By Nathaniel Rosenberg
The Hour, Norwalk, Conn.
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WASHINGTON — Connecticut’s ban on semiautomatic weapons, passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, is under renewed legal threat.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would be hearing a challenge to the law filed by two former state corrections officers, a firearms instructor and two gun advocacy groups.
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The court agreed to hear the case alongside a challenge to a similar law in Chicago, with arguments likely in the fall.
The decision comes less than a week after the court struck down gun restrictions in Hawaii, and the court’s conservative majority makes it possible that the state’s near ban on the sale of most semiautomatic and automatic weapons — put in place after the 2012 shootings that killed 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown — will be overturned.
Both a lower court and a federal appeals court previously blocked this challenge to the law before the plaintiffs successfully appealed to the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, state Democrats blasted attempts to challenge the law in court, describing it as part of a national campaign against restrictions on guns.
“Connecticut’s assault weapon ban is lawful, lifesaving, and broadly supported. The gun lobby has flooded the courts in states across the country to get an assault weapons case up to this Supreme Court,” Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “We are prepared for this fight, and we are going to go in with everything we’ve got to keep these weapons of war off our streets, out of our schools, and away from our families.”
In a statement, Democratic state senate leaders Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, expressed confidence that the court would ultimately uphold the law, pointing to the lower court rulings.
Republican leaders in the state, including presumptive gubernatorial nominee Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, did not immediately weigh in on the court’s decision. Two of the three lawyers who brought the lawsuit — state Reps. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, and Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford — are also Republican lawmakers.
The Second Amendment Foundation, a national gun rights group that has backed the suit, praised the court’s decision on Tuesday as a step towards greater freedoms for firearm owners in the state.
“Lawmakers have long relied on fearmongering to pass laws that infringe on the Second Amendment, especially when it comes to common, semi-automatic rifles,” SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said in a statement. “We’re hopeful the Court will finally put to rest the idea that these rifles are not covered by the Second Amendment simply because of their look and features.”
The decision is a win for gun rights activists who had previously seen the case stymied in federal court.
Last August, an appeals court concluded that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was “not unlimited” in this case. The court ruled that Connecticut’s gun laws imposed reasonable restrictions on unusually dangerous weapons that were “uniquely designed to create mayhem.”
At the time, the trio of lawyers prosecuting the case vowed to bring their lawsuit to the highest court in the nation.
“The Second Circuit’s decision ignores the U.S. Supreme Court’s clear and specific directives, and elevates ideology over constitutional rights,” Dubitsky, Fishbein and attorney Cameron Atkinson said at the time. “The Supreme Court must put a stop to our courts treating the Second Amendment as if it were not part of the Bill of Rights.”
This story includes previous Hearst Connecticut Media Group reporting.
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