A federal appeals court declined to strike down Massachusetts’s “assault weapons” ban, months before the Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the hotly contested Second Amendment issue.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit denied an effort by a trio of gun stores to revive a lawsuit that claims the Massachusetts law, which bars the sale, transfer, or possession of “assault-style” semiautomatic weapons, is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The law bans several of the most popular firearms in the country, including the AR-15.
U.S. Circuit Judge Seth Aframe, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote the opinion for the panel, pointing to precedent from the 1st Circuit as a reason for rejecting the gun stores’ claims that the sweeping ban violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“We concluded ‘that the Massachusetts an’s AR-15 restriction d[id] not impose a heavy burden on civilian self-defense,'” Aframe wrote, citing a previous decision by the 1st Circuit regarding “assault weapons” bans. “We then compared that burden to the burden arising from historical restrictions on Bowie knives, sawed-off shotguns, and machine guns, concluding that it was ‘reasonably clear that our historical tradition of regulating arms used for self-defense has tolerated’ burdens similar to those posed by’ the law’s ban on assault weapons.”
He noted that the previous ruling came to the conclusion that “the Massachusetts ban, as it applies to assault-style weapons such as the AR-15, was ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,'” therefore fulfilling the Second Amendment standard set by the Supreme Court in its 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Aframe said the gun shops “presented no persuasive argument for why this analysis should not control our assessment of the constitutionality of the Act’s challenged provisions under the Second Amendment.”
The three-judge panel that denied the bid to strike down Massachusetts’s “assault weapons” ban included Aframe, along with U.S. Circuit Judges Sandra Lynch, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, and Joshua Dunlap, an appointee of President Donald Trump.
‘ASSAULT WEAPONS’ BANS ARE ON THEIR WAY TO THE SUPREME COURT
The ruling comes less than a week after the 3rd Circuit struck down New Jersey’s “assault weapons” ban, becoming the first federal appeals court to rule that such a ban is unconstitutional, and nearly a month after the Supreme Court announced it would hear a pair of challenges to “assault weapons” bans in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut in its upcoming term.
The Supreme Court’s forthcoming case on the constitutionality of “assault weapons” bans is expected to be a landmark Second Amendment case, with gun rights activists feeling cautiously optimistic that the high court will strike down the sweeping bans that have cropped up in nearly a dozen states. The case at the high court is expected to be heard as early as December, with a ruling expected by the end of June 2027.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
