Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh hinted that the nation’s higest court could very soon hear a case that involves whether possessing assault weapons like AR-15s are protected by the Second Amendment.
The news comes the Supreme Court declined to take up a case that involves whether possessing AR-15s is protected by the Second Amendment.
However, Kavanaugh and the court’s other conservatives are signaling they soon will.
Only three justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — voted to hear a challenge to Maryland’s ban on possessing AR-15s, barely falling short of the four votes required to take up a case.
“In my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two,” Kavanaugh wrote in a three-page written statement, obtained by The Hill.
Kavanaugh, President Trump’s second appointee to the court, called Maryland’s law “questionable.” But he stressed the issue is currently being considered by several appeals courts that are weighing other states’ bans.
Maryland is one of nine states that have banned the possession of AR-15s, the most popular civilian rifle in America. Maryland enacted its law in 2013 following the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s law by ruling AR-15s are not “constitutionally protected arms” under the Second Amendment.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves intact that ruling.
The trio of other conservative justices said they would’ve taken up the issue now.
“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America. 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,” Thomas wrote in a solo, written dissent.