Supreme Court Won’t Rule on Gun Laws

“The court’s decision will encourage gun control advocates to push more cities and states to enact assault weapons bans”, said University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on gun rights.

The suit, Friedman v. Highland, argues that Highland Park has violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights by banning the sale and ownership of semi-automatic weapons and ammunition magazines with a capacity for more than 10 rounds.

Indeed, the ordinance was challenged by a Highland Park resident and the state National Rifle Association in local courts, but was ultimately upheld. Similar gun bans already exist in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and Hawaii. “The Supreme Court recognizes that there are certain categories of guns that do not fall within the protections of the Second Amendment”, Elrod said.

A gun-control advocate cheered the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to not consider a legal challenge aimed at a Chicago suburb’s ban on assault weapons. That city banned semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines in 2013. In his Oval Office address last night, President Obama called for a new federal ban on such weaponry. 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.

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented from the denial of the case.

“They can do that because municipalities are subdivisions of the state (government)”, Jackson said.

The justices gave no reason for turning down the appeal after months of reviewing the case, but their decision was likely not affected by recent mass shootings, SCOTUS blog reporter Lyle Denniston contends.

The justices said then that they were not casting doubt on regulations against selling guns to felons or the mentally ill or laws preventing people from carrying firearms in “sensitive places such as schools or government buildings”.

Semi-automatic rifles are popular, with the vast majority of owners using them for lawful purposes, Thomas said.

Among those: the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-automatic weapon that was used in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, as well as the Glock Model 19 9mm semi-automatic pistol that was used in the Tucson, Arizona, attack that killed six people and injured 14 others including former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In the wake of our own state’s tragedy, we passed some of the smartest gun laws in the nation.

Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook was criticized for writing at the time that assault weapons bans are valid as long as they “make the public feel safer”.

But in the end, the court decided against hearing the appeal, which has the effect of upholding the laws in Highland Park and elsewhere.

In deciding not to revisit the issue in the Highland Park case, the justices followed a pattern.