Latest news with #assaultweapons
Fox News
02-06-2025
- General
- Fox News
Supreme Court declines to examine appeals over Maryland, Rhode Island gun control laws
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear two cases challenging separate state bans on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines on Monday. The court declined to hear cases arising out of Maryland and Rhode Island relating to state regulations on AR-15-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, respectively. The cases had been submitted to the Supreme Court after lower courts upheld the bans in the face of challenges. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch disagreed with the majority's decision and said they would have liked to have reviewed the cases. With respect to the Maryland ban, the Supreme Court's decision upholds the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling, which states that authority to ban AR-15-style rifles is consistent with the 2nd Amendment. The 4th Circuit argued in its ruling that granting AR-15s constitutional protection based on their common use would mean that any dangerous weapon "could gain constitutional protection merely because it becomes popular before the government can sufficiently regulate it." Lawyers arguing against the ban claimed the Supreme Court had a duty to "ensure that the Second Amendment itself is not truncated into a limited right to own certain state-approved means of personal self-defense." While the court declined to take up the issue in this case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that, "In my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon." Thomas, one of the three justices who sought to review the Maryland case now, was more blunt in his dissent. "I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America," Thomas wrote. "That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR-15 owners throughout the country." The gun cases come as the Supreme Court has been inundated with challenges to President Donald Trump's agenda, from his economic and regulatory policies to his anti-illegal immigration efforts. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down rulings relating to several of these topics in the coming weeks.
CTV News
02-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
U.S. Supreme Court won't hear challenge to Maryland assault weapons ban
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in the distance, framed through columns of the U.S. Senate at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) WASHINGTON — A split U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a state ban on assault weapons, semi-automatic rifles that are popular among gun owners and that have also been used in multiple mass shootings. The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the case, as is typical. But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that such bans are constitutional. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken the case, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment. 'I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,' Thomas wrote. 'That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country.' Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the decision to pass on the case now, but he said that he is skeptical that such bans are constitutional and that he expects the court will address the issue 'in the next term or two.' The Maryland law was passed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter was armed with an AR-15, one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon. Several states have similar measures, and congressional Democrats have also supported the concept. The challengers had argued that people have a constitutional right to own the firearms like the AR-15. The case comes three years after the high court handed down a landmark ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country. Ten states and the District of Columbia have similar laws, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004. ___ Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
Forbes
02-06-2025
- General
- Forbes
Supreme Court Rejects Challenges To State Weapons Bans
The Supreme Court ruled Monday to let two state gun control laws remain in place, as the 6-3 conservative court declined to take up challenges to Maryland's assault weapons ban and Rhode Island's ban on high-capacity magazines. Justices declined to take up two gases that could have expanded gun rights, including Maryland's ban on all 'assault weapons'—including popular semiautomatic weapons like the AR-15—and Rhode Island's ban on gun owners possessing magazines that contain more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The decisions mean that both laws will stay in place, but it's still possible the court could decide to take up challenges to those laws or other similar state gun control laws in the future. This story is breaking and will be updated.
Washington Post
02-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Supreme Court won't hear challenge to Maryland assault weapons ban
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a state ban on assault weapons, semiautomatic rifles that are popular among gun owners and have also been used in multiple mass shootings. The justices turned down a case against a Maryland law passed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter was armed with an AR-15 , one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon.
Reuters
02-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
US Supreme Court won't review assault weapon, high-capacity magazine bans
June 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to the legality of state restrictions on assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines, passing up cases that offered the justices a chance to further expand gun rights. The justices turned away two appeals after lower courts upheld a ban in Maryland on powerful semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15s and one in Rhode Island restricting the possession of ammunition feeding devices holding more than 10 rounds. The lower courts rejected arguments that the measures violate the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms." In a nation bitterly divided over how to address firearms violence including numerous mass shootings, the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, often has taken an expansive view of the Second Amendment. The court broadened gun rights in landmark rulings in 2008, 2010 and in a 2022 case that made it harder to defend gun restrictions under the Second Amendment, requiring them to be "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." The challengers now before the Supreme Court contended that states and courts are flouting precedents that make clear that the Second Amendment protects weapons that are in "common use." Maryland in 2013 enacted its ban on military-style "assault weapons" such as the semiautomatic AR-15 and AK-47 after a shooter used such a firearm in the 2012 mass killing of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The law carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. A Maryland resident who is seeking to purchase one of the banned guns, as well as three gun rights organizations including the Firearms Policy Coalition, sued in 2020, claiming the ban violates the Second Amendment. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 rejected the challenge because it said assault weapons "are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense." As such, the "excessively dangerous" firearms are not protected by the Second Amendment, the 4th Circuit decided. The 4th Circuit said it refused "to wield the Constitution to declare that military-style armaments which have become primary instruments of mass killing and terrorist attacks in the United States are beyond the reach of our nation's democratic processes." The plaintiffs told the Supreme Court that the term "assault weapon" is a political term that is designed to exploit public confusion over machine guns and semi-automatic firearms. The banned weapons, they said, are "identical to any other semiautomatic firearm - arms that are exceedingly common and fully protected by the Second Amendment." Rhode Island's law, passed in 2022 as a response to mass shootings, bars most "large-capacity feeding" devices such as a magazine or drum that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The state calls it a "mild restriction on a particularly dangerous weapons accessory" and that in mass shooting situations, "any pause in fire, such as the pause to switch magazines, allows for precious seconds in which to escape or take defensive action." The law applied retroactively, meaning residents had to surrender or alter any banned magazine that they owned, and carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Four gun owners and a registered firearms dealer sued, claiming the ban violated their Second Amendment rights, and that having to forfeit the magazines they owned violated the Constitution's prohibition on the government taking property without compensation. In 2024 the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claims and refused to block the law, noting that the weapons have been deployed in mass shootings for a reason: "Semiautomatic firearms fitted with (large capacity magazines) are highly effective weapons of mass slaughter." Magazine capacity "directly corresponds to lethality," the 1st Circuit said. The Rhode Island plaintiffs told the Supreme Court that instead of abiding by the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling, the state's law "can only be understood as protest legislation imposing more restrictive bans on long-common arms." The Supreme Court has been buffeted in recent years by challenges to gun restrictions. It is due to rule by the end of June on the legality of a 2022 regulation issued by Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration cracking down on "ghost guns," largely untraceable firearms whose use has proliferated in crimes nationwide. The justices signaled approval of that ban during arguments in the case in October. The court in June 2024 upheld a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns. They also struck down a federal ban on "bump stock" devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, although that case was not centered on the Second Amendment.
