NEW HAVEN, Ct. (CN) — A federal judge refused Thursday to temporarily bar enforcement of several gun restrictions passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, ruling that the laws are likely constitutional.
The National Association for Gun Rights sued state officials last year to overturn Connecticut’s landmark 2013 gun-control law. In addition to banning assault weapons, the law requires universal background checks for firearm purchases and outlaws any firearm magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton determined Thursday that there was likely no violation to the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. While the law bans automatic and semiautomatic assault weapons such as the popular AR-15 type rifle, the Clinton-appointed judge emphasized that such military-style firearms are not generally bought or used for self-defense and are “disproportionately dangerous to the public.”
“Plaintiffs’ proposed ownership of assault weapons and LCMs is not protected by the Second Amendment because they have not demonstrated that the specific assault weapons and LCMs in the challenged statutes are commonly sought out, purchased, and used for self-defense,” the 67-page opinion states, using an abbreviation for large-capacity magazine.
“Although this failure alone would have been fatal to plaintiffs’ claim, defendants have submitted persuasive evidence that assault weapons and LCMs are more often sought out for their militaristic characteristics than for self-defense, that these characteristics make the weapons disproportionately dangerous to the public based on their increased capacity for lethality, and that assault weapons and LCMs are more often used in crimes and mass shootings than in self-defense,” Arterton wrote.
Arterton’s ruling means Connecticut’s law will remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds in court.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong applauded the ruling as an affirmation of the constitutionality of the firearms prohibition.
“Connecticut’s assault weapon and large capacity magazine bans are constitutional, lawful, lifesaving, and broadly supported,” he wrote in a statement Thursday. “We will not allow gun industry lobbyists from outside our state to come here and jeopardize the safety of our children and communities.”
Hannah Hill, executive director for the National Foundation for Gun Rights, called the ruling “an outrageous slap in the face to law-abiding gun owners and the Constitution alike.” Hill said the organization looks forward to “seeing this ruling ultimately shredded as the nonsense it is” on appeal.
“We’re used to seeing crazy judicial acrobatics to reason the Second Amendment into oblivion, but this ruling is extreme even for leftist courts,” Hill said on Thursday evening. "Judge Arterton’s ruling essentially calls law-abiding gun owners liars, saying you can’t just take their word that they own their guns for self-defense purposes."
The National Association for Gun Rights has said that an appellate victory would establish legal precedent throughout the entire Second Circuit, which includes New York and Vermont.
Connecticut quickly passed its gun restrictions after a lone gunman shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
Prior to the shooting, the state boasted regulations that closely tracked the federal assault-weapons ban, which included a two-prong test for prohibiting semiautomatic weapons.
While previous attempts to overturn the laws have failed in court, the case at hand erupted in September 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court broadly expanded gun rights in an unrelated case, triggering a spate of rulings that upended other longstanding firearms restrictions.
Last year, families of Sandy Hook victims reached a $73 million settlement with gunmaker Remington over the marketing of the Bushmaster assault rifle used by Sandy Hook shooter in the 2012 elementary school massacre.
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