HARTFORD, Connecticut — Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year, gun rights groups and gun owners have launched another bid to overturn Connecticut’s ban on certain semi-automatic rifles. -automatic which was enacted in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
A new lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court by three gun owners, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the Second Amendment Foundation. They seek to overturn the state’s ban on what they call “modern sporting weapons,” such as AR-15-style rifles, like the one used to kill 20 first-graders and six educators at the Newtown school in 2012.
“We all deserve to live in safe communities, but denying ownership of the most commonly owned firearms in the country is not the way to get there,” said Holly Sullivan, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League. , in a press release.
“The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court … has opened the door to this challenge, and we believe Connecticut will struggle to prove that its laws are constitutional,” she said.
State officials have vowed to uphold the 2013 gun laws.
“Connecticut’s gun laws save lives, and we will not go back there,” State Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “We will not allow the return of weapons of war to our schools, places of worship, grocery stores and communities. I will vigorously defend our laws against each of these baseless challenges. »
In June, the Supreme Court broadly expanded gun rights in a 6-3 majority conservative ruling that struck down a New York law restricting the carrying of guns in public and affected half a dozen others States with similar laws. After the ruling, New York and other states moved to enact new gun restrictions consistent with the ruling.
Gun advocacy groups had previously tried to overturn Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons. But in 2016 the High Court, with fewer conservative justices, dismissed challenges to New York’s Connecticut assault weapons bans passed in response to the Sandy Hook shootings.
The plaintiffs in the new challenge include a female victim of domestic violence and two former state corrections officers who want to own “modern sporting rifles for defensive purposes,” the lawsuit says. Their lawyers include two Republican state representatives, Craig Fishbein of Wallingford and Doug Dubitsky of Chaplin.
They say Connecticut’s gun laws violate Second Amendment gun rights as well as 14th Amendment due process rights.
The lawsuit was filed against Democratic Governor Ned Lamont, Public Safety Commissioner James Rovella and several prosecutors.
The 2013 state law added more than 100 firearms, including the rifle used in school shooting, to the state’s assault weapons ban and banned ammunition magazines from big capacity.
Newtown shooter Adam Lanza fired over 150 rounds in five minutes, using a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle and 30-round magazines. The gun legally belonged to his mother, whom he killed in their Newtown home before going to school.
The law also created what officials called the first national registry of dangerous armed offenders as well as eligibility rules for purchasing ammunition.