A federal appeals court
ruled on Tuesday that a Maryland ban on assault-style rifles and large-capacity magazines isn’t subject to the Constitution’s right to keep and bear arms.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, reconsidered a divided ruling issued last year that found citizens
have a “fundamental right” to own these weapons, and that laws restricting the right deserve the toughest level of constitutional scrutiny.
Writing for a nine-judge majority, U.S. Circuit Judge
Robert King said that weapons such as M-16s and the kind that “
are most useful in military service” aren’t protected by the Second Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in the landmark
District of Columbia v. Heller decision. That ruling limited the right to ownership of handguns for self-defense within the home.
“Put simply,” King wrote, “we have no power
to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage.”
