Supreme Court lets stand Maryland’s assault weapons ban — for now

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand Maryland’s decade-old ban on assault weapons, over the objections of conservative justices who were ready to review a lower court’s defense of the law that they called “dubious” and “questionable.”

“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,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion. “We have avoided deciding it for a full decade.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also said they would have agreed to hear the case.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while he did not vote to hear the case, also noted that the high court’s decision not to hear an appeal of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal’s August ruling “does not mean that the Court agrees with a lower-court decision or that the issue is not worthy of review.” He predicted that, with similar cases currently working their way through other circuits, the court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”

But state officials welcomed Monday’s court decision for now.

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today to leave Maryland’s assault weapons ban intact means that a critical law that prevents senseless and preventable deaths will remain in effect,” said a statement from Attorney General Anthony Brown, the target of the appeal.

“Our Office will continue to advocate for gun safety laws at the General Assembly and will defend Maryland’s common-sense gun reforms in court. We will do whatever we can to protect Marylanders from this horrific violence,” his statement said.

Federal appeals court upholds 2013 Maryland assault weapons ban

The high court on Monday also let stand Rhode Island’s 2022 ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch were also ready to hear that case, which challenged a state law that prohibits the possession, sale or transfer of a firearm magazine that holds more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The 2013 Maryland law banning assault weapons came one year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where 26 people, including 20 children, were shot and killed. The shooter in that case used an AR-15-style rifle along with two handguns.

Gun-rights groups quickly challenged the law, and were given more ammunition by a string of recent Supreme Court rulings that vastly expanded protections under the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The 4th Circuit had previously upheld Maryland’s assault weapons ban. But the Supreme Court ordered the circuit court to reconsider that ruling in light of the high court’s 2022 decision in New York State Police & Rifle Association vs. Bruen — in which it the court said citizens did not need a “good and substantial” reason to carry a concealed weapon, the burden was on the government to prove the need for such a restriction.

A divided 4th Circuit ruled 10-5 last August that Maryland’s ban on assault weapons was constitutional, even in light of Bruen. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson III wrote for the majority that weapons such as the AK-47, AR-15 and Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, “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.”

An appeal quickly followed, but the court’s refusal to hear the case means the 4th Circuit ruling stands. In his dissent, Thomas said the appellate court “placed the burden … on the wrong party.”

“The Fourth Circuit erred by requiring the challengers to prove that the Second Amendment protects their right to own AR–15s” when, in fact, the burden is on the government to justify its regulation of the weapons, he wrote.

Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said in a text message he is pleased the Supreme Court upheld the state’s law “for now.”

“Maryland’s Assault Weapons Ban is critical for keeping Marylanders safe. These dangerous weapons like the AR-15 are military-style weapons designed for combat and not protected by the Second Amendment,” Clippinger wrote. “As a country and as a State, we still have more work to do to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. But for today, we celebrate that the Supreme Court has allowed our Assault Weapons Ban to remain.”

Nine other states, Washington, D.C., and other cities have approved similar bans on assault weapons. But Kavanaugh wrote that an estimated 15 million to 20 million Americans “possess” an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

“Meaning that the States such as Maryland that prohibit AR–15s are something of an outlier,” he wrote.

That’s why Mark Pennak, president of the gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue, said in a brief interview Monday he agrees with Kavanaugh that other pending cases will provide an opportunity.

“Because there are other cases that are pending out there involving the same issue … let the issue percolate some more which is standard Supreme Court practice,” he said. “This issue is not over.”