Supreme Courtroom leaves in place District of Columbia’s gun restriction on massive magazines

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Courtroom on Friday left in place a longstanding gun restriction within the District of Columbia that bans magazines that maintain greater than 10 rounds of ammunition, opting as soon as once more to keep away from taking on a brand new gun rights case.
The courtroom, which has a 6-3 conservative majority that usually favors gun rights, turned away a problem to the Washington, D.C., regulation only a few days after rejecting an enchantment over an analogous regulation in Rhode Island.
Then, the courtroom additionally left in place Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons together with the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
Observe reside politics protection right here
The courtroom expanded gun rights in a serious 2022 ruling that discovered for the primary time that the best to bear arms beneath the Structure’s Second Modification extends outdoors the house. However the courtroom has since annoyed gun homeowners by declining to take up circumstances that will develop upon that ruling.
The District of Columbia has lengthy been a authorized battleground over gun restrictions. The Supreme Courtroom’s landmark 2008 ruling that for the primary time discovered that folks have a person proper to bear arms in self protection of their properties arose from a problem to a D.C. regulation.
Within the newest case, 4 gun homeowners challenged the restriction on large-capacity magazines that was enacted within the aftermath of the 2008 Supreme Courtroom ruling, saying the restriction is illegal beneath the later 2022 determination.
Each a federal decide and the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the regulation.
The appeals courtroom, in a 2-1 vote, stated in a ruling final yr that though large-capacity magazines are arms beneath the Second Modification and have been in frequent use for years, they are often regulated as a result of they’re “significantly harmful.”
Final summer season, the Supreme Courtroom sidestepped a number of gun-related disputes quickly after it issued a ruling that upheld a federal regulation that prohibits folks topic to home violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
In different motion on pending appeals Friday, the courtroom determined towards taking on a major election case involving mail-in ballots within the battleground state of Pennsylvania that pitted Republicans towards Democrats.
The choice leaves intact a Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom ruling that stated voters who ship mail-in ballots which can be flagged as faulty can then file a separate provision in-person poll.
The Republican Nationwide Committee was in search of to overturn the 2024 state courtroom determination, whereas the Democratic Nationwide Committee was defending it.