The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit [opinion, PDF] brought by more than 100 Seattle police officers who claimed the city’s new guidelines [text] on using force jeopardized their safety, ruling that the officers’ claims were unsubstantiated by the Constitution.

In the opinion, the court stated:

The City of Seattle has a significant interest in regulating the use of department-issued firearms by it police officers, and the UF Policy does not impose a substantial burden on the Second Amendment right to use a firearm for the core lawful purpose of self-defense. We conclude that the UF Policy is constitutional under the Second Amendment because there is a reasonable fit between the UF Policy and the City of Seattle’s important government interest in ensuring the safety of both the public and its police officers.

The Seattle Police Department adopted the policy in 2012 as part of a settlement agreement [JURIST report] with the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] after the DOJ found that Seattle police routinely used excessive force that could have been defused.