Looks Like The Supreme Court Upheld A Gun Ban
A gun ban? Not quite, but it’s a start.
The Supreme Court rejected a 2nd Amendment challenge to a local law that forbids the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The justices by a 7-2 vote refused to review rulings by judges in Chicago who upheld a ban on assault weapons in the city of Highland Park as a reasonable gun-control regulation. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented.
A federal judge upheld the law, and the 7th Circuit Court did the same in a 2-1 decision in April. The court deciding against hearing the appeal has the effect of upholding the law.
The Door Was Open For A Gun Ban
In the court’s only two decisions upholding gun rights, the justices struck down city ordinances in Chicago and Washington, D.C. that prohibited residents from keeping a handgun at home for self-defense. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010) extended the “personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.” However, in the 2008 Heller decision, the court warned that the amendment didn’t stand for a “right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” and noted the “longstanding” and “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.”
Several cities in the Chicago area have adopted laws similar to the Highland Park ordinance. In addition, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York have similar laws restricting the sale of rapid-fire weapons which carry 10 or more rounds of ammunition.
Personally, I’m unclear as to why possession of assault weaponry is a right. We have already agreed there are limits on what weaponry a citizen may possess (rocket launchers for example). The discussion is where to draw the line, not whether a line exists. No ‘right’ is unfettered.
I think the best course of action is to limit the ammo, not necessarily a gun ban. If you can’t feed the gun, it then becomes just a rather ugly and cumbersome paperweight.
