Progressives often support bans on “assault weapons” based on the false assumption that those weapons are machine guns (they aren’t, they include the most popular rifles in America). And they support bans on so-called “high capacity” magazines that actually have typical capacities, rendering magazines people legally bought years ago illegal even though they are commonplace and go with the gun they possessed.
But the Supreme Court isn’t interested in hearing challenges to these bans after they were upheld by progressive federal appeals courts — even though conservative appeals courts would strike down those bans if they were imposed in their region. Bloomberg News reports:
The US Supreme Court declined to consider a new expansion of constitutional gun rights, turning away challenges to a Maryland ban on so-called assault weapons and a Rhode Island prohibition on high-capacity magazines.
The justices left intact federal appeals court decisions backing the bans against attacks under the Constitution’s Second Amendment….Ten states outlaw what critics call assault weapons, a class of semiautomatic rifles… and 14 ban high-capacity ammunition-feeding devices….Gun-rights advocates were trying to extend the 2022 Supreme Court decision that declared a constitutional right to carry a firearm and established a tough new test for assessing restrictions.
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Maryland law on a 10-5 vote. Writing for the majority, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said the measure outlawed “military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense.”
A Maryland resident and three interest groups contended that the law prohibits weapons owned by millions of Americans for legitimate purposes that include self-defense. The 4th Circuit ruling “blesses a ban on the most popular rifles in American,” the challengers argued.
The case is Snope v. Brown, 24-203.
In the Rhode Island case, a unanimous panel of the Boston-based 1st Circuit said the law was probably constitutional. The 2022 law bars the possession of gun magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. The measure gave people who already owned high-capacity devices 180 days to alter, surrender or transfer them.
The ban on so-called “high-capacity” magazines actually restricted quite typical magazines. “A standard capacity magazine generally means any detachable ammunition feeding device that is sold with a firearm when it is shipped new from the manufacturer. In some cases, such as modern sporting rifles, the standard capacity magazine is regularly 30 rounds,” notes the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.
In the Fourth Circuit case, the majority of judges upholding the ban consisted of the court’s Democratic majority and one pro-government Republican who has written that courts should be deferential to legislatures, whether it is Obamacare when challenged as beyond Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause, or a ban on gay marriage.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the other ban, is the nation’s most progressive federal appeals court, and is contemptuous of constitutional rights, denying the right to say “there are only two genders” and the right to express religious viewpoints. It has upheld censorship worse than censorship struck down by moderate and conservative federal appeals courts.
People wrongly think the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the most progressive federal appeals court, because many court rulings overturned by the Supreme Court come out of the Ninth Circuit. But that high number is because the Ninth Circuit has such a huge number of cases, not because the Ninth Circuit has an extremely high reversal rate. The Ninth Circuit hear more cases than any other federal appeals court because it covers a huge area. It covers one-fifth of America’s population and a third of its land mass. The fraction of its rulings that are overturned by the Supreme Court is less than for several other circuits. The Ninth Circuit is also pro-gun-control and is progressive-leaning, but not as extreme as as a couple other circuits, like the First Circuit.
