A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments by a lawyer for the National Association for Gun Rights that the law infringed citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
U.S. Circuit Judge Julie Rikelman, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, pressed the lawyer, Barry Arrington, on what evidence he had that AR-15s are actually used, rather than owned, for self-defense.
She cited arguments by the state that such weapons pose “a unique risk that didn’t exist at the founding which is the ability of someone with this kind of firearm to kill or hurt a large number of people, ten or more in a matter of minutes.”
The state’s law, which was enacted in 1998, was modeled after a now-expired federal “Assault Weapons” Ban and prohibits owning or selling most semi-automatic weapons, as well as magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition.
Arrington, though, argued AR-15s were no different that from the perspective of the drafters of the Second Amendment, which was ratified in 1791, would rank in a category of weapons like muskets that could be lawfully owned for self-defense against public violence and tyranny.
He said, as result, the state’s ban could not stand after the 6-3 conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court changed the landscape of firearms regulation in its landmark 2022 decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
But U.S. Circuit Judge Gustavo Gelpi, another Biden appointee, questioned whether Arrington had any room to challenge the ban after the 1st Circuit in March, in a similar case decided after Bruen, upheld Democratic-led Rhode Island’s ban on large-capacity magazines.
The state’s lawyer, Assistant Attorney General Grace Gohlke, said the Rhode Island ruling essentially mandated the 1st Circuit uphold Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor’s decision last year to not issue a preliminary injunction blocking Massachusetts’ law.
She pointed to recent rulings by other appeals courts upholding similar bans, most recently the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in August to uphold Maryland’s “Assault Weapons” Ban.
Read more at Reuters.
