By Tanya Metaksa
What’s New—SCOTUS: Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island == DENIED!
SCOTUS
Conferences through the end of the 2024-2025 term
For the rest of the 2024-2025 term, the scheduled conference dates are June 4, 11, 18, and 25. Several Second Amendment cases involving felon-in-possession charges are before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) for certiorari.
DENIED!!!
Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island
On June 2, when I, for the umpteenth time, opened my computer to search for news about Snopes and Ocean State, the news hit me like a sucker punch, knocking the air out of my lungs with one blow. After all the delays, it was a real shocker! As I compose this report, I am still reeling from the stunning denial. Over ten months since the petition for certiorari was filed, SCOTUS has tantalized us in a very polished manner.
The process has included 16 “distributed for Conference” pronouncements and one more rescheduled announcement. It appears that SCOTUS has played the entire Second Amendment community like a Stradivarius. According to SCOTUS pundits, it takes four votes to grant certiorari; that means in the latest tally, there were only three votes to grant cert: Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch. And, of course, the only Justice to write a dissent was Justice Thomas, who calls the Bianchi v. Brown en banc a “surprising conclusion.” He even goes further and states, “The Fourth Circuit placed the burden of producing historical evidence on the wrong party.” Justice Kavanagh, however, writes a concurrence attempting to placate Second Amendment supporters in which he states,“Although the Court today denies certiorari, a denial of certiorari does not mean that the Court agrees with a lower-court decision or that the issue is not worthy of review…Opinions from other Courts of Appeals should assist this Court’s ultimate decision-making on the AR–15 issue. Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly, and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”
Kavanaugh’s concurance, along with the other two so-called “conservative” Justices—Barrett and Roberts- will make Second Amendment supporters wonder about this Court’s continuing support for the Second Amendment.
As Martin Luther King wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), quoting William Ewart Gladstone, a four-term British Prime Minister during the period 1868 – 1894, “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Many leaders in the Second Amendment struggle have added their thoughts to this troubling decision.
Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director @theadamkraut:
“The Supreme Court’s decision to deny cert in Snope v. Brown is an egregious error that sidesteps addressing an important issue that requires the Court’s intervention. Millions of Americans continue to be disenfranchised from exercising their complete Second Amendment rights by these categorical bans. While Justice Kavanaugh’s statement insinuates the court may hear one of the many other challenges percolating in the lower courts, as Justice Thomas points out, their input is of little value as they continue to distort the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedents. SAF will continue to aggressively litigate its seven other challenges to bans on “Assault Weapons” and spare no resource to ensure the right to keep and bear arms is not continued to be treated as “A Second-Class Right.”
Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) posted: “Well, they just told us to f— off with Snope and Ocean State. SCOTUS is no friend to Constitutional rights”.
NRA posted an image of Justice Clarence Thomas with the following quote:
“I doubt we would sit idly by if lower courts were to subvert our precedents involving any other constitutional right. Until we are vigilant in enforcing it, the right to bear arms will remain ‘a second-class right.”
CRPA posted:
“The Supreme Court declined to hear the Snope v. Brown, a challenge to Maryland’s 2013 ban on semiautomatic rifles. This is yet another case that could have helped clarify the Bruen standard. Next week, CRPA will be asking the Court to consider our Duncan v. Bonta case.”
In a YouTube.com video by Second Amendment Attorney Mark W. Smith interviewing attorney Stephen W. Hallbrook, they discuss the denial of cert in the Snope v. Brown case.Halbrook strongly criticizes the decision, calling it “ridiculous” and arguing that the courts misunderstand both the history and technical aspects of firearms and the Second Amendment. He asserts that AR-15s and similar rifles are in common use for lawful purposes, notably self-defense, and should therefore be protected under the Supreme Court’s own “common use” test established in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Wolford v. Lopez: Case No: 24-1046: Scheduled for June 4 conference:Second Amendment challenge to Hawaii’s ban on carrying guns on private property open to the public without express permission. See Dave Workman’s article concerning the State Attorneys General signing an amicus brief.
NRA v. Glass: Circuit Court Case No. 21-12314: We discussed this lawsuit last week. It is awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on certiorari. Jake Fogelman of The Reload has an interesting column on it this week.
