A second gun rights organization is bringing a lawsuit against Vermont over firearm restrictions passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor earlier this year.

In its filing, Gun Owners of Vermont says the legislation was the result of a “knee-jerk, emotional reaction” that was “hastily slapped together.”

The organization, based in Windham County where the lawsuit is filed, is asking a judge to rule provisions of the law unconstitutional and impose an injunction to prevent them from going into effect.

The filing comes as another gun rights organization and advocates made their latest filing in a lawsuit filed this spring, which the state wants a judge to dismiss.

A ban on high-capacity magazines is set to go into effect on Oct. 1.

Both lawsuits seeks to overturn provisions of S.55, a bill that enacted historic restrictions on firearms in a state that previously had been known for its permissive gun laws.

Gun Owners of Vermont, based in Westminster, is challenging three of the law’s provisions that were not taken up in the earlier lawsuit, which focused solely on the establishment of a limit on magazine sizes for firearms.

While the vice chairman of the Vermont Republican Party is the lead attorney for the magazine ban challenge, which also has received support from the National Rifle Association, the second lawsuit was filed last week with little fanfare.

Gun Owners of Vermont is targeting the bill’s provisions that increase the age to purchase a firearm to 21, expands background checks to private sales, and bans bump stock rapid-firing devices.

“Despite Vermont’s history of protecting civil rights, and despite its record of nonviolent and responsible firearms use, the government has curtailed the people’s fundamental rights with a flurry of hastily slapped together measures passed and signed into law in 2018,” the lawsuit says.

The filing adds, “This legislation is a knee-jerk, emotional reaction that solves no problem.”

S.55 was part of a blitz of gun legislation that came after the governor said in mid-February he was “jolted” by details in the case against an 18-year-old Poultney, Vt., man in what police said was a foiled school shooting plot in Fair Haven, Vt.

Jack Sawyer, now 19, was arrested just days after a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead.

Michael Shane, a White River Junction attorney and Vermont Law School graduate representing Gun Owners of Vermont, could not immediately be reached Monday for comment.

The filing names as defendants Col. Matthew Birmingham, the director of the Vermont State Police, and two prosecutors: Tracey Shriver Kelly, Windham County state’s attorney, and TJ Donovan, the state’s attorney general.

Vermont Solicitor General Benjamin Battles of the Attorney General’s Office said on Monday that he had just heard about the Gun Owners of Vermont lawsuit, and had not been served a copy of the filing.

He added that the state “look(s) forward to defending Vermont’s laws before the Windham superior court.”

The lawsuit claims all three provisions of S.55 the group is challenging violate Article 16 of the Vermont Constitution, which says that “people have the right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state.”

In addition, the lawsuit alleges increasing the age to purchase a gun to 21 violates the “common benefits” clause of the Article 7 on the Vermont Constitution, which mandates equal protection under the law

“In this case, the government has singled out a group people under 21 years old and curtailed their fundamental rights,” the lawsuit says. “Furthermore, that curtailment serves no legitimate government purpose.”

The age restriction provision of S.55 does exempt law enforcement and military personnel, as well as those who have taken a hunter safety course.

Gun Owners of Vermont is not challenging the magazine limit provision of the legislation because that part of the law already is being challenged by sportsmen groups, firearms dealers and others, in Washington County court, as part of a lawsuit filed shortly after the legislation was signed into law in April.