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WASHINGTON – The closely divided Supreme Court refused Monday to hear the second amendment challenge to the ban on semi-automatic rifles in Maryland, California and eight other blue states.
Gun rights advocates argue that these AR-15s are owned by millions of Americans, and the Second Amendment protects weapons “commonly used by law-abiding citizens.”
But they did not win a hearing on questions in the Supreme Court.
Three conservatives – Judge Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch voted to hear the second amendment assignment.
However, Judge Brett M. Cavanaugh has now refused to win the main fourth vote. He called the lower court’s ruling in favor of the Maryland ban “suspecting” as “suspecting,” but for now he agreed with the majority when denying the appeal.
“In my view, this court will need to address the issue of AR -15 immediately in the next semester and perhaps the next semester,” Kavanaugh said.
A closely monitored appeal has been pending since December, and the results suggest that a majority, including Secretary John G. Roberts Jr., are not prepared to break state laws restricting semi-automatic guns.
Monday’s no-comment order allows Maryland and Rhode Island laws to prohibit the sale or possession of “attack weapons” and large-capacity magazines.
California adopted the country’s first ban on assault weapons in 1989. Since then, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington have passed similar laws.
Lawmakers from California and nine other democratically-led states say these rapid fire weapons are particularly dangerous and are not needed for self-defense.
Maryland said the ban would apply to “the kind of extremely dangerous military-style offensive weapons used in a series of highly publicized mass shootings.”
The lawsuit tested the scope of the second amendment and its “right to maintain and endure weapons.”
For more than a decade, judges have avoided correct gun charges that challenged local or state bans against assault weapons.
In 2008, the court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment protects individuals’ rights to individual self-defense, but the constitutional rulings since then have been modest in their impact.
They ruled that judges may break down city ordinances in Washington and Chicago, prohibiting private possession of handguns and not denying permission for the state to carry concealed weapons.
Polls show that most Americans oppose the ban on handgun possession, but they support the ban on semi-automatic attack rifles.
Maryland passed a ban on “attack weapons” after a massive shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
The law was supported last year in opinions written by a prominent conservative judge.
Reagan’s appointee J. Harvey Wilkinson, who was a finalist in the Supreme Court nomination in 2005, said the AR-15, AK-47 and similar rapid fire rifles were not protected by the second amendment.
“They are military style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are inappropriate and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” he wrote in a 9-5 decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. “We refuse to exercise the Constitution and declare that the military-style weapons that have become the main tool for mass murder and terrorist attacks in the United States are beyond the scope of our country’s democratic processes.”
Opponents said the second amendment would protect the rights to commonly used “weapons.”
“Today, the AR-15 and its variations are one of the most popular and widely owned firearms in the country,” wrote Trump appointee Judge Julius Richardson.
“As of 2021, there are at least 28 million AR-style semi-automatic rifles in the circulation. For context, this means that the private market has more AR-style rifles than the Ford F-series pickup trucks, the most popular truck in America.”
Three years ago, the court said in its opinion by Thomas that the second amendment should be interpreted based on the history and tradition of the nation’s gun control.
But both sides of the Maryland incidents differed in what they would collect from their history.
Supporters of Gun-Rights said there is no early history of legislation banning common firearms.
However, some judges and state lawyers said history shows that new restrictions were written in the law when new dangers occurred, including stored gunpowder, dynamite and machine guns. If so, it would support a new law adopted in response to the dangers posed by the weapons of rapid fire.
Justice refused to review in the case of Snope vs. Brown.
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