Gun control advocates achieved a win in a closely watched Second Amendment case when a federal appeals court upheld Maryland's ban on semiautomatic weapons equipped with high-capacity magazines, The Hill reported on Wednesday.

The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in a 10-5 vote on Tuesday that Maryland's law complies with the Supreme Court's recent expansion of gun rights, with Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III writing for the majority that "we decline to wield the Constitution to declare that military-style armaments which have become primary instruments of mass killing and terrorist attacks in the United States are beyond the reach of our nation's democratic processes."

Maryland passed the law in 2013 after 20 children and six adults were killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Wilkinson said Maryland's law is still constitutional even under the more stringent standard that the Supreme Court established with an expansion of Second Amendment rights two years ago.

The 4th Circuit had previously upheld the law, but the Supreme Court sent the case back for another examination to check if it upheld the more stringent standard.

Wilkinson wrote that "the assault weapons at issue fall outside the ambit of protection offered by the Second Amendment because, in essence, they are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense."

The judge added that "the Maryland law fits comfortably within our nation's tradition of firearms regulation. It is but another example of a state regulating excessively dangerous weapons once their incompatibility with a lawful and safe society becomes apparent, while nonetheless preserving avenues for armed self-defense."

Five judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, dissented, The Hill reported, with Judge Julius Richardson writing in the dissent that the majority "disregards the Founders' wisdom and replaces it with its own."

Richardson added that "while history and tradition support the banning of weapons that are both dangerous and unusual, Maryland's ban cannot pass constitutional muster as it prohibits the possession of arms commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes," and the court should not "grant states historically unprecedented leeway to trammel the constitutional liberties of their citizens."

In addition, Richardson accused the majority of trading "in tropes and hyperbole to portray the AR-15 as a menacing weapon with no other utility than the slaughtering of enemy combatants and innocents," declaring that "not only is this picture untrue, but it also demonizes the millions of Americans who lawfully keep these weapons to defend themselves and their communities," CNN reported.

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