Assault Weapons Ban Before U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court will announce this week whether it will hear a challenge to an Illinois law banning assault weapons. 

Semi-automatic weapons are able to rapidly shoot a single round with one pull of the trigger. Larger capacity magazines reduce the need to reload often. The ban lists certain specific rifles including those resembling the AR-15 and AK-47 firearms. 

If the court agrees to hear the case, it would cast a shadow over similar bans in seven states. But declining to take it up would boost efforts to impose such bans elsewhere, at a time of renewed interest in gun regulation after recent mass shootings.

Gun rights advocates are challenging a 2013 law passed in Highland Park, Illinois, that bans the sale, purchase, or possession of semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than 10 rounds in a single ammunition clip or magazine.

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