The Second Amendment Foundation has submitted a reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in its effort to obtain a preliminary injunction against the Connecticut ban on so-called “assault weapons” in a case filed in September 2022. The case is known as Grant v. Lamont.
SAF is joined by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens, Michael Stiefel, Jennifer Hamilton and Eddie Grant, Jr.,. for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys Doug Dubitsky of North Windham, Craig L. Atkinson of Harwinton and Craig Fishbein of Wallingford, all in Connecticut.
“We’re asking the Court of Appeals to reverse a district court ruling which denied our preliminary injunction request and remand the case back to the district court for action in compliance with the Supreme Court’s guidelines in the 2022 Bruen ruling,” explained SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The state wants this case decided on raw emotion rather than the rule of law as defined by the Supreme Court, which did away with ‘interest balancing’ as a foundation for ruling on Second Amendment-related cases.”
“The 2022 Bruen decision expressly forbids courts from considering sensationalized portrayals of firearms when considering whether the Second Amendment protects their possession,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The state has erroneously described modern semiautomatic rifles as ‘weapons of war,’ which is simply not true.”
“We are not asking the court to recognize a new constitutional right,” Gottlieb added. “All we are asking is that the court faithfully apply existing precedent and recognize a right Connecticut citizens have always possessed under the constitution. After all, Connecticut is the ‘Constitution State.’”
