Newswise — The decision on Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal regarding a municipal assault weapons ban in Illinois leaves the scope of the Second Amendment right to own a gun highly ambiguous, an expert on legal issues surrounding gun control in the United States said.

The case, Friedman v. City of Highland Park, concerns the constitutionality of a 2013 ordinance, which prohibited the sale, purchase, or possession of semi-automatic guns, including those used with magazines with more than ten rounds of ammunition. The brief order denying review of the ordinance offered no explanation.

“This decision is likely to stoke political debate on gun control and further litigation, especially in the wake of the recent rash of mass shootings,” said Timothy Lytton, a professor of law at Georgia State University's College of Law and author of the book Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts.

Lytton has appeared in a number of media outlets as an expert on gun violence and lawsuits against the industry, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, MSNBC and WXIA-TV as well as several public radio stations. He also recently wrote an opinion piece “Milwaukee Case Could Encourage Gun Stores to Reduce Illegal Sales” that was published in Newsweek.

Read more about Timothy Lytton at http://law.gsu.edu/profile/timothy-d-lytton/. Contact information for the professor is available in the box above for logged-in, registered Newswise users.