The Supreme Court declined Monday to review a Maryland law that bans the purchase, sale or transfer of assault-style rifles — but has yet to decide whether it will consider other pending appeals involving the weapons.
The high court's justices didn't say why they turned down the case, but taking it up would have been unusual because the law is still being reviewed by a lower federal appeals court in Virginia.
The 2013 statute was enacted following the mass shooting that killed 20 children and two adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
It's being challenged by Maryland residents who want to buy the banned weapons: a firearms dealer and three gun rights groups who sued the state in 2020.
There are similar appeals still pending before the Supreme Court that involve challenges to an Illinois ban on assault-style rifles and high capacity magazines, which would allow it to still take up the issue.
In 2022, the court's 6-3 conservative majority struck down a New York law that imposed limits on carrying concealed weapons, saying it violated Americans' constitutional right to self defense.
The Maryland plaintiffs contend that banning semiautomatic rifles like the popular AR-15 also violates the Second Amendment, he Associated Press reported.
Maryland's attorney general has defended the law on grounds that assault-style rifles are "highly dangerous, military-style" weapons that have been used in multiple mass shootings, including the one at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Under Maryland's law, a semiautomatic rifle is considered a banned "assault weapon" if it has any combination of a folding stock, flash suppressor and grenade or flare launcher.
The law also bans rifles that are shorter than 29 inches when their stocks are fully extended and there are no removable additions to the barrels.
Military assault weapons generally have a selector switch that allows the user to fire in either semiautomatic mode, meaning one shot per trigger pull, or fully automatic, in which a single trigger pull can fire all the rounds in the magazine.
