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High Court Lets Connecticut, New York Assault Weapons Bans Stand

The Supreme Court has rejected challenges to assault weapons bans in CT and NY, in the aftermath of the shooting attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 people dead.

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On April 4, 2013, CT passed a law banning various types of semiautomatic firearms, labeling them with the misleading term “assault weapons”.

Both were passed shortly after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in which a gunman opened fire at a CT elementary school, killing 20 school children and six teachers. More than 95-percent of New Yorkers refused to register their guns.

The denials comes at a poignant moment – just over a week after a gunman used a handgun and a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The Supreme Court unanimously issued a blow to Patent Trolls on Monday, upholding a new appeals process used to cancel patents.

In December, the justices declined to hear a high-profile case over an IL town’s ban of certain types of guns and bullet magazines. They know that there is no place for weapons of war on the streets of America.

The “assault weapons” banned by Highland Park and targeted by President Barack Obama and other anti-gun liberals are clearly protected by the explicit intent and text of the Second Amendment. The shooter, Omar Mateen, used military-grade assault weapons that would have been banned in both CT and NY. In addition, Minnesota and Virginia regulate assault weapons, the center said.

The decision not to hear the case, not long after the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. CT stood up for our residents, and it’s time for Congress to stand up for the American people. The Supreme Court hasn’t decided a major case since 2010 on how much lawmakers can limit the Second Amendment’s right to own firearms – leaving states, localities and Congress free to act.

“It should be a demonstration to states across the nation that commonsense gun laws not only work, they’re constitutional”, he said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is weighing whether lower courts used the right level of scrutiny when deciding to uphold Maryland’s law, which was passed in 2014 after the Newtown shooting. “In fact, one of the banned firearms, the AR-15, is the best-selling rifle in the United States”. But Congress is once again embroiled in a debate over gun control after the massacre at an Orlando nightclub left 49 victims dead.

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In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the ruling could allow police officers to “violate your Fourth Amendment rights”. 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.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy