A Massachusetts ban on “assault-style firearms” is legal and constitutional, a federal appeals court ruled on July 21.
The statute does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment because it is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in the country, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said.
The 2024 Massachusetts law extended a ban on some semiautomatic “assault weapons” to include “assault-style firearms,” prompting a lawsuit from Gino Mario Recchia and the gun store he owns.
The judges highlighted a 2025 decision called Capen by the same appeals court that upheld a predecessor law, which weighed whether the ban imposed a burden similar to that imposed by historical laws, as the Supreme Court has instructed states to do when considering restrictions on guns….