On Monday, the Supreme Court, again eschewing the chance to issue a major ruling on gun rights, turned down a challenge to Maryland’s state ban on assault weapons brought by various groups, including the National Rifle Association.
In the case the Court declined to hear, Kolbe v. Hogan, a federal appeals court ruled that assault weapons, including the AR-15, were not protected by the Second Amendment. The appeals court used the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision to buttress its own; the Heller decision included a line suggesting the M-16 rifle, a military version of the AR-15, could be banned by states and cities. The appeals court voted 10-4 for the ban; Judge Robert King wrote, “We have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage.”
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