Massachusetts Ban on Most Self-Defense Firearms Violates Second Amendment

Ilya Shapiro andJames KnightMassachusetts law currently prohibits ownership of “assault weapons,” the statutory definition of which includes the most popular semi-automatic rifles in the country, as well as “copies or duplicates” of any such weapons. As for what that means, your guess is as good as ours. A group of plaintiffs, including two firearm dealers and the Gun Owners’ Action League, challenged the law as an unconstitutional violation of their Second Amendment rights. Unfortunately, both a federal trial judge and appellate court upheld the ban—though they could not agree on why.The trial judge followed the lead of the Maryland case ofKolbe v. Hogan (in which Cato fileda brief supporting a petition to the Supreme Court), misconstruing from a shred of the landmark 2008 Supreme Court opinion inDistrict of Columbia v.Heller that the test for whether a class of weapons could be banned was whether it was “like an M-16.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in which Cato alsofiled a brief), conjured up a complex interest-balancing test that boiled down to a much simpler question: is it like a handgun? If not, the weapon is not sufficiently “well-suited” to self-defense in the home and can be banned. Both tests contravene the core holding ofHeller thatall weapons in common civilian use are constitutionally protected.The plaintiffs are now asking the Supreme Court to hear their case. Cato, joined by several organizations interested in ...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 28, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Ilya Shapiro, James Knight Source Type: blogs