Federal Judge Rejects Gun Rights Group’s Effort to Block Connecticut Law

Connecticut’s sweeping gun control law will remain in effect after a federal judge on Thursday declined to temporarily block the statute. The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) brought suit against the law, which was enacted after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton ruled against the NAGR, declaring the group did not demonstrate the law violates the Second Amendment.

Connecticut bans certain so-called “assault weapons” and large-capacity magazines. The New Haven judge also decided that these weapons are not commonly purchased or used for self-defense.

Arterton said that state officials presented “persuasive evidence” that these firearms are bought for their military-type features rather than self-defense. She called the firearms “disproportionately dangerous” due to their “increased capacity for lethality.”

In an attempt to align her decision with the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard, she said the U.S. “has a longstanding history and tradition of regulating those aspects of the weapons or manners of carry that correlate with rising firearm violence.”

The Colorado-based NAGR strongly disagreed.

“We’re used to seeing crazy judicial acrobatics to reason the Second Amendment into oblivion, but this ruling is extreme,” its statement read. “This is an outrageous slap in the face to law-abiding gun owners and the Constitution alike.”

The Connecticut law was passed after the December 2012 massacre at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown. It added over 100 weapons to the state’s banned list and made magazines capable of holding over 10 rounds illegal.

Multiple attempts to overturn the law in court have failed. But NAGR and a state gun owner sued in September after the Bruen decision was handed down believing that the new standard the high court applied to gun control measures would effectively nullify the statute. That did not happen.

NAGR accused Arterton of “twisting the Supreme Court’s words in order to continue a decade-long practice of trampling the Second Amendment as a second-class right.”