AP Photo Supreme Court leaves Conn., N.Y. assault weapons bans in place

The Supreme Court will let stand bans on assault weapons in Connecticut and New York, laws passed in the wake of a 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

The court’s decision Monday to reject separate challenges to each state’s law leaves in place measures that ban weapons like the one used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six faculty members dead. Those laws also prohibit the sale of the type of gun used by terrorist Omar Mateen to kill 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.


The June 12 terrorist attack at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub has prompted renewed calls for gun control legislation, but the debate has centered mostly on banning individuals on a terrorist no-fly list from purchasing weapons. The discussion has largely avoided calls for a fresh ban on assault weapons, which were banned for a decade and only became legal again in 2004.

Connecticut and New York are two of seven states that ban assault weapons, along with the District of Columbia.

The high court’s decisions not to hear the two cases, Shew v. Malloy for Connecticut and Kampfer v. Cuomo for New York, are the latest in a string of such rejections. The Supreme Court has not heard a case pertaining to second-amendment rights since 2010, when it overturned a Chicago law banning handguns.