New Jersey’s ban on the AR-15 rifle is unconstitutional, but the state’s cap on magazines over 10 rounds passes constitutional muster, a federal judge said Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan’s 69-page opinion says he was compelled to rule as he did because of the Supreme Court’s rulings in firearms cases, particularly the 2022 Bruen decision that expanded gun rights.
Sheridan’s ruling left both 2nd Amendment advocates and the state attorney general planning appeals. The judge temporarily delayed the order for 30 days.
Sheridan added: “Where the Supreme Court has set for the law of our Nation, as a lower court, I am bound to follow it. … This principle — combined with the reckless inaction of our governmental leaders to address the mass shooting tragedy afflicting our Nation — necessitates the Court’s decision.”
Nine other states and the District of Columbia have laws similar to New Jersey’s, covering New York, Los Angeles and other major cities as well as the sites of massacres such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed by a shooter armed with an AR-15, one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon.
“Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are immoral and unconstitutional. FPC will continue to fight forward until all of these bans are eliminated throughout the United States,” said Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the plaintiffs.
A gun rights group has challenged Connecticut’s landmark 2013 gun control law, passed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, that bans assault weapons, including certain AR-15-style rifles and large capacity magazines. A federal judge last year rejected a request by the National Association for Gun Rights to temporarily block the law while litigation continues, and an appeal of that ruling is pending before a federal appeals court.
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Article URL : https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-ar-15-rifle-ban-unconstitutional-judge/