The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld Connecticut's ban on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, both of which were core provisions of the sweeping gun control law enacted after the December 2012 Newtown school shootings.

"New York and Connecticut have adequately established a substantial relationship between the prohibition of both semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity magazines and the important — indeed compelling — state interest in controlling crime," U.S. Circuit Judge José A. Cabranes wrote in the decision published Monday, ruling that the post-Newtown gun laws enacted in both states do not violate the Second Amendment right to individual gun ownership.

The Connecticut state legislature moved swiftly in 2013 to tighten firearms regulations after a gunman shot and killed 20 first-graders and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The comprehensive gun control package tightened the existing definition of an assault weapon and imposed a 10-round limit on the size of ammunition magazines. Legislators also banned the semiautomatic Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and the kind of large-capacity ammunition magazines used in the massacre. The assault weapons ban applies to semiautomatic firearms with certain military-style features and outlaws nearly 200 weapons listed by make and model, as well as copies or duplicates of those guns.

Cabranes' ruling in Shew v. Malloy went to the heart of the gun control debate, stating that "because the prohibitions are substantially related to the important governmental interests of public safety and crime reduction, they pass constitutional muster."

http://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-federal-appeals-court-upholds-connecticut-gun-law-20151019-story.html