AW ban upheld Illinois
dec 7, 2015: The U.S. Supreme Court Monday handed a legal victory to advocates of banning firearms commonly known as assault weapons.
By leaving a suburban Chicago gun control law intact, the court gave a boost to efforts aimed at imposing such bans elsewhere, at a time of renewed interest in gun regulation after recent mass shootings.
The court declined to take up a challenge to a 2013 law passed in Highland Park, Illinois that bans the sale, purchase, or possession of semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than ten rounds in a single ammunition clip or magazine. It specifically includes certain rifles, including those resembling the AR-15 and AK-47 assault-style firearms.
Semi-automatic weapons are capable of shooting a single round with each pull of the trigger and, consequently, can fire rapidly. Large capacity magazines reduce the need to reload as often.
A federal district judge upheld the law, and so did a federal appeals court panel by a 2-1 vote. On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Antonin Scalia and {his batman}Clarence Thomas said the Supreme Court should have taken the case. Thomas wrote their dissent, said the court should have granted review to prevent the appeals court "from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right."
In rejecting a challenge to the law, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, said "assault weapons with large-capacity magazines can fire more shots, faster, and thus can be more dangerous in the aggregate. Why else are they the weapons of choice in mass shootings?"
Lawyers for 24 states urged the Supreme Court to strike the ordinance down. They said the weapons it banned are not only commonly used but also protected by state laws that forbid local communities to restrict them.
Similar bans are in effect in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and in Chicago and surrounding cities.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-leaves-assault-weapons-ban-intact-n475421
= new reply since forum marked as read
donP: Whew, thank heavens they have control over assault weapons in California. No chance of them being used in a crime there
Had the federal assault weapon ban (AWB) been renewed in 2004, imo there would not be the frequency & severity of mass shootings today.
Mass shootings would tend to cause less damage & less casualties.
But Wayne Lapierre-head would still be a terrorist by the NY Daily News:
NY Daily News calls Wayne Lapierre a “terrorist”
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the front page calls Wayne Lapierre a “terrorist” and accuses the NRA of a “sick gun jihad against America in the name of profit.” The paper’s editorial, “Making Mass Murder Easy,” expands upon this notion of just how vulnerable the gun lobby has made US citizens.
This outrage from the Daily News comes after Republicans in the Senate today voted down a gun control measure which would have barred sales of guns to suspected domestic terrorists. While the vote was symbolic ― the voted down amendment was attached to a health care bill with no chance of passage ― it signaled that Republicans are willing to back the NRA at every deadly turn. Of course, this isn’t surprising, given that the NRA spent $34 million in 2014 to block all forms of gun control, including six- and seven-figures to many of those Republican senators who voted against gun control today,
It’s remarkable that the GOP seems to be supporting policies which one imagines ISIS would champion as well: 1) the rejection of Syrian refugees fleeing terror, and 2) the rejection of bills which restrict firearm access, even to domestic terrorists.
The New York Daily News seems to agree, and calls out one entity as more responsible than any for this “sick gun jihad against America” ― Wayne Lapierre’s NRA. http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/3/1456666/-NY-Daily-News-calls-Wayne-Lapierre-a-terrorist-accuses-NRA-of-sick-gun-jihad-against-America?detail=email
