Federal appeals court refuses to block Connecticut's ban on assault weapons
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New York has refused to block a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines enacted in Connecticut after the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Plaintiffs challenging the restrictions are unlikely to prevail in their Second Amendment challenge, and they are not entitled to a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement, the 2nd Circuit said in an Aug. 22 decision written by Judge John M. Walker Jr., an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush.
Connecticut passed a new law banning certain military-style firearms and large-capacity magazines after 20-year-old Adam Lanza used an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to kill 20 first-graders and six educators in December 2012 at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. The state expanded the types of restricted assault weapons a decade later.
The plaintiffs in two lawsuits included Connecticut residents who wanted to own the banned guns and three gun-rights groups: the National Association for Gun Rights, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the Second Amendment Foundation.
The appeals court had upheld the first law in 2015 using an analysis that predated the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. Under Bruen’s new framework, courts are required to consider whether the plain text of the Second Amendment covers a person’s conduct and, if so, whether a challenged regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The 2nd Circuit said Connecticut satisfied the Bruen test. The appeals court assumed without deciding that the banned weapons and high-profile magazines are arms within the meaning of the Second Amendment. The court then decided under Bruen’s second prong that the Connecticut laws impose a burden “comparable to historical antecedents” that regulated other unusually dangerous weapons.
The Supreme Court has recognized a historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual” weapons, and the banned weapons in Connecticut qualify, the appeals court said.
“Unusually dangerous is the obvious fit to describe weapons that are so lethal that legislators have presumed that they are not used or intended to be used for lawful purposes, principally individual self-defense,” Walker wrote.
Among the publications covering the decision are Reuters, Bloomberg Law, the Associated Press and Courthouse News Service.
The 2nd Circuit ruled in two cases, National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont and Grant v. Rovella.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
