The U.S. Supreme Court backed the rights of individuals to carry stun guns for self-defense, unanimously siding with a woman convicted of carrying an electrical weapon in a Massachusetts parking lot.
In a five-paragraph ruling that to some degree glossed over disagreements on the scope of the Constitution’s Second Amendment, the justices said a Massachusetts court used faulty reasoning in upholding the state’s ban on possession of stun guns.
The justices said the state court’s reasoning was inconsistent with the landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling that said the Constitution protects individual rights to possess guns.
“The explanation the Massachusetts court offered for upholding the law contradicts this court’s precedent,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion.
The ruling is a victory for Jaime Caetano, who had said she was protecting herself from an abusive ex-boyfriend. Caetano didn’t serve any jail time for the conviction. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Massachusetts court without explicitly saying what should happen with Caetano’s conviction.
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