GIFFORDS Law Center urges Supreme Court to uphold assault weapons bans in amicus brief

WASHINGTON — Today, GIFFORDS Law Center, the legal arm of the national gun safety group GIFFORDS, filed an amicus brief in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, urging the Supreme Court to uphold the assault weapons bans in place in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut. The full brief can be found here. 

GIFFORDS Law Center was initially founded as the Legal Community Against Violence in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 1993 at 101 California Street in San Francisco. In the brief, GIFFORDS Law Center argues that assault weapons bans are a proper legislative response to mass shootings, and are in line with the Second Amendment. The brief shows how in the wake of tragedies like the shootings at 101 California Street and Sandy Hook, communities came together to regulate the weapons used in these crimes. When elected representatives pass assault weapons bans, they are acting on the will of their constituents and fulfilling the government’s fundamental duty to protect its citizens from dangerous weapons. 

“The assault weapons bans challenged in these petitions were proposed, debated, and adopted by American communities in the aftermath of devastating mass shootings. In the wake of these unspeakable tragedies, the impacted communities—acting through their democratically elected representatives—chose to mitigate novel and serious threats to public safety by restricting access to the unusually dangerous weapons commonly used in these tragedies.”

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“The enactment of the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 was representative democracy at work: Elected legislators implemented policy that their constituents demanded to protect the safety of their communities.”

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“Just before 3:00 PM on the first day of July 1993, a gunman armed with assault weapons stepped off the elevator into the law offices of Pettit & Martin at 101 California Street in San Francisco, California. ‘[S]hooting indiscriminately into glass-walled conference rooms and offices,’ the gunman murdered eight people and wounded six others. In the wake of the shooting, survivors and local attorneys founded the Legal Community Against Violence, the first iteration of Giffords Law Center. 

“Three months after the 101 California Street shooting, the Cook County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance restricting the possession of assault weapons, determining that “assault weapons are twenty times more likely to be used in the commission of a crime than other kinds of weapons.” Based on its “finding[s] of public health and welfare concerns caused by both assault weapons and firearms in general,” the Board of Commissioners effected the community’s will to reduce the threat of mass shootings and other gun violence.”

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“The challenged laws fit comfortably within a long history of action by elected officials to protect their constituents from violence perpetrated with unusually dangerous weapons.”

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“Former Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan wrote a joint letter to Congress urging passage of the assault weapon ban. ‘This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety. . . . We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons.’ Representative Scott Klug, a Wisconsin Republican, changed his vote to support the ban after receiving a handwritten note from President Reagan that called it ‘absolutely necessary.’”