The Supreme Court has distributed two important cases for its conference of January 10. One is Snope v. Brown, which concerns whether Maryland may ban semiautomatic rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes. The other is Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island, which asks whether a retrospective, confiscatory ban on the possession of ammunition feeding devices that are in common use violates the Second Amendment.
The Court should grant the petitions for writs of certiorari. The cases present a critically important question going to the heart of the Second Amendment – may the government prohibit mere possession of AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles and of standard magazines that come with most semiautomatic rifles and pistols?
As I explained in my recent post "Firepower and the Fourth Circuit," Maryland's prohibition on AR-15s and the like rifles was upheld en banc on the merits under reasoning in direct conflict with the Supreme Court's precedents. Likewise, the First Circuit's affirmance of the denial of a preliminary injunction against the Rhode Island ban follows the same trend by certain circuit courts flaunting even the most recent of the Court's rulings.
