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U.S. judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban

FILE PHOTO - AR-15 rifles are displayed for sale at the Guntoberfest gun show in Oaks, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday upheld a Massachusetts law banning assault weapons including the AR-15, saying the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantee of Americans’ right to bear firearms does not cover them.

U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston ruled that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines covered by the 1998 law fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment’s personal right to bear arms.

He also rejected a challenge to an enforcement notice Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey issued in 2016 clarifying what under the law is a “copy” of an assault weapon. Healey announced that notice after a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

The decision released on Friday came amid renewed attention to school shootings, gun violence and firearms ownership after a gunman killed 17 students and faculty at a Florida high school in February, prompting a surge of gun control activism by teenage students.

In a 47-page ruling, Young cited former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative who died in 2016, as having observed that weapons that are most useful in military service may be banned. Young said the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was such a weapon.

He acknowledged arguments by plaintiffs including the Gun Owners’ Action League who noted the AR-15’s popularity in arguing the law must be unconstitutional because it would ban a class of firearms Americans had overwhelming chosen for legal purposes.

“Yet the AR-15’s present-day popularity is not constitutionally material,” Young wrote. “This is because the words of our Constitution are not mutable. They mean the same today as they did 227 years ago when the Second Amendment was adopted.”

Healey, a Democrat, in a statement welcomed the decision.

“Strong gun laws save lives, and we will not be intimidated by the gun lobby in our efforts to end the sale of assault weapons and protect our communities and schools,” she said.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to a request for comment.

They had filed their lawsuit in 2017 and based part of their case on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Scalia authored in 2008 that held for the first time that individual Americans have a right to own guns.

The justices have avoided taking up another major gun case in the years since and in November refused to hear a similar case challenging Maryland’s 2013 state ban on assault weapons.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Chicago suburb bans ‘assault weapons’ after Florida massacre

(Reuters) – An affluent Chicago suburb has banned the possession, sale and manufacture of “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” in response to the massacre at a Florida high school and other recent mass shootings in the United States.

Residents of Democratic-leaning Deerfield, located about 25 miles north of Chicago, have until June 13 to remove any firearms and magazines that fall outside the new restrictions or face a fine of between $250 and $1,000 per day, according to the ordinance passed by the town board on Monday night.

The ban quickly drew a legal challenge from gun-rights group Guns Save Life, with support from the National Rifle Association, on grounds it violated Americans’ Constitutional rights to own firearms.

The Deerfield ordinance said the ban was a direct response to the Feb. 14 killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the student-led campaign for tighter restrictions on guns inspired by the mass shooting.

“We hope that our local decision helps spur state and national leaders to take steps to make our communities safer,” Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal said in a statement.

The ban follows a similar 2013 measure enacted by the nearby suburb of Highland Park, located on Chicago’s North Shore, which withstood a challenge that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Opponents were quick to take issue with the ban.

“Every law-abiding villager of Deerfield has the right to protect themselves, their homes, and their loved ones with the firearm that best suits their needs,” Chris Cox, head of the NRA’s lobbying arm, said in a statement.

Opponents of the ban said they fear Deerfield will try to outlaw other firearms.

“First it’s going to be assault rifles. There will be new bans in the future. It’s just a matter of time,” Deerfield resident Larry Nordal told the Chicago Tribune. Nordal did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

The ban defines assault weapons as a range of firearms such as semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15, a gun similar to the one used in the Florida massacre. High-capacity magazines are defined as those holding more than 10 rounds.

Deerfield High School senior Ariella Kharasch, who supported the legislation, wants more action on local and national levels.

“This is our generation’s fight. We’re going to keep fighting and this is part of it,” Kharasch told the Chicago Tribune. “Change happens gradually step by step.”

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Leslie Adler)

White roses, hundreds of police as Florida shooting school reopens

Students and parents arrive for voluntary campus orientation at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, for the coming Wednesday's reopening, following last week's mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Angel Valentin

By Bernie Woodall

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Students returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday, bearing white roses and wearing white ribbons to commemorate the 17 people killed there two weeks ago in the second deadliest public school shooting in U.S. history.

The mood was subdued as roughly 3,000 teenagers walked past hundreds of uniformed police officers to resume classes at the school in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Parkland. The building where most of the victims died will remain closed indefinitely, however.

Parents who had never accompanied their children to high school tagged along with their teens to offer moral support. Jeannine Gittens, 44, and a friend and fellow mother, had gone ahead of their sons to greet them as they came off the bus.

“We just wanted to make sure they know we are there and that they have our support,” said Gittens, who said her son Jevon, 16, and his friend had ridden the bus alone “because they wanted to make today feel as normal as possible.”

Freshman Nicholas Rodrigues, 15, said he decided to walk the mile (1.6 km) from his home in neighboring Coral Springs rather than ride his bicycle as usual because “wanted to think about things.”

Even as students went into the sprawling Douglas campus, supporters remained gathered outside.

“We feel for these kids so much,” said Beverly Turner, a 63-year-old youth pastor, who said she had two children who graduated from the school. “We’ve seen them grow up and us being there for them is the least we can do.”

Investigators have accused 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who had been kicked out of the school for disciplinary reasons, of carrying out his attack with a legally purchased AR-15 assault-style rifle. The shooting inflamed the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights as defined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Debates over how to respond to the school shootings has seen in recent years erupted in Washington and at state capitals since the Feb. 14 massacre. They also pulled in corporate America, with gun retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc on Wednesday saying it would no longer sell assault-style rifles, the type of weapon used in four of the five deadliest mass shootings by a single gunman in U.S. history, as well as Parkland.

Well-wishers place mementos the day students and parents arrive for voluntary campus orientation at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, for the coming Wednesday’s reopening, following last week’s mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. REUTERS/Angel Valentin

EYES ON WASHINGTON

The Republican leaders of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday rejected new limits on guns after the attack, saying they would not raise the minimum age for gun buyers. The powerful National Rifle Association lobbied forcefully against any restrictions on gun sales, saying the infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

President Donald Trump has suggested arming teachers, as well as reopening mental hospitals, as a way of combating school violence. Trump is scheduled to meet with lawmakers from both parties at the White House later on Wednesday to discuss proposals.

Teenage survivors of the carnage have launched an extraordinary student-led campaign to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the statehouse in Tallahassee for new restrictions on firearms.

Following the shooting, several large American companies said they were ending programs that offered discounts or other benefits to NRA members. Some have faced blowback, particularly in Georgia where a lawmaker said he would try to kill lucrative tax benefits at Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines after it cut ties with the group.

Nonetheless, retailer Dick’s on Wednesday said it was taking action, including banning sales of guns at its stores to anyone under 21 and no longer selling high-capacity ammunition magazines. The company noted that it had sold a firearm to Cruz, although not the one used in the rampage.

“We have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us,” the company’s chief executive, Edward Stack, said in a statement. “Gun violence is an epidemic that’s taking the lives of too many people, including the brightest hope for the future of America – our kids.”

Dick’s had also removed assault-style weapons from its stories after the 2012 massacre of 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, but later returned them to the sales floor.

Cruz was 18 when he bought the gun he is accused of using to attack the school. A Florida court on Wednesday scheduled a hearing to determine whether he has the assets to pay for his own defense.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have faced criticism that they failed to properly follow through on multiple tips warning that Cruz had the potential and capacity for deadly violence.

Sheriff Scott Israel has come under heavy criticism after disclosing that one of his armed deputies, assigned as the school resource officer, stayed outside of the building while it was under attack rather than enter and confront the gunman. The deputy has said he believed the gunman was outside.

The sheriff has acknowledged his office is examining reports from a neighboring police department that three more deputies who were present took cover outside the building with guns drawn rather than go into the school immediately.

(Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Bill Trott)

Gunman kills 26 in rural Texas church during Sunday service

By Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – A man with an assault rifle killed at least 26 people and wounded 20 in a rural Texas church during Sunday services, adding the name of Sutherland Springs to the litany of American communities shattered by mass shootings.

The massacre, which media reports say was carried out by a man thrown out of the Air Force for assaulting his wife and child, is likely to renew questions about why someone with a history of violence could amass an arsenal of lethal weaponry.

The lone gunman, dressed in black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, drove up to the white-steepled First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and started firing inside. He kept shooting once he entered, killing or wounding victims ranging in age from five to 72 years, police told a news conference.

The area around a site of a mass shooting is taped out in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media. MAX MASSEY/ KSAT 12/via REUTERS

President Donald Trump told reporters the shooting was due to a “mental health problem” and wasn’t “a guns situation.” He was speaking during an official visit to Japan.

Among the dead was the 14-year-old daughter of church Pastor Frank Pomeroy, the family told several television stations. One couple, Joe and Claryce Holcombe, told the Washington Post they lost eight extended family members, including their pregnant granddaughter-in-law and three of her children.

The gunman was later found dead, apparently of a gunshot wound, after he fled the scene.

“We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference. “The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship.”

About 40 miles (65 km) east of San Antonio in Wilson County, Sutherland Springs has fewer than 400 residents.

“This would never be expected in a little county like (this),” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told CNN.

A local resident with a rifle fired at the suspect as he left the church. The gunman dropped his Ruger assault weapon and fled in his vehicle, said Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

A man told San Antonio television station KSAT he was driving near the church when the resident who had opened fire on the gunman approached his truck and urged him to give chase.

“He said that we had to get him (the gunman), and so that’s what I did,” Johnnie Langendorff, the driver of the truck, told KSAT. He added they reached speeds of 95 miles (153 km/h) per hour during the chase, while he was on the phone with emergency dispatchers.

Soon afterward, the suspect crashed the vehicle near the border of a neighboring county and was found dead inside with a cache of weapons. It was not immediately clear if he killed himself or was hit when the resident fired at him outside the church, authorities said.

The suspect’s identity was not disclosed by authorities, but law enforcement officials who asked not to be named said he was Devin Patrick Kelley, described as a white, 26-year-old man, the New York Times and other media reported.

“We don’t think he had any connection to this church,” Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CNN. “We have no motive.”

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett gives an update during a news conference at the Stockdale Community Center following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left many dead and injured in Stockdale, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

‘I HIT THE DECK’

The massacre came weeks after a sniper killed 58 people in Las Vegas. It was the deadliest attack in modern U.S. history and rekindled a years-long national debate over whether easy access to firearms was contributing to the trend of mass shootings.

In rural areas like Sutherland Springs, gun ownership is a part of life and the state’s Republican leaders for years have balked at campaigns for gun control, arguing that more firearms among responsible owners make the state safer.

Jeff Forrest, a 36-year-old military veteran who lives a block away from the church, said what sounded like high-caliber, semi-automatic gunfire triggered memories of his four combat deployments with the Marine Corps.

“I was on the porch, I heard 10 rounds go off and then my ears just started ringing,” Forrest said. “I hit the deck and I just lay there.”

To honor the victims, Trump ordered flags on all federal buildings to be flown at half staff.

In Japan during the first leg of a 12-day Asian trip, the president said preliminary reports indicated the shooter was “deranged.”

“This isn’t a guns situation, I mean we could go into it, but it’s a little bit soon to go into it,” Trump said. “But fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise … it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

The First Baptist Church is one of two houses of worship in Sutherland Springs, which also has two gas stations and a Dollar General store.

The white-painted, one-story church features a small steeple and a single front door. On Sunday, the Lone Star flag of Texas was flying alongside the U.S. flag and a third, unidentified banner.

Inside, there is a small raised platform on which members sang worship songs to guitar music and the pastor delivered a weekly sermon, according to videos posted on YouTube. In one of the clips, a few dozen people, including young children, can be seen sitting in the wooden pews.

It was not clear how many worshipers were inside when Sunday’s shooting occurred.

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Online records show a man named Devin Patrick Kelley lived in New Braunfels, Texas, about 35 miles (56 km) north of Sutherland Springs.

The U.S. Air Force said Kelley served in its Logistics Readiness unit at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child, and given a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

Kelley’s Facebook page has been deleted, but cached photos show a profile picture where he appeared with two small children. He also posted a photo of what appeared to be an assault rifle, writing a post that read: “She’s a bad bitch.”

Sunday’s shooting occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in central Texas. A U.S. Army Medical Corps psychiatrist convicted of the killings is awaiting execution.

In 2015, a white gunman killed nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The gunman was sentenced to death for the racially motivated attack.

In September, a gunman killed a woman in the parking lot of a Tennessee church and wounded six worshipers inside.

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Phil Stewart in Washington, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; writing by Frank McGurty; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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