Judge upholds Massachusetts ‘assault weapon’ expansion

By Chris Eger

In 2016 Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey expanded the state’s “assault weapon” ban through a reinterpretation, which brought a legal challenge from FFLs and a firearm industry trade group. (Photo: Healey’s office)
A reinterpretation of the Commonwealth’s gun laws by Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey has withstood the first round of a legal challenge.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Young dismissed a lawsuit filed by four gun dealers and gun rights group against Healey’s “enforcement notice” expanding the state’s longstanding ban on certain semi-automatic firearms to include guns that, up to that time, were considered “Massachusetts-compliant.” Young, an appointment to the federal bench by President Reagan, did not agree with the argument advanced by those seeking to overturn the ban that such guns and their magazines are protected by the Constitution.
“Assault weapons and LCMs [large capacity magazines] — the types banned by the Act — are not within the scope of the personal right to ‘bear Arms’ under the Second Amendment,” Young said in his 47-page ruling. Falling back on the words of the author of the ruling in the 2008 Heller case, Young went on to refer to the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s comments about M-16 rifles, the select-fire variant

Source: Guns.com