By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
A federal appeals court says banning rifles like this AR clone does not violate the Second Amendment.
A federal appeals court in New York has ruled that tough gun laws in New York and Connecticut banning the possession of so-called semiautomatic “assault rifles” do not violate the Second Amendment, while holding that Connecticut’s ban on the pump-action Remington Model 7615 is unconstitutional.
The ruling, handed down by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, has set off alarms in the Second Amendment community. However, it’s not all bad. The court did note that “the assault weapons and large–capacity magazines are ‘in common use’ as that term was used in Heller.”
“To be sure,” the court added, “as defendants note, these assault weapons and large‐capacity magazines are not as commonly owned as the handguns at issue in Heller, which were ‘the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self‐defense in the home.’ But nothing in Heller limited its holding to handguns; indeed, the Court emphasized that ‘the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,’ not just to a small subset.”
According to Reuters, New York and Connecticut adopted stricter laws following the 2012 Newtown attack that killed 20 youngsters and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary. Since that incident, the national debate on gun rights versus gun control has raged almost without interruption.
The ruling is a setback for gun rights groups and activists who have argued that the laws in both states violate their rights under the Second Amendment. Whether this sets the stage for a Supreme Court confrontation remains to be seen.
In reaching its decision, the appeals court concluded that “intermediate, rather than strict, scrutiny is appropriate.” And by that standard of review, the seven-round load limit imposed in New York does not pass constitutional muster, the court decided.
The New York lawsuit leading to this ruling had been brought by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Westchester County Firearms Owners Association, Inc., Sportsmen’s Association for Firearms Education, Inc., New York State Amateur Trapshooting Association, Inc., and several other entities in New York.
The Connecticut lawsuit was filed by the Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League, the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, two private businesses and several individuals.
The 57-page ruling was written by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes.
In holding the ban on the Remington pump-action rifle to be unconstitutional, the court inadvertently underscored one of the main problems with bans on so-called “assault rifles.” Some people don’t even know what they are, only that they may look unpleasant. Some variations of this 10-round rifle are fitted with synthetic pistol grip stocks, including one law enforcement model that has a collapsible stock. The rifle accepts after-market magazines designed for the AR-15.
There is one section of the ruling that may raise healthy criticism. The court stated that, “These weapons are disproportionately used in crime, and particularly in criminal mass shootings like the attack in Newtown. They are also disproportionately used to kill law enforcement officers: one study shows that between 1998 and 2001, assault weapons were used to gun down at least twenty percent of officers killed in the line of duty.”
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of homicides, even less than knives, blunt instruments and even bare hands and feet. The study to which the court opinion refers was done by the anti-gun Violence Policy Center, according to a footnote on page 37 of the opinion.
