The Supreme Court also rejected a challenge to Rhode Island’s magazine ban, leaving both laws intact for now, with three justices dissenting.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two high-profile challenges to state gun-control laws—one in Maryland banning semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15, and another in Rhode Island prohibiting magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
Both denials came in a June 2 orders list that did not provide an explanation for the denials. However, three justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—dissented, indicating they would have taken up the cases.
In the Maryland case, sometimes referred to as an “assault weapons” ban, Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the majority in its decision to deny review, but said the Supreme Court “should and presumably will” address the constitutionality of AR-15 bans within the next term or two.
Maryland Case
The Maryland case, known as Snope v. Brown, involved a 2013 law enacted in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, which bars the sale and possession of 45 named semiautomatic rifles and similar “copycat” weapons. The challengers of the ban argued in court filings that rifles like the AR-15 are among the most popular firearms in the country, lawfully owned by millions for self-defense and sporting purposes, and therefore are protected under the Second Amendment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the law last year, reasoning that firearms like the AR-15 fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment’s protections. Writing for the majority, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said the law fits “comfortably within our nation’s tradition of firearms regulation,” likening it to historical efforts to restrict weapons deemed excessively dangerous.
In dissent, Judge Julius Richardson rejected that view, saying that Maryland’s ban “cannot pass constitutional muster” because the law targets weapons “commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” He warned that treating the Second Amendment as a limited or lesser right risks undermining its constitutional standing.
Justice Thomas echoed those concerns in his dissent from the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, while criticizing the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning as “dubious at least twice over.”
“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. We have avoided deciding it for a full decade.”
By Tom Ozimek
