If Hillary Clinton Bans Assault Weapons, Would It Be Constitutional?

Here's what would drive the inevitable constitutional challenges to an assault-weapons ban.

An attendee looks over rifles in the ArmaLite, Inc. booth on the exhibition floor of the 144th National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., on Saturday, April 11, 2015
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Confidential tip?

Send a tip to our reporters

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

By Paul Barrett

October 19, 2015 at 5:15 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Stepping up her anti-gun, anti-NRA rhetoric, Hillary Clinton says that if elected president she'd push for a revival of the so-called assault-weapons ban. Would that pass constitutional muster?

Federal laws in place between 1994 and 2004 banned certain military-style semiautomatic rifles with detachable large-capacity ammunition magazines. Whether that was a good idea from a policy perspective has been hotly debated. To the chagrin of gun-control proponents, the ban had no discernible effect on crime levels, according to studies conducted in 1997 and 2004. Then the law expired, and the National Rifle Association persuaded Congress not to renew it.