The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.

The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.

The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    If that’s true, then it would be reflected in statistics about states with AR15 and magazine bans. I wonder if that’s really true or if it’s just a matter of being used in attacks because it’s the most common (just like the most common vehicles are probably involved in more crashes - it doesn’t mean they are unusually dangerous compared to other cars, just that there’s more of them).

    • MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      It’s just posturing, really. It’s the kind of gun legislation that gets liberals excited, but probably won’t actually change much in the long run

    • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      From the article in the original post:

      Maryland has seen a decline in gun violence since the enactment of a series of laws aimed at curbing access to dangerous weapons.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            But is this specifically one of the ones that worked?

            By that, what I mean is, was there a reduction seen in violence done specifically with assault rifles that used the banned features? Reductions in violence using (for example) pistols or shotguns don’t count.

            • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              Are you asking because you want to know, or are you asking to sow doubt that clearly effective laws are effective?

              How many assault weapons attacks occur in England every year? How does that compare to the US? Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that assault weapons are illegal in England?

              (By the way, you can replace England with almost any other country in the world in that paragraph and it still works.)

              Also, if you actually want to know, you should be petitioning your government to make it easier to study gun violence. Right now, it’s very hard to study gun violence, thanks to the lobbying efforts of the NRA.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Are you asking because you want to know,

                Yes, I want to know. Defend your argument and cite your sources instead of trying to bullshit me with generalities and assumptions.

                Trying pretend that just because some gun control laws are effective means that all of them are effective is a fallacy. If anything, your comment is way more likely to have been in bad faith than mine was.

                  • grue@lemmy.world
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                    3 days ago

                    No you haven’t. You’ve provided a Gish gallop of vague and general stuff. An actual source would be research that specifically analyzes the impact of Maryland SB 623 (2013).