The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Hawaiian county law that allows government to limit the number and type of carry permits for firearms within the limits of the Second Amendment, a decision that will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, the Los Angeles Times reports.

In a 7-4 decision on a case heard by the entire panel of judges, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling comes during a two week period when two tragic mass shootings by people who legally purchased and carried weapons within days of committing multiple murders.

“The government may regulate, and even prohibit, in public places — including government buildings, churches, schools, and markets — the open carrying of small arms capable of being concealed, whether they are carried concealed or openly,” Judge Jay Bybee, appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote for the majority.

The decision echoes language, written by Justice Antonin Scalia in the Heller case, which expresses states that governments can limit the right to own and possess weapons.

“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms” Scalia wrote in the majority opinion in 2008.

The case arose from a challenge, supported by the National Rifle Association, to a rule on County of Hawaii law that requires people who wish to openly carry a gun be limited to individuals who are hunting or those “engaged in the protection of life and property.”