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"The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed New York to enforce a Democratic-backed gun control law adopted after the justices last year struck down the state's limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home in a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights."

"New York state Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, praised the court's decision to keep the law in effect.  'Too many New Yorkers are plagued by gun violence, and we know that basic gun laws help save lives every day,' James said."

"The decision declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protects an individual's right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. The ruling also required courts to evaluate if gun restrictions were "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," making it harder to regulate guns in a country where mass shootings are commonplace."

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NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed New York to enforce a Democratic-backed gun control law adopted after the justices last year struck down the state's limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home in a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.

The justices rejected a request by six members of the firearms rights group Gun Owners of America to throw out a lower court's decision allowing the law to be enforced. U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby in October blocked enforcement of much of the law but the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December put that decision on hold while the state pursues an appeal.

No justice publicly dissented from the decision, but Justice Samuel Alito, writing for himself and fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, described the court's action as procedural "rather than expressing any view on the merits of the case."

Wednesday's action may not be the last time the Supreme Court addresses New York's new gun law. Alito and Thomas noted that other challenges to the state's law are currently on a fast-track in the 2nd Circuit and invited plaintiffs to return to the Supreme Court if that appeals court does not expedite the proceedings in their case as well.

An official from Gun Owners of America, Erich Pratt, called Alito's statement "reassuring," adding: "We look forward to continuing the fight against New York's draconian law."

New York state Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, praised the court's decision to keep the law in effect.

"Too many New Yorkers are plagued by gun violence, and we know that basic gun laws help save lives every day," James said.

Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the Concealed Carry Improvement Act on July 1, a week after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling against a New York concealed carry permit restriction.

The decision declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protects an individual's right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. The ruling also required courts to evaluate if gun restrictions were "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," making it harder to regulate guns in a country where mass shootings are commonplace.

The new law expanded who could seek a license to carry a handgun outside the home but required applicants to establish that they possess "good moral character," undergo additional training and submit information concerning their social media accounts and people with whom they live.

It also established a long list of "sensitive locations" including churches, medical offices, public parks and theaters where carrying a gun would be a felony even for license holders. New York City's popular Times Square is one of these locations.

The plaintiffs challenged the law as a violation of the Second Amendment. Suddaby, a judicial appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, blocked enforcement of much of it, citing "unprecedented constitutional violations."

The judge decided that New York could not compel people applying for a gun license to disclose the handles of their social media accounts or the names and contact details of everyone with whom they live, nor would applicants have to prove their "good moral character."

Suddaby also decided that the state could not ban guns in theaters, bars and restaurants, parks, airports and other public places, though bans could remain in place in schools, courthouses and polling stations. Suddaby blocked enforcement of a provision making it a felony to carry firearms on private property without the property owner's express consent.

At the request of James, the 2nd Circuit issued a stay freezing Suddaby's order while New York pursued its appeal.

Separately, a federal judge on Monday blocked parts of a recently passed New Jersey law restricting the locations where people in that state may carry guns.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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U.S. Supreme Court lets New York enforce new gun restrictions

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed New York to enforce a Democratic-backed gun control law adopted after the justices last year struck down the state's limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home in a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.

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"This argument is often deployed as a defense against stronger gun laws. What it does not then grapple with is that it is entirely possible to legislate on the availability of guns in our society."

"This is less of a “gotcha” than they seem to assume. As many pro-gun voices have said before, it’s impossible to legislate against whatever “evil” lies in a mass shooter’s head."

"Yes, mental health is a factor, despite it so often being deployed as a deflection from guns themselves. But if that explanation wasn’t just a cover for inaction, we’d see Republicans in favor of stronger “red flag” laws that give courts the power to remove guns from homes where there’s a danger of them being used against the owner or others."

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A day after Monday's shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, we know much more about the shooter and the dead. But one question remains: "Why?" Why this school, why these victims, why was the shooter motivated to take these lives?

The search for a motive is a logical one. There's a deep desire to understand what pushed a person to carry out such a heinous crime, especially when three children are dead. Nashville police have said that the shooter left behind writings that would potentially showcase their reasoning. But already many on the right have seized on reporting that the shooter was transgender to put a new spin on their anti-trans hate.

We know that America is simply awash in firearms.

My inbox was relatedly filled this morning after my article on Monday with people who were outraged that I didn't mention the shooter being a transgender former student of the school. This is less of a "gotcha" than they seem to assume. As many pro-gun voices have said before, it's impossible to legislate against whatever "evil" lies in a mass shooter's head. This argument is often deployed as a defense against stronger gun laws. What it does not then grapple with is that it is entirely possible to legislate on the availability of guns in our society.

That fact remains true no matter the motive of the shooter. It's true when talking about the Santa Barbara, California, gunman who left behind a "manifesto" detailing his hatred of women in 2014. It's true when talking about the Charleston, South Carolina, shooter who walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 and killed nine people, whose white supremacy fueled his rampage. And it's true when talking about the 2017 Las Vegas massacre that remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, even though to this day we have no solid answer about what prompted the slaughter.

What we can say with certainty though is that the shooter had "two AR-style rifles" with them on Monday afternoon. Nashville police said on Tuesday that the shooter had legally "bought seven firearms from five different local gun stores here" ahead of the shooting. As I noted on Monday, there is no waiting period or license required in the state of Tennessee before purchasing guns.

We also know that the AR-15 and similar weapons do unspeakable damage to the human body. "The AR-15 fires bullets at such a high velocity - often in a barrage of 30 or even 100 in rapid succession - that it can eviscerate multiple people in seconds," according to The Washington Post. "A single bullet lands with a shock wave intense enough to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The impact is even more acute on the compact body of a small child."

It's therefore all but a fool's errand to focus on individual mass shooters.

And we know that America is simply awash in firearms. This country has more guns than people, according to 2018 data from the Small Arms Survey. That ratio has likely only gotten more extreme after a spike in sales during the pandemic. Even with a drop in new gun purchases since the peak in 2020, estimated using background check data, there were at least 16.4 million guns purchased in 2022. That nothing resembling a cap on gun manufacturing or ownership exists is a testament to how deeply ingrained firearms are in both society and the economy.

Yes, mental health is a factor, despite it so often being deployed as a deflection from guns themselves. But if that explanation wasn't just a cover for inaction, we'd see Republicans in favor of stronger "red flag" laws that give courts the power to remove guns from homes where there's a danger of them being used against the owner or others. They'd push for stronger health care and treatment options for suicidal ideation, given that the No. 1 cause of firearm deaths is their owners turning a weapon on themselves. And if conservatives truly believe that all transgender Americans are mentally unwell, as has been suggested repeatedly to me in the last 24 hours as the real issue to focus on, then they should be working to help them, not demonize them.

The cliché from gun rights activists that a gun is merely a tool and it's the person who wields it that's the problem is inherently backward. Guns are weapons of destruction no matter who wields them. Their capacity to kill is not limited by identity or ideology. It's therefore all but a fool's errand to focus on individual mass shooters. In the end, it is only their ability to obtain these readily available instruments of death that unites them.

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Opinion | It's not the ideology. It's the guns.

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A day after Monday's shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, we know much more about the shooter and the dead. But one question remains: "Why?" Why this school, why these victims, why was the shooter motivated to take these lives? The search for a motive is a logical one.

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The Department of Justice has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to seek a review of a lower court decision that struck down a federal law that banned people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms."

"A three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that people under domestic violence restraining orders retain their constitutional right to own firearms, finding that the federal law prohibiting them from doing so was unconstitutional..."

"...which held that it was more important for society to keep guns out of the hands of people accused of domestic violence than it was to protect a person's individual right to own a gun. "

"DOJ contends that the Fifth Circuit erred because it 'overlooked the strong historical evidence supporting the general principle that the government may disarm dangerous individuals. The court instead analyzed each historical statute in isolation."'

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Justice Department asks Supreme Court to overturn domestic violence gun ruling

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Supreme Court is being asked to review whether a law prohibiting the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment.

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"Police continue to insist that every gun out of someone's hands, even if it involves arresting that person and increasing mass incarceration of the nonviolent and highly harming that person's ability to work and rent in the future, is all for the good; after all, that gun won't be used by that person to harm anyone. (It is almost always the case that those guns would not have unjustly harmed anyone even minus the arrest and confiscation.)"

"From 2010 to 2022, the police made more than 38,000 arrests for illegal gun possession. These arrests — almost always a felony — doubled during this timeframe. While illegal possession is the most serious offense in most of the cases we analyzed, the charges often bear misleading names that imply violence, like 'aggravated unlawful use of a weapon."'

"As the Marshall Project (who although close-focused on Chicago in this study 'identified several other cities with similar trends,' including Houston, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Memphis) quotes one of the victims of gun possession arrests they interviewed, 'I'm scared for my life — and I gotta go to prison because I fear for my life, for my family's safety? Because we're not fortunate enough to live someplace else?"'

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Gun Control

New study sees Chicago harassing and arresting people for paperwork violations, damaging their ability to live and work, without demonstrable effect on gun violence

When hideous murders committed with guns make national news, as in today's Nashville school shooting, it is a natural reaction on many people's parts to call passionately for just getting more guns out of more people's hands, by any means necessary.

Those concerned with civil liberties and police abuse of the innocent have long worried about the effects of privileging mere gun possession arrests. A new study from the Marshall Project highlights some of these problems, via examining data and interviewing arrestees from Chicago's attempts to manage its violence problem with more gun possession arrests.

Chicago police seem to have adopted a pattern of pretextual stops-looking for any excuse to pull someone over and interact with them-in order, they hope, to find a gun without a proper permit to own or license to carry. (Getting both those things can be quite expensive in terms of both time and money, disproportionately affecting the poor living in violent neighborhoods who most strongly feel the pull toward having a gun for self-defense.) Gun law enforcement in Chicago, the Marshall Project finds, "overwhelmingly focuses on possession crimes - not use."

The heart of the study's findings:

From 2010 to 2022, the police made more than 38,000 arrests for illegal gun possession. These arrests - almost always a felony - doubled during this timeframe. While illegal possession is the most serious offense in most of the cases we analyzed, the charges often bear misleading names that imply violence, like "aggravated unlawful use of a weapon."

Police continue to insist that every gun out of someone's hands, even if it involves arresting that person and increasing mass incarceration of the nonviolent and highly harming that person's ability to work and rent in the future, is all for the good; after all, that gun won't be used by that person to harm anyone. (It is almost always the case that those guns would not have unjustly harmed anyone even minus the arrest and confiscation.)

But there is no particular evidence that harassing or arresting those who have harmed no one has "substantially reduced shootings in Chicago. In fact, as possession arrests skyrocketed, shootings increased, but the percentage of shooting victims where someone was arrested in their case declined," that latter point a strong indication that mere possession arrests are not a sensible high priority for police for whom gun violence should be their only concern when it comes to guns, not paperwork violations. But the Project found that "nearly 60% of the 31,000 new felony cases pursued by [the state's attorney of Cook County, Illinois] in the past three years were for illegal gun possession; roughly 4% were for homicides."

Among the gun arrests the Marshall Project were able to analyze from raw data, "Most people [arrested] had no arrest warrants out, nor were they on supervised release, probation or suspected of being in a gang. In most of the incidents we analyzed, police were not responding to 911 calls about a person with a gun."

The fight against mere possession becomes a generalized excuse for harassment of citizens: "In arrests where possession was the most severe charge...we found that more than 7 in 10 began with a simple traffic violation. After this initial stop, police often used some other justification for a search. Officers often did this by citing the smell of marijuana. Although Illinois legalized cannabis in 2020, smoking while driving is still prohibited." And, "in a third of the stops, we found the person arrested had their gun owner's permit, but not the license that allowed carrying the loaded gun in public."

The enforcement is hugely disproportionate racially. "Although Black people comprise less than a third of the city's population, they were more than 8 in 10 of those arrested for unlawful possession in the timeframe we reviewed." Convictions lead to a year or more in prison, and merely the arrest can mess up the life of someone who has harmed no one via " damning criminal records, time on probation, job loss, legal fees and car impoundments."

As Reason's C.J. Ciaramella has previously reported, the overzealous search for guns owned without proper paperwork has led not just to pretextual traffic stops that ruin innocent people's lives but to violent raids on homes, often not even the homes where the alleged illegal guns were supposed to be.

As the Marshall Project (who although close-focused on Chicago in this study "identified several other cities with similar trends," including Houston, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Memphis) quotes one of the victims of gun possession arrests they interviewed, "I'm scared for my life - and I gotta go to prison because I fear for my life, for my family's safety? Because we're not fortunate enough to live someplace else?"

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The problems with calling for just getting guns out of people's hands as a solution to gun violence

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Gun Control When hideous murders committed with guns make national news, as in today's Nashville school shooting, it is a natural reaction on many people's parts to call passionately for just getting more guns out of more people's hands, by any means necessary.

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"Such efforts, however, face growing legal challenges from gun rights advocates — and the issue could ultimately wind up with the Supreme Court ruling on a pivotal question: whether the right to bear arms extends to these ammunition magazines."

"Those magazines are increasingly seen as an area where policy changes could lessen the carnage that has become emblematic of attacks waged with AR-15s and other guns, according to a growing body of research and interviews with experts and law enforcement veterans. An emerging consensus among these experts — and one that has taken hold in some state legislatures — is that mandating smaller magazines would force mass shooters to pause to reload, allowing people to flee or fight back."

"The court’s ruling last year overturning a New York gun law has inspired a new wave of lawsuits by firearms advocates, who argue that magazine restrictions are unconstitutional and endanger law-abiding citizens who could need them for self-defense."

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American Icon
Legislative and legal battles flare over restrictions that experts say could reduce casualties in AR-15 attacks

The first gunshot cracked through the air just after 1 a.m.

Then came another shot, and another. They kept coming, again and again, each shot thundering across downtown Dayton, Ohio. In just half a minute, more than three dozen gunshots echoed through the crowded streets.

Dion Green recalls hitting the sidewalk next to his father and fiancee, who had come out with him in August 2019. It had been a routine Saturday night: people dancing, drinking, standing in line to get into a bar, waiting for tacos outside. Green barely had time to drop down as the masked shooter ran by and kept firing. All around Green, bullets ripped into people's heads, chests, backs, arms and legs. People ran from the carnage, diving behind parked cars and scrambling into nearby bars and clubs, piling on top of one another as they huddled on the floor.

"It was like war," Green said. "And I got angry. Because why was there a full-on war going on in the middle of the street?"

Thirty-two seconds after that first shot, the barrage ended whenpolice killed the gunman. But the toll was alreadyimmense.

The gunman, shooting an AR-15-style weapon, had fired off 41 bullets, hitting more than two dozen people and killing nine of them - including Derrick Fudge, Green's father.

Police officers at the scene of the massacre in Dayton, Ohio, that killed nine people in August 2019. The gunman used an AR-15. (John Minchillo/AP; Dayton Police Department)

In the aftermath of the Dayton massacre and another hours earlier in El Paso, all the familiar debates ignited over guns, assault weapons bans, mental health interventions and red-flag laws. Yet much of the public discussion overlooked a key factor in Dayton, something that connected the massacre to the carnage unleashed by mass shooters in Orlando, Las Vegas, Buffalo and other communities: the ammunition magazines that can enable gunmen to fire a hail of bullets without needing to stop and reload.

Those magazines are increasingly seen as an area where policy changes could lessen the carnage that has become emblematic of attacks waged with AR-15s and other guns, according to a growing body of research and interviews with experts and law enforcement veterans.An emerging consensus among these experts - and one that has taken hold in some state legislatures - is that mandating smaller magazines would forcemass shooters to pause to reload, allowingpeople to flee or fight back.

Comparing magazine sizes

In the 30 seconds it takes a person to reload and shoot a 10-round magazine three times, someone with a 100-round magazine can shoot 100 bullets without reloading.
100-round magazine 10-round magazines
Anna Lefkowitz / The Washington Post

Most states do not limit magazine sizes. Butwithin the past year, lawmakers in four states have added restrictions capping magazine sizes at anywhere from 10 to 17 rounds - and Oregon voters in November approved a 10-round limit. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed a bill in January that included a ban on the sale of long-gun magazines with more than 10 rounds.

Suchefforts, however, face growinglegal challenges from gun rights advocates - and the issue could ultimatelywind up with the Supreme Court ruling on a pivotal question: whether the right to bear arms extends tothese ammunition magazines.

The court's ruling last year overturning a New York gun law has inspired a new wave of lawsuits by firearms advocates, who argue that magazine restrictions are unconstitutional and endanger law-abiding citizens who could need them for self-defense.

"It's a different era," said Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, a pro-firearms organization mounting several legal challenges to magazine restrictions. "We think the Second Amendment wins on this every time now."

Proponents of the restrictions say the value of the limits comes down to numbers: Fewer bullets fired means more lives could be saved. Something, they say, has to be done in the face of all the bloodshed - and they reject the notion that larger devices are protected by the Constitution.

"The Second Amendment, which I support and I respect, makes no mention of ammunition," said Rhode Island state Rep. Justine Caldwell (D), who sponsored a ban that passed last summer. "Nobody has a constitutional right to a 100-round magazine."

In Dayton, the shooter wielded a 100-round drum magazine for his brief but deadly rampage.

"If he was using a 30-round magazine, he would at least have to reload once," said Richard Biehl, who was Dayton's police chief at the time of the shooting. "A 15-round magazine, he would reload twice. That could be six lives saved in that particular incident. That's why I think it matters."

The American gun debate over high-capacity magazines

Two loaded 30-round magazines, top, for AR-15s. (George Frey/Getty Images)

As the AR-15 has become a cultural symbol, so too havemagazines, which can jut out from the bottom of guns.

There's no universal definition for what size is considered "high capacity." Some states have a narrow definition, passing laws that ban anything with more than 10 rounds. Magazines with at least 30 rounds are considered the standard among larger devices; the largest can hold 100 rounds or more.

Usually made of hard plastic, a typical 30-round magazine is about seven inches long and an inch thick - roughly the size of a television remote control - with a slight curve to trace the bullets within. They are readily available for sale online, often for under $20. Inside, a small spring pushes the new bullets toward the gun, feeding them into the actual weapon.

Magazines with 20 or more bullets have been around in some form at least since the 1800s. They emerged as popular accessories only in recent decades. The first civilian AR-15 rifle debuted in 1964 with a device that held five rounds, and during the Vietnam War era, the military relied on those with 20 rounds.

Over time, technological advances made it easier to produce them reliably and affordably out of plastic.

So when Congress passed the federal assault weapons ban in 1994, it also prohibited magazines with more than 10 rounds. When the weapons ban expired in 2004, that restriction also lifted. Now, in a country with an estimated 400 million guns, there are also millions of magazines with at least 30 rounds, according to gun rights groups and court filings.

They are advertised as easy to use and deeply convenient for gun owners. One company, Magpul, boasts a 60-round drum that it calls "the best high capacity drum in the world." Sig Sauer touts one with 30 rounds of 9mm ammunition by promising that it will let users "spend less time loading magazines and more time shooting at the range."

Workers assemble 30-round rifle magazines at Magpul in Erie, Colo., in 2013. (Photos by Brennan Linsley/AP)

Gun advocates say that today, these devices are the rule, not the exception. Many modern gunmakers now ship their AR-style rifles with 30-round magazines standard.

When oneis affixed to an AR-15, it is part of the rifle's identity, the iconography that has turned the gun into as much a symbol as a weapon. That's how the gun is shown on protest signs and T-shirts, cementing its image in the culture.

The fight over magazines has now become the American gun debate in a nutshell - an argument over a device that is cherished by some and condemned by others. For the people who own and use them, they are simply a part of life.

Paul Lewis, who owns a property management company in Maryland, extolled the virtues of firing dozens of rounds at a time during a recent visit to a gun range north of Dulles International Airport.

"It's fun," Lewis, 39, said shortly before sliding a 40-round device into a Ruger AR-556. And not having to reload so much, he said, "saves your thumbs."

Lewis took aim at a nearby target and fired, emptying the magazine in nine seconds.

He visits the range at least once a week, both to practice with a handgun he carries for self-defense and to unwind. Since shooting requires full concentration, Lewis said, he stops worrying about anything else.

Limiting the number of bullets in his magazinesduring these trips "would suck," he said, "because that's more times that I have to stop and say, 'Okay, load up another 10, load up another 10.'"

More importantly, Lewis said, magazine restrictions would make law-abiding gun owners less safe from criminals who might disregard the bans. "How can I protect myself if I don't have enough ammo?" Lewis said.

A gun restriction could save lives

The 2012 massacre at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., led state lawmakers to restrict magazines. (Helen H. Richardson/Denver Post/AP)

In 2019, a gunman wielding an AR-15-style rifle burst into asynagogue in Poway, Calif., killing one person and injuring three others while emptying a 10-round magazine.

When the attacker ran out of bullets, he tried and failed to reload another 10-round magazine, then fled as "several members of the congregation moved to confront him," an FBI affidavit said.

This episode - which ended with the shooter's arrest after the FBI said he called 911, made antisemitic remarks and confessed -crystallizes what law enforcement veterans and experts say can happen when shooting stops: a break and, for the potential victims, a chance.

"That moment to reload, it's the linchpin of the event," said Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent who ran the bureau's active shooter program.

"If there is a way during that time or when the rounds in that weapon are expended to intervene," she said, "that is the difference between a few and dozens injured or killed."
"How far can you get in six, seven, eight seconds if you bolted? If there was a pause in the shooting?" Louis Klarevas, professor at Teachers College at Columbia University
Academic researchers agree, with numerous studies in recent years finding that laws restricting magazine sizes reduce casualties.

One study found that almost two-thirds of mass shootings with at least six fatalities over nearly three decades involved magazines with more than 10 rounds - and that the death tolls in those cases far exceeded the number of fatalities in attacks with smaller magazines.

A person with experience using guns can reload quickly, but in most mass shootings a shooter might take eight to 10 seconds to reload, said Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College at Columbia University who studied nearly three decades of data.

"No matter where you are, stop, look around you," he said. "How far can you get in six, seven, eight seconds if you bolted? If there was a pause in the shooting?"

Such findings, though, are disputed by gun rights advocates who argue that fighting mass killers requires ensuring that law-abiding citizens are adequately armed. Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, pointed to a shooting last summer at an Indiana mall. Police said a gunman opened fire, killing three people, before a 22-year-old bystander fired 10 rounds and killed the attacker.

Advocates for larger magazines say they are important for self-defense because gun owners can't predict how many rounds they may need when facing a threat. In court filings, they argue that people can face grave danger if confronted by multiple attackers or while swapping out magazines.

But other analysts dispute the argument that larger ammunition magazines are necessary for self-defense.

Lucy Allen, a former White House economist, studiedcases published by the National Rifle Association about people using guns for self-defense between 2011 and 2017, and found that in those 700 cases, on average, people fired a little more than two shots in self-defense. Many times, she said in a court declaration, these people never fired a shot. Someone fired more than 10 shots in just two cases, she said.

The NRA said the cases Allen cited were based on a collection of news stories and not meant to be exhaustive or representative. "To suggest that any law-abiding individual should diminish their ability to defend themselves is wrongheaded and dangerous," Lars Dalseide, an NRA spokesman, said in a statement.

Family members and friends of people killed by gun violence stage a sit-in at the U.S. Capitol in July 2016, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) presses for magazine restrictions in February 2019, just before the first anniversary of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images)

While the recent stretch of research validating the restrictions is relatively new, the idea of trying to cap the size of magazines is not. In 1990, New Jersey passed the first modern restrictions. The federal assault weapons ban followed four years later, though it exempted devices manufactured before the law took effect.

Since the federal ban expired, states and local jurisdictions have passed numerous bans and restrictions,often in the wake of tragedy.

After the 2012 massacre at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., lawmakers in that state passed a ban. Lawmakers in Connecticut similarly banned the devices after a gunman slaughtered students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown that same year.

Lawmakers in Delaware, Rhode Island and Washington state approved restrictions last year, along with the city council in Columbus, Ohio. In January, lawmakers in Illinois - where a gunman using 30-round magazines killed seven people at an Independence Day parade last year -followed suit. That ban immediately took effect after the governor signed it.

All told, 14 states and D.C. have some sort of magazine restriction on the books, along with some individual cities and counties, though the Oregon measure approved by voters last year has been put on hold by a judge.

The bans differ from other gun laws in a key way. Gun manufacturers can easily skirt assault weapons bans by making cosmetic changes to the weapons, but restrictions on magazine capacity are straightforward, said Andrew R. Morral, a behavioral scientist at Rand Corp. who leads its Gun Policy in America initiative.

"You might disagree about what the threshold might be, but once you set a threshold for how many rounds it can hold, or how it attaches to the gun, or whatever the rule is, it's very easy to define," he said.

Advocates of the restrictions have found allies in some law enforcement veterans who responded to mass shootings.

Douglas Fuchs, a former police chief in Redding, Conn., was among the first respondersat Sandy Hook Elementary, where his own children had once gone to school.

He struggled with what could be done to stop such carnage. He didn't think the answer was banning any guns or taking them "out of law-abiding people's hands." But Fuchs took a lesson from what he heard from children who survived, who told their parents they fled while the shooter was "playing with his gun," he said.

Fuchs concluded that the gunman was reloading, and that the children "saw that as an opportunity to run." That proved just how valuable that pause could be, he said.

"Even a child knew," he said. "They knew it was time to flee."

A courtroom battle over magazine restrictions

Matt Collins removes rifle magazines from display at Freddie Bear Sports outside Chicago on Jan. 11, after Illinois' governor signed magazine restrictions into law. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Just as governors in Rhode Island and Delaware were signing magazine restrictions into law last summer, a Supreme Court ruling sent shock waves through groups supporting stricter gun laws and emboldened gun rights groups hoping to overturn the bans and other firearms restrictions.

In June, the court struck down a New York law dealing with gun licensing and declared that Americans had a right to carry handguns for self-defense outside their homes. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majorityin New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen, said that beyond adhering to the Second Amendment's text, government officials have to prove that their gun regulations are "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition."

Legal observers say the ruling and its emphasis on "historical tradition" could dramatically reshape how American courts approach gun laws, including magazine restrictions.

The court's ruling "articulates a test that few gun laws will easily survive," said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who is an expert on the Second Amendment.

Gun rights advocates and organizations have mounted a number of challenges to the bans in court. In addition to the self-defense and constitutional arguments, some say that the term "high-capacity magazines" is itself a misnomer. Those devices holding more than 10 rounds are "common to the point of ubiquity among law-abiding gun owners," a group of Republican attorneys general said in a court filing last year.

"The 10-round magazine is the exception, not the rule," said Brown, of the National Association for Gun Rights. "It's like saying the car with five gears is a high gear, high-capacity transmission. No, it's not, it's the standard capacity, the standard number of gears."

Crates containing shipments of rifle magazines at Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Ky., and a magazine surrendered during a gun-buyback event in San Francisco. (Jon Cherry/Bloomberg News, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

For years, though, legal challenges to magazine bans generally failed. Brown's group mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Colorado's restrictions, which the state's Supreme Court upheld in 2020.

But now gun rights advocates see the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling as momentous.

"Clarence Thomas handed us a four-ton wrecking ball to go after these ludicrous Second Amendment infringements," Brown said. After the ruling, Brown's group filed lawsuits taking aim at bans enacted by four states, including Colorado and Connecticut. Those cases are among at least 15 ongoing lawsuits challenging magazine restrictions across the country.

The Supreme Court's decision also rippled out into cases that had previously survived court challenges, including bans in New Jersey and California that were sent back to lower courts to reconsider.

Polling suggests such challenges echo the wishes of gun owners.While74 percent of American adults who don't own guns supported banning magazines with more than 10 rounds in a Pew Research Center survey in April 2021, only 40 percent of gun owners supported that policy.

States facing legal challenges are battling back. Colorado has argued that its nearly decade-old restrictions are still allowed under the Supreme Court's recent ruling. A federal judge in December allowed Rhode Island's new restrictions to take effect, saying the measure did not violate the Constitution and calling it "common sense public safety legislation." Opponents of the law plan to appeal.

For those who have seen firsthand the toll of mass killings, the political and legal debate over magazine sizes is deeply personal. Biehl, the former Dayton police chief, said he was "haunted" by how much bloodshed was unleashed by a single attacker firing so many bullets in so little time.

"One needs to question why anyone would need so many bullets in a magazine, that kind of capacity, for any legitimate reason," Biehl said.

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High-capacity-magazine bans could save lives. Will they hold up in court?

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The first gunshot cracked through the air just after 1 a.m. Then came another shot, and another. They kept coming, again and again, each shot thundering across downtown Dayton, Ohio. In just half a minute, more than three dozen gunshots echoed through the crowded streets.