US federal judge rules that AR-15s and large capacity magazines are not protected by Second Amendment

A federal judge has ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect a citizen’s right to own an AR-15 rifle and other, similar semi-automatic “military style” rifles and high capacity magazines. “AR-15s and [large capacity magazines] are most useful in military service, they are beyond the scope of the Second Amendment ... and may be banned,” Massachusetts District Court Judge William Young wrote in his ruling. The year-old case was first brought to court in January 2017 by a group of gun owners, the nonprofit Gun Owner’s Action League, and gun stores in the state. Those plaintiffs had filed their lawsuit after the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, announced in the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando, Florida shooting at the Pulse nightclub that the state would begin enforcing its 1998 ban on assault weapons. The Pulse shooting was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history...MORE