WASHINGTON – A split Supreme Court on Monday rejected a pair of gun rights cases, though one conservative justice predicted the court would soon consider whether assault weapons bans are constitutional.
The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the cases over high-capacity magazines and state bans on guns like the AR-15, popular weapons that have also been used in mass shootings.
But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that assault-weapons bans are constitutional.
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken a case challenging Maryland’s ban, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,” Thomas wrote. “That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the decision to pass on the case now but indicated that he is skeptical such bans are constitutional and that he expects the court will address the issue “in the next term or two.”
The Maryland law was passed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter was armed with an AR-15, one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon.
Several states have similar measures, and congressional Democrats have also supported the concept. The challengers had argued that people have a constitutional right to own the firearms like the AR-15, which most gun owners use legally.
The case comes nearly three years after the high court handed down a landmark ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country.
Ten states and the District of Columbia have similar laws, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.
The gun control group Everytown Law applauded the high court’s action, saying the measures make communities safer. “We will fight to ensure the courts continue to uphold these life-saving laws,” said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment litigation.
More than twice as many people died in mass shootings in which large-capacity magazines and assault weapons were used between 2015 and 2022, the group said.
Attorneys for Maryland argued the guns aren’t protected by the Constitution because they’re similar to military-grade weapons. The law bans dozens of firearms — including the AR-15, the AK-47 and the Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle — and puts a 10-round limit on gun magazines.
The gun rights group Second Amendment Foundation said it has seven other cases challenging the bans and plans to continue to “aggressively litigate” them. “Millions of Americans continue to be disenfranchised from exercising their complete Second Amendment rights by virtue of these categorical bans,” Executive Director Adam Kraut said.
The high court also rebuffed a bid to overturn state bans on high-capacity gun magazines in a case out of Rhode Island. Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch said they would have heard the case. More than a dozen states have similar laws limiting the amount of ammunition a magazine can hold.
Thomas and Kavanaugh have previously expressed skepticism about assault weapon bans.
As an appeals court judge in 2011, Kavanaugh wrote a dissent saying that a similar measure in Washington, D.C., was unconstitutional. Thomas, meanwhile, dissented in 2015 when the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a municipal ban on AR-15-style weapons, writing that the “overwhelming majority” of people who owned the weapons used them for lawful purposes like self-defense.
The high court in 2022 handed down a ruling that expanded gun rights and told lower-court judges they should no longer consider factors like public safety in deciding whether firearm laws are constitutional. Instead, they should focus on whether a law fits into the nation’s historic tradition of gun ownership, the court said.
That led to a flurry of challenges to gun laws around the country, multiple restrictions struck down, and confusion among lower-court judges over what gun laws can stay on the books.
Since then, the Supreme Court has overturned a ban on rapid-fire gun accessories called bump stocks but upheld a law barring people under domestic-violence restraining orders from having guns and regulations on nearly untraceable ghost guns.
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