The Supreme Court on Monday turned down the opportunity to consider litigation questioning California gun laws.
Justices denied the challenge, effectively upholding the Ninth Circuit appellate court’s affirmation of the state’s ten-day waiting period on most firearms sales.
Denial of certiorari comes amid a backlash to Second Amendment absolutism in the wake of yet another mass shooting.
Demonstrations calling on Congress to enact stricter gun control laws have been led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.–where a gunman last week killed 14 students and three staff members. Some organizers have picked up on the protests, calling on students to participate next month in a nationwide pro-gun control walkout.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas issued an opinion blasting his colleagues for failing to take up the challenge of California’s waiting period.
Thomas claimed they wouldn’t hesitate to take up litigation over waiting periods on publication, abortion, or traffic stops.
“The Court would take these cases because abortion, speech, and the Fourth Amendment are three of its favored rights,” Thomas said. “The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan.”
The Supreme Court has made landmark decisions in the last decade undermining state-level restrictions on gun ownership.
In 2008, Justices overturned Washington, D.C. laws on handguns in a 5-4 vote. Two years later, by the same margin, they said that Second Amendment rights were “fundamental,” in a decision throwing out Chicago’s ban on handguns.
