US rejects challenge to assault weapon ban

& Partially ’cause in that maneuver, in that very same lobby suffered a critical setback Monday. when the Supreme Courtroom let stand Highland Park’s law & an appeals courtroom ruling upholding it, giving a green legal light, or maybe a yellow one, to different cities & towns to enact their very own ordinances in in that case inclined politically.

The court, though, left in place a lower court ruling that found that local governments have leeway in deciding how to regulate firearms.

The 7th Circuit Court in Chicago had previously rejected the ordinance as well, despite much rallying by the NRA for the courts to hear the case.

The Supreme Court’s decision to stay out of the case came as the country faced a wave of mass shootings, including last week’s killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., the deadliest terrorist attack in the US since September 11, 2001.

In a story December 7 about the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging the assault weapons ban in Highland Park, Illinois, The Associated Press misspelled the name of an attorney for the city. Not surprisingly, extreme right-winger Thomas argued that the Supreme Court should have heard the appeal of that ruling so as to prevent the appeals court “from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right”.

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

In historical background, a national assault weapons ban expired in 2004 when the Congress failed to renew it, with too many gun-loving Republicans adamantly fighting all gun control measures no matter the clear evidence of the benefit of the law. “It also concluded, however, that it was “premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun crime, ‘ and its overall effects were ‘still unfolding” when the law expired”. But it strongly suggests the majority of the court does not see the Second Amendment as protecting a right to own or carry powerful weapons in public.

The Supreme Court, by declining to step in, sent a message that it is not going to dive into the current gun debate right now. “In the wake of the San Bernardino shootings, “there is a need and an opportunity” for other communities to enact similar prohibitions”, said Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering after the Court action. First, they’re often used in mass shootings, favored by murderers wanting to kill large numbers of people for their quick firing, relative accuracy (compared to handguns), and ability to take high-capacity magazines. But as Thomas pointed out, “If a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on conjecture that the public might feel safer (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing”. The ban includes “assault weapons” and rifles with large-capacity magazines. There has been no shortage of attempts to draw the Justices back into the Second Amendment controversy, but that has yet to make a difference. In fact, gun-control advocates have used Scalia’s own words to stress that, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited”.

Highland Park, Ill., gun regulations prohibit selling, buying, and possessing semi-automatic guns, which rules out the popular AR-15, Scotus Blog reports.