By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a Highland Park, Ill., resident and the Illinois State Rifle Association, who objected to Chicago's 2013 ban on semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines. During their appeal, they argued that the lower courts are engaging in "massive resistance" to a Supreme Court ruling from 2008 that asserts that the Constitution protects individual gun rights, according to Bloomberg.
"In the seven years since that opinion was handed down, the lower courts have assiduously worked to sap it of any real meaning," the appeal argued. "They have upheld severe restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms that would be unthinkable in the context of any other constitutional right."
The justices on Monday refused to hear the case however, and upheld the law, ruling that local governments have leeway in deciding how to regulate firearms, according to the Associated Press.
The appeal and subsequent decision comes following the mass shootings at San Bernardino, Paris and Colorado Springs, all of which involved the use of military-style assault weapons during the incidents.
Though not a formal ruling, this decision appears to suggest that the justices don't view the Second Amendment as protecting a right to own or carry high-powered weapons in public, reported the Los Angeles Times. Despite gun-rights advocates trying repeatedly in recent years to get SCOTUS to expand protections under the Second Amendment, the court has declined to rule on any such case since 2010.
Several cities in Chicago, as well as eight states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York, all possess laws similar to the Highland Park ordinance.
The decision to not hear the appeal has the effect of upholding the laws in all relevant areas elsewhere. Had it been heard and the ordinance struck down as a result, the decision would have likely voided all the state laws as well.
