WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear two major gun cases challenging a Maryland law that bans assault-style weapons, including the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that has been used in high-profile mass shootings, and a Rhode Island restriction on large-capacity magazines.
As a result, the two laws remain in effect. Litigation over similar bans across the country is ongoing, and the issue is likely to return to the justices.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that has expanded gun rights but has also shown a reluctance in recent months to take up a new case on the scope of the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment.
It seems likely the court will take up the assault weapons issue soon, with three conservative justices saying they voted to take it up and another, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying he would like the justices to hear a case on the issue in the next couple of years.
Four votes are needed for the court to hear a case.
Kavanaugh wrote in a separate statement that the ruling that upheld the Maryland ban is “questionable” under the court’s recent precedents, adding that “in my view, this court should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon.”
He noted that millions of Americans own AR-15s, making Maryland’s ban “something of an outlier.”
The court in a major 2022 ruling expanded gun rights by finding for the first time that the right to bear arms extends outside the home.
That has led to a wave of both new restrictions being imposed in some states and court rulings that have struck down some long-standing gun laws. Both these developments have led to a flurry of appeals at the court asking the justices to clarify the scope of the 2022 ruling.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who along with Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch wanted to hear the Maryland case, wrote a dissenting opinion saying that the Maryland law was most likely not consistent with the 2022 ruling.
“It is difficult to see how Maryland’s categorical prohibition on AR-15s passes muster under this framework,” he wrote.
The Maryland law bans what the state calls “assault weapons” akin to weapons of war like the M16 rifle as well as the AR-15. The measure became law in 2013 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed the previous year.
That law was upheld by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals before the Supreme Court’s 2022. A new set of plaintiffs then filed a lawsuit, and the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to take a second look at the issue. It reached the same conclusion in an August 2024 ruling.
“The assault weapons at issue fall outside the ambit of protection offered by the Second Amendment because, in essence, they are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” the court concluded.
The Rhode Island law, enacted just before the Supreme Court issued the 2022 ruling, prevents people from possessing magazines that contain more than 10 rounds.
Lower courts, including the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld the ban, which was challenged by four gun owners and a firearms store called Big Bear Hunting and Fishing Supply.
The Supreme Court last July sidestepped multiple gun-related disputes soon after it issued a ruling that upheld a federal law that prohibits people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
In a case that did not directly address the right to bear arms, the court on March 26 upheld a Biden administration bid to regulate “ghost gun” kits that can be easily assembled to make firearms.
