Exclusives

EXCLUSIVE: Republican AGs Join Push To Strike Down Blue State’s Semi-Auto Ban

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Twenty Republican attorneys general joined an effort to strike down Delaware’s ban on certain semi-automatic firearms in a brief filed Monday.

The attorneys general from twenty states asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to overturn a lower court’s ruling that upheld the ban in a brief filed Monday. Gun rights groups filed a lawsuit in July 2022 challenging the legislation on grounds that it violated the Second Amendment, according to Delaware Public Media.

Democratic Gov. John Carney signed the ban into law June 30, 2022, as part of a package of six bills that included raising the age to purchase a firearm to 21, banning so-called “high-capacity magazines,” strengthening background checks and establishing new liability standards for firearms manufacturers.

“The Second Amendment guarantees every American the right to keep and bear arms, and no state in the country has the right to take that right away,” Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I will continue to stand up for the rights of firearms owners in Montana and across the country.”

“These Delaware laws are flagrantly unconstitutional and the lower court’s decision should be reversed,” Knudsen continued.

The Supreme Court invalidated New York’s “good cause” requirement for pistol permits in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen in June 2022, prior to Carney signing the bills into law. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated that over 24 million “modern sporting rifles,” which were among the firearms targeted by the ban, are “in circulation” in a July 2022 release.

Carney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.