US Supreme Court justices declined to hear an appeal of an October 2015 ruling by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in NY, upholding laws prohibiting semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines in the two northeastern states.
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The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear a constitutional challenge to a gun control law enacted in CT following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear challenges to assault weapon bans in NY and CT.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to let stand Connecticut’s assault weapons restrictions, is just the latest indication that Courts nearly universally recognize that common sense life-saving gun laws are fully compatible with the Second Amendment, ” said Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun violence.
There are now seven states with assault weapons bans, and there is a heated debate across the country around if the federal government should enact a ban.
Gun rights advocates have urged the court to review such bans, saying that they violate the court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which said individuals have a right to gun ownership for self-protection.
Like Cuomo, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman used the petition denial to call on Congress and states to pass tougher gun-control laws.
When the Supreme Court declined last December to review a lower-court decision upholding such a ban, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia wrote that a similar law flouts the court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence. In Heller, the Court ruled (correctly) that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own a firearm, though it only applied to federal enclaves.
The challenge in CT reaffirms that the assault weapons are used in self-defense, hunting and recreational shooting.
Consider this the support for tighter gun control laws increased 9 percentage points after the Orlando terror attack, and support for background checks and other measures being debated in the Senate hovered around 90%, according to CNN/ORC poll released Monday.
The two states’ gun laws were originally challenged in two cases from gun rights organizations and individual gun owners.
After the Supreme Court declined to take on the appeals, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, which challenged the law, said it would continue its fight.
CT said its law targets firearms disproportionately used in gun crime, “particularly the most heinous forms of gun violence”.
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”. New York’s assault weapons ban keeps New Yorkers safer – period. The Plaintiffs, Mr. Wilson said, had hoped the High Court would step in and reaffirm that the Second Amendment is not a “second-class” right.
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The expired federal assault gun ban had barred the manufacture and sale of semi-automatic guns with military-style features as well as magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
