Connecticut Assault Weapon Ban Preserved by Second Circuit (1)

Connecticut can continue enforcing its ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the Second Circuit ruled Friday as it considered the meaning of “dangerous and unusual” firearms.

The state’s law—enacted in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School—restricts possession of “unusually dangerous” weapons and is comparable to other bans in American history, Judge John Walker Jr. wrote for the court.

The ruling affirms a 2023 district court decision denying a preliminary injunction request brought by multiple organizations and individuals who challenged the law in two separate cases. Plaintiffs—including the National Association for Gun Rights and Second Amendment Foundation—wanted the court to prevent Connecticut from enforcing its ban specifically on AR-15s and large-capacity magazines.

The groups argued those kinds of weapons are in common use across the United States and aren’t considered “dangerous and unusual” firearms that can be banned under the US Supreme Court’s test for gun regulations. That test, established in the 2022 ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, directs government entities looking to regulate guns to show their regulations are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” before a court can decide whether an individual’s conduct is protected by the Second Amendment.

‘Unusually Dangerous’

Historical prohibitions on gun possession referenced “dangerous and unusual” and “dangerous or unusual” weapons. Both phrases “were traditionally understood as meaning ‘unusually dangerous,’” Walker wrote. All firearms are, to some degree, dangerous, and the phrase “unusual” can’t stand alone.

“Unusually dangerous is the obvious fit to describe weapons that are so lethal that legislators have presumed that they are not used or intended to be used for lawful purposes, principally individual self-defense,” Walker said.

The court rebuffed plaintiffs’ arguments that the US Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller allows for guns that are both dangerous and unusual to be banned. Adopting that “conjunctive test would flatly betray our duty to engage in a careful historical analysis,” Judge Alison Nathan said in a concurring opinion.

“History requires us to reject the argument that the ‘dangerous and unusual’ tradition focused on the numerosity of the weapons in modern society,” Nathan wrote, rejecting the argument that a weapon in common use can’t be “unusual.”

The court bypassed the first step of Bruen that requires courts to consider whether the Second Amendment protects plaintiffs’ rights to own the firearms and magazines at issue. The Supreme Court says the US Constitution protects possession of firearms that are typically owned and in common use by law-abiding citizens, but it hasn’t clarified “how and at what point in the analysis we are to consider whether weapons are unusually dangerous” nor has it made clear how courts “are to evaluate a weapon’s ‘common use,’” Walker said.

“We prefer not to venture into an area in which such uncertainty abounds and that is not necessary to resolve this appeal,” Walker wrote.

Modern Problems

The panel acknowledged there are no direct historical analogues for the Connecticut law, since there’s no evidence before the 20th century that firearms could be used to carry out mass shootings.

“As technology has facilitated an increase in mass shootings, mass shootings have become the object of widespread fear and societal concern. Together they have provoked a spate of state legislation to address a problem that is without direct historical precedent,” Walker said.

That’s the type of situation accounted for in Bruen, which says courts can employ a nuanced approach to evaluate relevant historical laws, he added.

Pre-1900 firearms are technologically distinguishable from modern firearms, in that they could hold less bullets, had a significantly shorter range, and required long reload times. A shooter using that kind of gun could kill at a rate of less than one person per minute, Walker said.

“By contrast, today’s assault weapons—fed continuously by large capacity magazines—are dramatically and reliably lethal,” he wrote.

Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston also sat on the panel.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the state “will not back down” amid the gun lobby’s “relentless campaign to flood our communities with ever more deadly weapons.”

The Second Circuit’s ruling tramples on Supreme Court precedent, said National Association for Gun Rights Vice President Hannah Hill.

The high court “must put a stop to our courts treating the Second Amendment as if it were not part the Bill of Rights,” said attorneys at Atkinson Law LLC, Fishbein Law Firm LLC, and Connecticut State Rep. Doug Dubitsky (R), who together represent the Second Amendment Foundation, Connecticut Citizens Defense League, and individual plaintiffs on the second lawsuit.

Barry Arrington of Arrington Law Firm represents the National Association for Gun Rights and individual plaintiffs on the first lawsuit. The Connecticut attorney general’s office represents the state.

The cases are Nat’l Ass’n for Gun Rts. v. Lamont, 2d Cir., No. 23-01162, 8/22/25 and Grant v. Lamont, 2d Cir., No. 23-01344, 8/22/25.