The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun-rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 — the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation.
“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,” Justice Thomas wrote.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the court’s decision to let the Maryland law stand, for now, but wrote separately to call the appeals court ruling “questionable.”
Kavanaugh said that he expects the high court to weigh in formally on the legality of the AR-15 in the “next term or two.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court denied an appeal filed by a group of gun rights activists who wanted to use the Second Amendment to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and magazines with a large capacity.
A significant victory for proponents of gun control, the decision upholds a Fourth Circuit U.S. ruling. S. The state may constitutionally forbid the sale and possession of firearms, according to the Court of Appeals.
The state law, which was passed in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, targets the AR-15, which is the most widely used rifle in America, with 20–30 million in use. Of the 50 states, forty-one allow them.
The decision was dissented from by Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas, who stated that they would have pursued the case to reach a national decision. Other state bans are still being challenged in lower courts.
Justice Thomas wrote, “I wouldn’t wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America.”. Throughout the nation, tens of millions of law-abiding AR-15 owners find the question to be crucial. “.”.
While concurring with the court’s decision to uphold the Maryland law for the time being, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to describe the appeals court’s decision as “questionable.”. The high court will formally weigh in on the legality of the AR-15 in the “next term or two,” according to Kavanaugh. “,”.
Following the passage of several laws intended to restrict access to dangerous firearms, Maryland has witnessed a decrease in gun violence.
Authorities specifically attribute the slowdown in online sales of untraceable firearms to a number of federal, state, and local restrictions on gun kits that were put in place in 2022 and 2023. These restrictions included requiring background and age checks on purchasers and outright prohibiting the sale of certain kits in Maryland.
