A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that assault rifles and other so-called “weapons of war” are not protected under the Second Amendment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision upheld Maryland’s ban on assault rifles, which was passed in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut. It cited a 2008 Supreme Court case, Heller v. District of Columbia, which said that weapons “most useful in military service” are not covered by the Constitution.
“We are convinced that the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are among those arms that are ‘like’ M-16 rifles — ‘weapons that are most useful in military service’ — which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach,” Judge Robert King wrote for the 10-4 decision.
“Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage.”
Citing the Heller case, King wrote that assault rifles are “devastating weapons of war whose only legitimate purpose is to...