suit in San Diego, leading to back-and-forth litigation for nearly a decade. A federal judge struck down those restrictions under the 2nd Amendment, but the state appealed. They were eventually approved by the 9th District Court in a general judgment.
Meanwhile, the 7th District Court in Chicago upheld an Illinois law and a Cook County ordinance banning semiautomatic rifles and handguns. His view said rapid-fire weapons are not significantly different from “machine guns and military-grade weapons” that could be banned under the 2nd Amendment.
Before Tuesday, the justices had repeatedly refused to comment on whether the 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” includes the right to semi-automatic “assault weapons” and large-capacity magazines.
Since 2015, the Court has turned away gun rights challenges from blue states like Illinois and Maryland over their “assault weapons” bans, despite dissenting opinions from Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.
As an appeals court judge in Washington, D.C., Kavanaugh voted to lift the city’s ban on assault weapons.
In 2008, three years after John Roberts became chief justice, the court ruled for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protects individual gun rights, not just state militias. But the 5-4 decision struck down a city’s ban on keeping hand guns at home for self-defense.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller He said the Constitution gives law-abiding people the right to own weapons “in common use” for self-defense, but not the right to own “dangerous and unusual weapons.”
Since then, gun rights and gun control advocates have debated whether semiautomatic weapons with large-capacity magazines should be regulated because they are particularly dangerous or protected because they are so common.
The Supreme Court has had a mixed record on gun regulation over the past two years.
Last year, the justices, in a 6-3 decision, struck down a federal regulation banning “threaded stocks” that allow rapid fire on a semiautomatic rifle.
The regulation was first adopted by the Trump administration in response to the mass shootings at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, in which a gunman fired up to 1,000 shots through a hotel window.
The conservative majority ruled that the stockpiled devices did not meet the definition of a banned machine gun.
But earlier this year, the court, in a 7-2 decision, upheld regulations banning unregistered “ghost guns” made with parts kits.
california case Duncan vs. Bontaand will likely be scheduled for discussion in March or April, with a decision likely to be reached by the end of June.
