US Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenge to Maryland Assault Rifle Ban
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s Democratic-backed ban on assault-style rifles, such as AR-15s, opting to let the litigation continue in lower courts.
The justices refused to consider an appeal by commercial firearms dealers, gun rights groups, and several Maryland residents who argued that the ban violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
The challengers sought a Supreme Court decision on the ban’s legality before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, issues its ruling.
Other appeals challenging similar laws, including a ban on assault rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines in Illinois, remain pending before the Supreme Court. The justices did not address these cases on Monday.
The availability of assault rifles, which are popular among gun enthusiasts, continues to fuel a heated national debate over how to address firearm violence, including frequent mass shootings.
The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has historically taken an expansive view of Second Amendment rights.
In 2022, the Court recognized a constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, striking down New York state limits on carrying concealed firearms.
The Court is expected to rule by the end of June on two significant cases affecting gun rights. One challenges a federal law preventing individuals under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.
The other contests a federal ban on “bump stocks,” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns.
Maryland enacted its ban on “military-style assault rifles,” including the semiautomatic AR-15 and AK-47, in 2013, following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a shooter used such a weapon to kill 20 children and six adults.
The Maryland plaintiffs, including residents seeking to buy the banned weapons, a firearms dealer named Field Traders, and three gun rights groups, sued the state in 2020.
They contested the term “assault weapon” as a political misnomer, arguing that these firearms cannot be banned outright because they are in common use by millions of law-abiding citizens.
The 4th Circuit dismissed their case, referencing a 2017 ruling by the same court that upheld Maryland’s ban.
The court had concluded that, under the Supreme Court’s 2008 precedent, assault weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment because they are akin to “weapons of war” most useful in military service.
After the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the New York case, the justices asked the 4th Circuit to revisit the Maryland plaintiffs’ case.
The 4th Circuit decided in January to rehear the matter before its full slate of judges, and that review is still pending.
