WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

steered clear on Tuesday of another major dispute over gun

rights, turning away appeals of a judicial ruling backing a

Democratic-backed ban in Illinois on assault-style rifles such

as AR-15s.

The justices declined to hear a group of cases appealing a

lower court's rejection of the challengers' argument that the

ban violates the right to keep and bear arms under U.S.

Constitution's Second Amendment.

The legal dispute centers on whether assault rifles are

weapons that are chiefly useful in military service and thus may

be subject to a ban. The Supreme Court, in a landmark 2008

ruling expanding gun rights, noted that "M-16 rifles and the

like" are not protected under the Second Amendment.

The availability of assault rifles, which are popular among

gun enthusiasts, continues to fuel fierce debate in a nation

bitterly divided over how to address firearms violence including

frequent mass shootings.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority,

has taken an expansive view of Second Amendment rights.

In 2022, the court recognized a constitutional right to

carry a handgun in public for self defense in a decision that

struck down New York state gun limits on carrying concealed

firearms.

That ruling established a legal standard that could make it

harder for lower courts to sustain new or existing gun

regulations, requiring such measures to be comparable with the

nation's "historical tradition" of firearm restrictions.

However, the court clarified on June 21 that modern

restrictions need a historical "analogue" but not a "twin" in a

ruling that upheld a federal gun possession ban targeting

domestic abusers, signaling the limits of the Bruen standard.

A federal assault weapon ban enacted in 1994 lapsed a decade

later and has not been renewed by Congress despite Democratic

efforts. In the absence of broad action by Congress on gun

control, some states have enacted various measures, often

drawing legal challenges on Second Amendment grounds.

The Illinois law bans the sale and distribution of many

kinds of high-powered semiautomatic "assault weapons," including

AK-47 and AR-15 rifles, as well as magazines that take more than

10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns. The ban was

passed in 2023 after a massacre at a 2022 Independence Day

parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park that killed seven

people.

Several groups of plaintiffs contested the state's ban on

assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in federal and

state courts.

The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in

November 2023 that the challengers were unlikely to succeed in

their challenges, in part because the Second Amendment does not

apply to the banned rifles and magazines, which it concluded

"are much more like machine guns and military-grade weaponry

than they are like the many different types of firearms that are

used for individual self-defense."

The Supreme Court previously rebuffed efforts by certain of

the plaintiffs to block the Illinois law as the litigation

played out.

In court papers, Illinois said that 14 states have enacted

laws restricting certain types of semiautomatic firearms or

magazines that allow shooters to fire rapidly without reloading

"making them the instruments of choice in mass shootings."

The Supreme Court on May 20 declined to hear a challenge to

a Democratic-backed ban in Maryland on assault-style rifles

while that litigation continues in a lower court.

The justices also acted on another important gun-related

case this year, rejecting on June 14 a federal ban on "bump

stock" devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly

like machine guns.