Kavanaugh signals Supreme Court will soon decide constitutionality of banning AR-15s

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case that involves whether possessing AR-15’s is protected by the Second Amendment, but the court’s 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.

But Justice Brett Kavanaugh sent a strong signal that he will provide that crucial fourth vote in a future case once the issue percolates more in the lower courts.

“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.

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.

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.

He added, “I doubt we would sit idly by if lower courts were to so subvert our precedents involving any other constitutional right.” LINK