SCOTUS Punts Again On Assault Weapon Bans

By refusing to hear challenges to the bans, the states’ gun control laws remain in place.

Connecticut’s law was passed after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, when 20 students and six educators were killed, and expanded the list of assault weapons that had already been prohibited in the state.

The first is whether a weapon is in “common use”, and the second is whether it’s used “for lawful purposes”, as discussed in D.C. v. Heller At the time CT passed its ban, the state’s Attorney General, George Jepsen, argued that assault weapons were owned by a relatively small number of people – not in common use -and were commonly used in gun crimes – unlawful.

Seven states and the District of Columbia have laws banning semi-automatic rifles, but a national ban expired in 2004.

The Supreme Court has previously declined to hear similar cases, including a challenge to a ban on assault weapons enacted in Highland Park, Illinois.

The Connecticut law focuses on the sale or possession of semi-automatic weapons with detachable magazines and other features.

As the debate over gun control laws continues to roil the nation and Congress, the Supreme Court on Monday again chose to stay on the sidelines.

But the individuals and organizations challenging the law said the state is an “outlier” in banning weapons that are popular and protected in the rest of the country.

President Scott Wilson Sr. of the Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League, one of the advocacy groups that attempted to contest the ban, vowed to renew the challenge “as soon as there are five Justices sitting on the Supreme Court committed to the proper understanding of the Second Amendment”.

Jan Vernick, a lawyer and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said that although Monday’s decision has “very little bearing” on the legal fate of Maryland’s gun ban, he it could have a psychological effect on the judges considering Maryland’s case.

Murphy, who filibustered for nearly 15 hours to get a Republican response to gun control measures, said “military-style assault weapons have no place in our schools or on our streets”.

Mateen used a Sig Sauer MCX rifle as well as a handgun in the Orlando shooting. If the justices had made a decision to hear the case, they would hear the arguments in their next term, which begins in October, Reuters reported.

June Shew, a gun sports enthusiast in his 80s, challenged the CT law thatprohibits 183 specific weapons – calling the measure “irrational”. By deciding not to hear the appeal of that ruling, the high court let stand the logic behind the appellate court decision. Congress has repeatedly rejected a renewal of this ban on assault rifles, most recently defeating a proposed ban in 2013. In McDonald, of course, the Court held that the right recognized in Heller to have a weapon in the home for the objective of self-defense was in fact incorporated against the states.