MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a pair of challenges from gun rights groups targeting Connecticut's restrictions on AR-15 ownership, which tightened significantly after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. 

A Second Circuit panel ruled that the state's law, which imposes restrictions on "unusually dangerous weapons," is consistent with the United States' historical tradition of gun ownership, deeming the law constitutional.

"The challenged Connecticut laws impose targeted restrictions on unusually dangerous weapons while preserving numerous legal alternatives for self-defense and other lawful purposes," the three-judge panel ruled. "Such restrictions impose a burden comparable to historical antecedents that regulated other unusually dangerous weapons unsuitable for and disproportionate to the objective of individual self-defense."

One of the underlying cases comes from the National Association for Gun Rights, a controversial gun advocacy group that describes itself as more conservative than the National Rifle Association. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the Second Amendment Foundation, also gun rights groups, were behind the other lawsuit.

Both cases challenged Connecticut officials over the state's 2013 law titled An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety. The law included comprehensive gun reform in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, where 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults with an AR-15-style rifle.

The law effectively renders AR-15s illegal in Connecticut, which the gun groups claim violates their Second Amendment rights. But in 2023, a federal judge ruled to the contrary, leading the groups to the Second Circuit for a second bite at the apple.

At oral arguments last fall, parties dueled over the language of the scrutinized law. The state claimed that it has the historical precedent to restrict any "unusually dangerous" weapons like the AR-15, which can be easily modified to boost fire rate and lethality. 

Meanwhile, the gun groups argued that it was the state's burden to prove that the weapons needed to be both unusual and dangerous. And since the AR-15 is the most commonly owned semiautomatic firearm in the country, it's hardly "unusual."

The Second Circuit ultimately sided with Connecticut, and ruled that the lower court was right to deny the group's bid for a preliminary injunction to ice the law. The appellate panel pointed to the landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which tied Second Amendment gun ownership to U.S. history.

"We conclude ... that this historical tradition encompasses those arms that legislators determined were unusually dangerous because of their characteristics," the judges ruled. 

"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," they added.

Additionally, the judges ruled that the gun groups "only cursorily" argued that they'd face irreparable harm without pausing the law. They were unmoved by the groups' argument that, without AR-15s, they'd be unable to defend themselves.

"While plaintiffs point to their inability to use the desired firearms for self-defense, they do not explain why the thousands of firearms Connecticut's statutes leave available, including several semiautomatic handguns, are insufficient for this purpose during the pendency of the case," the panel ruled.

The panel of judges issued two concurring rulings between the three of them: U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan, a Joe Biden appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge John Walker, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston, a George W. Bush appointee.

Connecticut's Democratic Attorney General William Tong celebrated the ruling on Friday.

"Connecticut's assault weapon and large capacity magazine bans are lawful, lifesaving and broadly supported," he said in a statement. "I'm under no illusion that today's clear decision will stop the gun lobby's relentless campaign to flood our communities with ever more deadly weapons. We will not back down, and we are going to fight with everything we've got to keep these weapons of war off our streets, out of our schools, and away from our families."

Holly Sullivan, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, told Courthouse News that the Second Circuit's decision "elevates ideology over constitutional rights."

"The Supreme Court must put a stop to our courts treating the Second Amendment as if it were not part of the Bill of Rights," Sullivan said.

Source: Courthouse News Service