The National Foundation for Gun Rights (NFGR) is a plaintiff in a suit filed July 7 in Denver’s federal District Court against the state of Colorado. The gun rights group seeks to overturn the 2013 ban on sales of gun magazines with over 15 rounds. The ban was enacted in the aftermath of the carnage from the Aurora theater mass shooting that claimed a dozen lives and injured at least 70 others.
Emboldened by this summer’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down parts of New York’s gun control laws, this group and others also plan to challenge gun restrictions in other states and jurisdictions.
The highest court in the land ruled governments had the authority to regulate firearm carrying for self-defense purposes by law-abiding citizens. But they can’t prohibit the right to carry firearms or require those seeking concealed-carry permits to show a need for the same.
On July 22, pro-Second Amendment plaintiffs celebrated the temporary restraining order issued in federal court by a U.S. District Court judgment against the town of Superior, Colorado. The order bans enforcement of sections of a gun control ordinance outlawing possession and sales of assault weapons. An August 4th hearing will decide whether the town’s ban will be struck down or upheld.
In that lawsuit filed by the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Superior gun owner, and several other gun advocacy groups, plaintiffs alleged the SCOTUS decision reinforced that “the standard for applying the Second Amendment is the text, history, and tradition of the right to keep and bear arms; thereby, invalidating the lower court rulings’ justification for gun control.”
According to the deputy chief counsel of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a public interest law center, these lawsuits are no surprise given the recent SCOTUS decision. David Pucino is confident “that the laws we have in the books are strongly grounded.”
But the NFGR’s Director of Research and Policy demurs. Hannah Hill recently stated the SCOTUS decision was a “four-ton wrecking ball” they will use to assail gun control laws all over the nation. Hill announced the “mag ban” fight was the first of additional legal battles her group and others will launch soon.
