Gun-grabbers are being routed as a judge’s ruling may upset a decades-old ban on popular sporting rifles.
The decision Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan was made using previous Supreme Court decisions as a guide.
According to Reason, Sheridan approached two lawsuits challenging New Jersey’s ban on so-called assault weapons, considering the matters in one joint decision.
Although New Jersey’s Assault Firearms Law mentioned a number of specific semi-automatic firearms, including shotguns and rifles, the judge only considered one popular type of weapon — the AR-15.
Other weapons prohibited by the law include “street sweeper” type shotguns and other exotic firearms that one typically would not find in a civilian’s gun safe.
The AR-15 is one of the best-selling rifles in the country, and is the type model for the modern sporting rifle category.
The New Jersey law only mentions AR-15s manufactured by Colt, but the judge made his ruling for all rifles of the AR-15 type, as a host of other foundries and gunsmiths create and sell their own AR-pattern rifles.
“Plaintiffs challenge the Assault Firearms Law as unconstitutional,” Sheridan wrote in his decision. “For the reasons stated previously, this analysis focuses on the AR-15 Provision of the Assault Firearms Law. Under Heller, while the Supreme Court stated that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited, the Supreme Court forbade a complete prohibition on a class of gun ownership.
“Guided by this decision, and for the reasons below, the AR-15 Provision of the Assault Firearms Law which prohibits the use of the Colt AR-15 for the use of self-defense within the home does not pass constitutional muster when applying the Bruen standard.”
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The standards the Bruen and Heller decisions cover test whether the firearm can and will be for self-defense, and whether the weapon is in “common use” by the public.
As could be expected, Sheridan found the AR-15 to meet both of these court tests, ruling the popular firearm to be in common use for self-defense and making New Jersey’s ban on it as an “assault firearm” an unconstitutional prohibition.
“State Defendants’ argument fails because, like in Heller, the Assault Firearms Law categorically bans a type of weapon that is commonly used for self-defense,” Sheridan asserted.
“Based upon the Supreme Court’s clear direction on this point, the AR-15 Provision of the Assault Firearms Law is unconstitutional for the Colt AR-15 for use for self-defense in the home.”
While the ruling does not tackle the scores of other firearms regulated under the Garden State’s wide-ranging gun ban law, it is a step in the right direction against those looking to undermine Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
Every silver lining has its cloud, however, and Sheridan’s ruling is no exception.
In finding the AR-15 a common and legal firearm, he also ruled to uphold bans on so-called “large capacity magazines” regulated by the state. The judge seems to have fallen for common scare tactics, calling the magazines’ relationship to mass shootings “impossible to ignore.”
The dial is being wrestled back when it comes to Americans’ Second Amendment rights, and it looks like we haven’t seen the last of these decisions.
