The Supreme Court said Monday that it will not review laws that ban assault weapons.
A lower court had decided that a ban in Highland Park, Illinois, a city just north of Chicago, could remain. According to NBC News, the law bans the sale, purchase or possession of semi-automatic weapons that hold over 10 rounds in a single magazine or clip. This includes rifles that resemble the AR-15 and AK-47.
It was not a unanimous decision by the Court to not review the case. The Washington Post notes that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas both said that the Court should hear it. Thomas criticized the lower courts for approving these “categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes.”
Maryland, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii all have similar assault weapons bans.
The Supreme Court has declined to take major gun rights cases since 2008, when the Court decided that it was lawful for a citizen to own a handgun in the home in District of Columbia v. Heller, in accordance with the Second Amendment. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Court, which had allowed the Highland Park banned to continue, noted that the 2008 case still left the door open for bans on “dangerous and unusual” weapons.