The Supreme Court has yet to decide on whether to take up a litany of gun cases, ranging from challenges of “assault weapons” bans to gun rights for 18-to 20-year-olds, as the justices sift through petitions for its next term.
In his 2022 majority opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas reiterated the high court’s 2010 pronouncement that “the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” As the Supreme Court considers various gun petitions, advocates say there are a variety of Second Amendment issues that the high court must resolve to maintain the constitutionally protected right to bear arms.
“I think we’re in the infancy of Second Amendment jurisprudence, particularly when you look at the First Amendment, which has over 100 years of Supreme Court decisions behind it,” Adam Kraut, executive director of the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Washington Examiner.
Lawsuits over gun-type bans and magazine bans
The most closely watched petitions awaiting either rejection or acceptance at the high court center on state bans of certain types of guns, generally those labeled as “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.
Three cases pending at the high court over state “assault weapons” bans include National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont and Grant v. Higgins, which both deal with a Connecticut law, as well as Viramontes v. Cook County, which deals with an Illinois law. Both laws ban the possession, sale, or distribution of “assault weapons,” which include popular semi-automatic rifles, such as the AR-15, while the Connecticut law also bans high-capacity magazines, which it defines as having “more than ten rounds of ammunition.”
The Lamont case has been scheduled for eight consecutive closed-door conferences, as has the Higgins case, while the Cook County case has been distributed for 13 consecutive closed-door conferences. All three cases were scheduled for discussion during the Supreme Court’s Friday conference.
The Supreme Court turned down a petition to hear a challenge to Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban last year, with Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Neil Gorsuch saying they would have taken up the case. A petition requires four of the nine justices to agree to take up the case.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a statement on the decision to not take up the case, discussing how “assault weapons” bans were a matter the high court “should and presumably will address” in the next “term or two.” Thomas issued a blistering dissent, arguing that the court should take up the issue now because the justices would not delay hearing such a case if it involved a constitutional right other than the right to bear arms.
“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America. That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country,” Thomas wrote. “We have avoided deciding it for a full decade. And, further percolation is of little value when lower courts in the jurisdictions that ban AR–15s appear bent on distorting this Court’s Second Amendment precedents.”
“I doubt we would sit idly by if lower courts were to so 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,” he added.
Another key issue over gun hardware that is being petitioned to the high court involves state laws banning “high-capacity magazines,” which generally hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. There are two petitions pending before the Supreme Court that deal with California’s law banning high-capacity magazines, Duncan v. Bonta, and another over Washington’s law, Gator’s Custom Guns v. Washington.
The Bonta case has been scheduled for 13 consecutive closed-door conferences, while the Washington case has been scheduled for 14 conferences for discussion. Both cases were scheduled for discussion for Friday’s closed-door conference.
Possession and ownership lawsuits
Outside of the “hardware” gun cases, the Supreme Court is also sitting on various petitions dealing with who can own or possess firearms. There are various petitions at the Supreme Court over a federal law that bars unlawful drug users from possessing firearms — the justices heard a case on the constitutionality of this law earlier this year — along with other petitions challenging laws barring people convicted of crimes from owning or possessing firearms.
One issue regarding gun ownership and possession deals with the gun rights of 18-to 20-year-olds. Various states have laws that ban people under the age of 21 from purchasing firearms, and there are five pending Supreme Court petitions that challenge a variety of these laws across the country.
The cases include Paris v. Second Amendment Foundation, McCoy v. ATF, Picon v. United States, and West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. v. ATF, which all challenge federal law, while NRA v. Glass challenges a Florida law.
The West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Glass, McCoy, and Paris cases were last distributed for one of the justices’ closed-door conferences in November 2025, while the Picon case was last scheduled for the Jan. 9 closed-door conference. All of the cases remain in a form of purgatory, despite the high court leaving the question of whether adults under 21 years old are also entitled to the right to purchase and own firearms.
“You don’t have anything dealing with 18-to 20-year-olds, you know, are they part of ‘the people’ or not part of ‘the people’? Do Second Amendment rights extend to people lower than 18, a question that hasn’t been addressed either?” Kraut said, discussing the lack of Supreme Court rulings on key Second Amendment issues.
Kraut discussed how the Supreme Court has decided First Amendment rights for both adults and minors through various cases. A 1969 case, Tinker v. Des Moines, found students have free speech rights at school, but similar Supreme Court rulings dealing with gun rights for 18-to-20-year-olds or those under 18 years old do not exist.
Kraut also said that, with the major outstanding questions over gun rights still outstanding at the Supreme Court, it is unlikely the high court will focus on more “niche” gun cases until major issues like hardware bans or bans on who can possess firearms are dealt with.
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From next week through June, the Supreme Court is expected to load up soon on cases for its upcoming term, which will begin in October. The justices could issue a decision on one of the petitions as soon as Monday, when it is scheduled to issue an orders list.
The court is also set to issue rulings in the two gun cases it heard this term over the coming weeks. The justices heard cases over Hawaii’s law banning handgun owners who have a concealed carry permit from bringing their weapon onto private property unless the owner or manager has given the person “express authorization to carry a firearm on the property,” with Wolford v. Lopez, and a lawsuit over a federal statute banning unlawful drug users from possessing firearms, United States v. Hemani.