No Federal Appeals Court Has Held Assault-type Weapons are 2A Protected.

Approximately a year ago, a federal appeals court considered whether a Maryland law banning assault-type weapons was unconstitutional. The law was passed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that the ban on assault-type weapons, like the one used at Sandy Hook, was constitutional. CA4uscourts

It was not the first time a federal appeals court had ruled that a ban on assault-type weapons was permissible under the Second Amendment. It was the fourth time in the past decade. No federal appeals court has ever held that assault-type weapons are protected.

The question of assault-type weapons was not addressed by the Supreme Court when, in 2008, it held for the first time in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, went out of his way to say that the right “is not unlimited.”

Bans on semiautomatic, assault-type weapons have been upheld, usually for the same two reasons:

1) Banning them, the courts have said, does not curtail the right of self-defense protected by the Constitution. There are plenty of other weapons — handguns and regular long guns — available to people to protect themselves.

2) At the same time, the courts have said, states and municipalities have legitimate reasons to ban AR-15-style weapons because of the dangers they pose, to schools, innocent bystanders and police.

For the 4th Circuit judges in the Maryland case, the question came down to whether assault-type weapons were necessary for self-defense and whether the government has a legitimate interest in regulating them.

The majority opinion noted that Maryland law enforcement officials could not identify a single case in which a Marylander had used a assault-style rifle or shotgun, or needed to fire more than 10 rounds, to defend him/herself.