Supreme Court kicks the can on AR-15 ban

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court declined on Monday to extend the decades-old battle over Maryland’s assault weapons ban to its docket next term, but the ceasefire might only be temporary as bans on the popular AR-15 pop up around the country.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, lamented his colleagues’ dodge, noting the justices have been snubbing questions over the legality of assault weapon bans for over a decade.

“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,” Thomas wrote in dissent. “That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also would have granted the petition, signaling a 6-3 divide over the issue. The high court typically requires four votes to review a petition.

The majority did not explain its denial, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, suggested that some justices may want to review the prohibitions in a different context.

“Opinions from other courts of appeals should assist this court’s ultimate decisionmaking on the AR–15 issue,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this court shortly and, in my view, this court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next term or two.”

Maryland banned AR-15-style rifles after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. State law prohibits the sale, transfer, purchase or receipt of an assault long gun or any copycat weapon. This includes AR-15-style rifles with detachable magazines and either a folding stock or grenade launcher.

The state said its law bans the highly dangerous, military-style assault weapons that have been used in a series of highly publicized mass shootings and argues that, because AR-15s are like the military’s M16s, they are not protected by the Second Amendment.

David Snope, a Maryland resident, sued the state in 2020, arguing that prohibiting him from buying an AR-15 rifle violated his Second Amendment rights. A lower court dismissed Snope’s complaint, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

The case was revived, however, after the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen , which created a new historical test for gun regulations.

The Fourth Circuit reheard the case but held its decision for over a year. Snope asked the justices to intervene, but the high court refused.

Back at the appeals court, Snope faced another defeat. The en banc panel dismissed his appeal for a second time, holding that AR-15 rifles are not “arms” under the Second Amendment.

Snope argued that the Fourth Circuit turned a firearm possessed by millions of Americans into an item without constitutional protection.

“That Maryland’s ban reaches the most popular rifle in the country suggests that, if the decision below is correct, then no firearm in the country is protected except for the handguns that this Court squarely considered in Heller ,” Snope wrote, referring to the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller .

In Heller , Thomas said, the high court found that handguns were protected by the Second Amendment because they belong to a class of arms that is overwhelmingly chosen by the American people for self-defense.

Thomas said the Fourth Circuit should have used the “common use inquiry” to find that AR-15s are lawful. However, the appeals court declined to do so out of fear that it would result in absurd consequences like a constitutional right to own a bazooka or W54 nuclear warhead.

“To fend off the fantastical threat of Americans lobbing nuclear warheads at one another, the Fourth Circuit has allowed the very real threat of the government depriving Americans of the rifle that they most favor for protecting themselves and their families,” Thomas wrote. “Looking to the standards set ‘by American society’ rather than our judicial colleagues, I cannot see how AR–15s fall outside the Second Amendment’s protection.”

Earlier this year, the justices refused to take up another Second Amendment challenge to Maryland’s handgun licensing regulations.

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