The New York Times
May 6, 2003
Assault Weapons Case May Reach High Court
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:34 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to reconsider its ruling that Americans don't have the constitutional right to own firearms, setting up the possibility of a Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California's assault weapons ban in a 2-1 ruling last December. On Tuesday, a majority of the circuit's 25 active judges declined to rehear the case.
The 9th Circuit's ruling conflicts with a 2001 decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said individuals have a constitutional right to guns. The man who challenged California's weapons ban promised an appeal to the nation's highest court.
``I'll have this filed by the end of the week,'' attorney Gary Gorski said.
California enacted the nation's first assault weapons ban in 1989 after a gunman fired into a Stockton school yard, killing five children. Several states and the federal government later passed similar or more strict bans.
State and federal laws barring assault and other types of weapons are routinely upheld on grounds that they are rational governmental approaches to combat violence. The Second Amendment has had little, if any, impact on those court decisions -- except in the California case.
In dismissing the bulk of Gorski's challenge, the 9th Circuit panel said the Second Amendment was adopted not ``to afford rights to individuals with respect to private gun ownership or possession,'' but to allow states to maintain militias.
The decision was written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who noted the Supreme Court's guidance on whether the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to bear arms was ``not entirely illuminating.'' The high court, he said, has never directly said whether there is a constitutionally guaranteed right to possess weapons.
Larry Pratt, executive director of the 300,000-member Gun Owners of America, said he wants the Supreme Court to overturn Reinhardt's decision.
``If Judge Reinhardt prevails, the American people could become subjects of the government,'' Pratt said.
A spokeswoman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he was ``pleased that the court has upheld this important California law regulating assault weapons.''
The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.