The ban in question was passed into law in Connecticut following the infamous 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 children and six adults dead at the hands of shooter Adam Lanza and an AR-15 military-style rifle. Now, almost four years after that shooting, the Supreme Court is set to give a look-in to a challenge mounted against the law banning weapons like the AR-15 in Connecticut, just days after a similar weapon was used to carry out one of the deadliest mass-shootings in US history in Orlando, Florida. On Sunday, at least 50 people were shot and killed at Orlando nightclub Pulse by a man carrying a rifle reported to be an AR-15.
Obama renews call
In the wake of the devastating shooting, US President Barack Obama has renewed his call for tougher gun laws in the United States. Speaking yesterday, he labeled the Orlando shooting as ‘a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people at a school, or a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or a nightclub,’ tying the Orlando shooting into a wider and growing body of gun violence in the US that includes the massacres at Sandy Hook in 2012, the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church almost exactly one year ago in Charleston, South Carolina. However, Obama did not immediately elaborate on precisely which changes he wanted to see from US lawmakers.
Source: National Law Journal; Wall Street Journal
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