Sandy Hook families urge Supreme Court to uphold state and local bans on AR-15-style rifles

Relatives of victims from the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday, urging the justices to uphold state and local prohibitions on specific semiautomatic rifles. The filing supports bans currently challenged in two separate cases involving Connecticut and the Chicago area. Oral arguments in both matters are scheduled for December 2. The brief, described as a friend of the court submission, was authored by the parents of five first-graders killed in the attack and relatives of one educator among the six staff members who died. The document argues that the weapons possess unusual and extreme lethality. It cites the incident in which an eleven-year-old, weighing 112 pounds, used an AR-15 style rifle to kill twenty students and six teachers. The relatives stated their goal is to prevent other American families from suffering similar losses. Adam Lanza, who was twenty years old at the time of the shooting, entered the locked school in Newtown, Connecticut. He fired more than 150 rounds in approximately four minutes using a Bushmaster AR-15 equipped with high-capacity magazines. Connecticut enacted a ban on such rifles in 2013, a statute now facing judicial review. Jennifer Hensel, whose six-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was killed, contributed testimony to the filing. She noted that Avielle was shot multiple times in the face and that authorities advised her she would not recognize her daughter’s body. Hensel called for a moral response to protect Connecticut residents from further bloodshed caused by assault-style weapons. Nicole Hockley, co-founder of the gun violence prevention group Sandy Hook Promise, also weighed in. Her son, Dylan Hockley, aged six, was shot five times. The group’s accompanying brief stated that Dylan’s body was so severely damaged that his mother was instructed not to touch him during the farewell ritual in his coffin. Hockley emphasized the catastrophic physical impact these weapons have on children and urged the court to prioritize child safety over other considerations. Over forty additional individuals and organizations submitted amicus curiae briefs on the same day, with the majority supporting the rifle bans. Gun rights advocates, including the Second Amendment Foundation, argue that restricting semiautomatic rifles violates the Second Amendment. They contend that millions of Americans legally own these firearms and that school shootings occur regardless of existing bans. Konstadinos Moros, a legal researcher for the foundation, stated that solving school violence does not require banning specific types of guns. He argued that shooters inflict harm independent of weapon capabilities. Supporters of the bans counter that these rifles were originally designed for military use and pose excessive dangers to civilians. They advocate for regulating them similarly to machine guns. The Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides regarding the constitutionality of the Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, restrictions later this month.