a number of local governments in the Chicago area have laws that either prohibit or regulate the possession of firearms that they define as assault weapons. These include the city of Chicago and Cook County. On December 7, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to grant a writ of certiorari to take up a challenge brought against a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit which had upheld a local law banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. In refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court allowed the ruling to stand and the ban to remain in place. Indiana In March 1989 the Northwest Indiana cities of Gary and East Chicago city councils passed ordinances prohibiting both sale and possession of assault weapons. Gary City Councilman Vernon G. Smith (D-4th) sponsored the ordinance making it a crime to possess or sell assault-type weapons. Both of these ordinances were invalidated under statewide pre-emption legislation enacted by the Indiana General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Mitch Daniels in 2011. Massachusetts Boston has a law prohibiting the possession or transfer of assault weapons without a license from the Boston Police Commissioner. Public opinion Shortly after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, a CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans (57%) supported a ban on assault weapons. Gallup noted a similarly high percentage of Americans thought that a ban would be an effective response to terrorism after the 2015 San Bernardino attack (55%), and in 2013 when the question was put in a referendum format ("Would you vote for or against a law that would reinstate and strengthen the ban on assault weapons that was in place from 1994 to 2004?") (56% support). But it noted that "Support for stricter gun control laws often rises after high-profile shooting incidents and then often subsides again," and that support for stricter gun controls, although still a majority view, had declined since the early 1990s. By October 2016, support for an assault weapons ban had fallen to a historical low of 36%. In 2017, 68% of American adults supported banning assault weapons, including 48% of gun owners and 77% of non-gun owners, and 38% of Republicans who own guns and 66% of Democrats who own guns, according to a Pew Research Center survey with an error attributable to sampling