Opinion
On May 20th, 2024, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in Bianchi v. Brown, a challenge to Maryland’s ban on “assault weapons.”
This denial understandably has many gun owners concerned that the Supreme Court is letting a broad ban on firearms stand in Mayland. These concerns have been exacerbated by news coverage that mischaracterizes the denial as a decision by the high court on the merits of the case. Headlines like this one from Courthouse News:
High court shoots down challenge to Maryland assault weapons ban
Fortunately for gun owners, the Supreme Court did not “shoot down” the challenge, the Court simply decided not to hear the challenge at this time.
Denying cert in a case is not a ruling on the merits of that case. The decision not to take a case is not an explicit endorsement of a lower court’s ruling. In his dissent in Darr v. Burford (1950) Justice Felix Frankfurter explained,
The significance of a denial of a petition for certiorari ought no longer to require discussion. This Court has said again and again and again that such a denial has no legal significance whatever bearing on the merits of the claim. The denial means that this Court has refused to take the case. It means nothing else.
In the Bianchi case, the Court may just be waiting for the lower court (the Fourth Circuit in this case) to issue a decision on the merits so that the case has a more fully developed record when it reaches the Supreme Court.
The Court also chose not to deny cert in a similar NRA-backed challenge to Illinois “assault weapon” ban. That case is set to be considered again in conference this week.
While the path to Supreme Court review in a case is long and sometime convoluted, gun owners should not be dissuaded by attempts to characterize mere denials of cert as a substantive decision by the Cout.
Read Related: Strange Events at Fourth Circuit on Second Amendment
About NRA-ILA:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
WHY does anybody care one little bit what the fake USSC/SCOTUS has to say about ANYTHING AT ALL?? Back in 2022, they said that an egregious mistake had been made with Roe v. Wade in 1973, and offered NO apologies at all for that horrendous faux pas when they reversed it! So if they couldn’t get it right in 1973, why should we trust these fallible men and women to get anything right today? One of the “justices” who is a female, cannot even give a definition of what a woman is! And we’re supposed to listen to cretins like… Read more »
Same old song and dance by the leftist media in our glorious constitutional republic!!! IDIOTS in newsrooms around the country keep pushing this bullshit narrative! God bless those smart enough and brave enough to blow away the smoke and mirrors proffered by the ignorant who know better!
This article puts lipstick on a pig. SCOTUS has consistently treated the 2nd as a privilege rather than right, even as inferior courts and legislatures wantonly violate the BOR and blatantly infringe on the right to bear arms. Scotus’ decisions and precedents are ignored by inferior courts without any accountability.