The U.S. Supreme Court has once again kicked the can down the legal road by declining to hear a challenge of a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” in an Illinois case.
Earlier the high court also declined review of a challenge to the semi-auto ban in Maryland, essentially leaving in place a situational split in the country where ten states and the District of Columbia ban modern semiautomatic rifles while they remain legal in the other 40 states.
According to ABC News, Justice Samuel Alito dissented with the decision, and Justice Clarence Thomas expressed hopes the high court will eventually take a gun ban case after lower courts have ruled.
TGM obtained a copy of Justice Thomas’ statement. In it, he said, “We have never squarely addressed what types of weapons are “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment. To be sure, we explained in District of Columbia v. Heller…that the Second Amendment’s protection ‘extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’ And, we noted that ‘the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,’ recognizing ‘the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons’…But, this minimal guidance is far from a comprehensive framework for evaluating restrictions on types of weapons…
“The Seventh Circuit’s decision illustrates why this Court must provide more guidance on which weapons the Second Amendment covers. By contorting what little guidance our precedents provide, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the Second Amendment does not protect ‘militaristic’ weapons…It then tautologically defined ‘militaristic’ weapons as those ‘that may be reserved for military use.’…The Seventh Circuit’s contrived “non-militaristic” limitation on the Arms protected by the Second Amendment seems unmoored from both text and history.”
But Thomas closed his comments by noting, “if the Seventh Circuit ultimately allows Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, we can—and should—review that decision once the cases reach a final judgment. The Court must not permit ‘the Seventh Circuit [to] relegat[e] the Second Amendment to a second-class right.’”
According to USA Today, former Solicitor General Paul Clement stated, “This court needs to intervene before this open defiance spreads further.”
The newspaper quoted Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, asserting, “As the Seventh Circuit recognized, these regulations have limited the sale, possession, and use of such weapons since the Colonial era.”
He contended the high court should allow the lower courts to make decisions on the restrictions.
