Supreme Court Leaves Intact Ban on High-Capacity Gun Magazines

The US Supreme Court turned away a fresh gun-rights appeal, refusing to question the District of Columbia’s ban on large-capacity ammunition-feeding devices.

The justices on Friday rejected arguments from four firearms owners who said the ban violates the gun-rights protections in the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

On June 2, the high court rejected a similar appeal in a Rhode Island case along with a challenge to a Maryland ban on so-called assault weapons. In each case, the court fell one vote short of the four required to take up a new case.

In addition to DC, 14 states outlaw high-capacity ammunition-feeding devices, according to Giffords Law Center, an interest group that supports gun restrictions.

The DC law makes it a felony to possess gun magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. It was enacted in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision striking down the district’s handgun ban and for the first time saying the Constitution protects individual gun rights.

A federal trial judge and then an appeals court upheld the DC restrictions.

Gun-rights advocates who sued to block the DC measure sought to extend the 2022 Supreme Court decision that declared a constitutional right to carry a firearm and established a tough new test for assessing restrictions.

The challengers said Americans possess hundreds of millions of large-capacity magazines, many of them for self-defense purposes. Supporters of the bans say the devices have been repeatedly used in mass shootings.

The law was backed at the lower court level by Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group founded and backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.

The case is Hanson v. District of Columbia, 24-936.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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