Washington Supreme Court won't hear challenge to city's assault weapons ban

The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a challenge to a Chicago suburb's ban on semiautomatic "assault" weapons, an indication that a majority of justices feel such bans are constitutional or should be left up to state and local governments.


The court denied a petition backed by the Illinois State Rifle Association seeking review of an appeals court's ruling that Highland Park, Ill., can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Such weapons were used in several recent mass shootings across the country, including those that killed 14 people last week in San Bernardino, Calif, as well as 26 at a Connecticut elementary school and 12 at a Colorado movie theater in 2012.

Similar bans are on the books in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and Hawaii, and none have been struck down, so the justices had no legal conflict to resolve. The statutes are not directly at odds with the high court's rulings in 2008 and 2010 permitting handguns to be kept at home for self-defense. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in District of Columbia v. Heller that the court was not upholding “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."