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 The 2013 ordinance passed by the city of Highland Park, Illinois
will remain in place. By opting not to hear an appeal of a
lower-court ruling that upheld the measure, the justices declined to
take up what would have been a high-profile gun rights case
following a succession of mass shootings including the one last week
in San Bernardino, California.
The Highland Park measure bans various semi-automatic weapons,
including well-known guns such as the AR-15 and AK-47, in addition
to magazines holding more than 10 rounds of bullets.
Two conservatives on the nine-member court, Clarence Thomas and
Antonin Scalia, said the justices should have taken the case.
Thomas wrote a six-page dissent in which he said that despite recent
pro-gun rights rulings by the conservative-leaning high court,
several lower courts "have upheld categorical bans on firearms that
millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes."
The U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment guarantees the right to
bear arms, but there is a longstanding legal debate over its scope.
Semi-automatic rifles are popular, with the vast majority of owners
using them for lawful purposes, Thomas said. "Under our precedents,
that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the
Second Amendment to keep such weapons," he said.
'A SECOND-CLASS RIGHT'
In April, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
rejected the challenge to Highland Park's ordinance. Thomas said the
high court should have heard the appeal of that ruling in order to
prevent that appeals court "from relegating the Second Amendment to
a second-class right."
The plaintiffs were gun owner Arie Friedman, a pediatrician, and the
Illinois State Rifle Association. The National Rifle Association,
the influential gun rights group, and 24 U.S. states urged the high
court to hear the case.
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The Supreme Court has not taken up a major gun case since 2010. In
the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, the court held for the
first time that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right
to bear arms, but the ruling applied only to firearms kept in the
home for self-defense. Two years later, in the case McDonald v. City
of Chicago, the court held that the earlier ruling applied to the
states.
In defending the ban, Highland Park's lawyers noted that it was
enacted "following a series of tragic mass shootings across the
nation" including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20 young pupils and six adults were
killed.
They also pointed out that seven states, including California and
New York, have similar laws on the books.
A nationwide assault weapons ban law expired in 2004 when the
bitterly divided U.S. Congress failed to renew it, with many
Republicans opposing gun control measures. The federal law had
barred the manufacture and sale of semi-automatic guns with
military-style features as well as magazines holding more than 10
rounds of ammunition.
In his speech to the nation on Sunday night, President Barack Obama
noted that the husband-and-wife shooters who killed 14 people in San
Bernardino had stockpiled assault weapons and ammunition. Obama
called for new limits on assault weapons.
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