On Monday the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a Chicago suburb’s ban on semiautomatic “assault” weapons. USA Today reports that this keeps similar bans in place from Massachusetts to Hawaii. The high court declined to reconsider two lower courts’ rulings that the ban was constitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas said Monday they would have taken the case.
Gun control advocates were thrilled, saying that it signaled that the majority of justices agree with the lower courts, or at least feel it’s a matter to be left up to state and local governments. Similar bans are on the books in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and Hawaii.
The court denied a petition, backed by the Illinois State Rifle Association, that sought review of the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in Highland Park.
Lower federal courts have ruled that statutes such as Highland Park’s are not at odds with the Supreme Court’s rulings in 2008 and 2010 permitting handguns to be kept at home for self-defense. Scalia wrote in District of Columbia v. Heller that the court was not upholding “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Thomas wrote a blistering, six-page dissent from the court’s refusal to hear Arie Friedman’s challenge to the gun ban. “Roughly 5 million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles,” Thomas wrote. “The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.”
Gun control proponents praised the justices’ decision. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the court “sided with a community that has taken action to protect itself from the type of violence we’ve seen in San Bernardino, on college campuses and in movie theaters.”
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Proponents of gun rights expressed hope that the justices would agree to hear a case soon. “It is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court takes a case, sets things straight, and properly subjects this and similar unconstitutional laws to renewed challenge,” said Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association.
There’s another petition, asking the justices to consider a Massachusetts ban against citizens possessing stun guns for self-defense, which remains pending before the court.
DCG