Supreme Court Rejects 22 Gun Cases

The Supreme Court turned away 22 Second Amendment cases on November 9, leaving lifetime gun bans, misdemeanor-triggered prohibitions, and pre-conviction firearm restrictions fully intact.

State of play: The justices' orders list touched nearly every corner of federal and state disarmament law without resolving a single one.

• Felon bans: 16 of the 22 cases challenged 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) or state equivalents, including petitions arguing that nonviolent felony convictions shouldn't trigger permanent gun bans.
• Misdemeanor disarmament: Holloway v. Brown challenged Washington's law stripping gun rights after two DUI misdemeanors in seven years. Denied.
• Pre-conviction restrictions: Trevino v. United States challenged a federal ban on receiving firearms while merely under indictment — no conviction required. Denied.

Washington Gun Law President William Kirk broke down the denials in a November 10 video, calling the pattern troubling for anyone caught up in firearm prohibitions that never required a violent conviction — or any conviction at all.

The legal question left hanging: Does a criminal record automatically justify permanently erasing a constitutional right, even when the underlying offense was nonviolent, or when there's no conviction yet? In Foster v. United States and Barge v. United States, petitioners with decade-old nonviolent drug convictions asked exactly that. The Court said nothing by declining to hear either case — a denial of certiorari isn't an endorsement of the lower court's reasoning, but it leaves the restriction standing nationwide.

The intrigue: Kirk specifically flagged Washington's DUI-based gun ban as a potential blueprint. If states can keep adding misdemeanor categories that trigger firearm prohibitions, gun owners could lose Second Amendment rights without ever facing a felony charge — and the Supreme Court just signaled it's in no hurry to draw a line. Minor v. United States, involving misdemeanor domestic violence convictions and lifetime bans imposed without any judicial finding of dangerousness, got the same treatment.

Yes, but: the Court isn't done with the Second Amendment this term. On December 2, justices hear oral arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, both challenging bans on commonly owned semiautomatic rifles — the biggest gun rights cases since Bruen. The Solicitor General has already been granted time to argue alongside the petitioners, putting the federal government squarely in the fight.

Cook County has reportedly tried to argue the dispute is now moot ahead of arguments, a move that hasn't stopped the case from proceeding to oral argument.

What to watch: Novotny v. Moore, challenging Maryland's restrictions on carrying firearms in numerous public locations, hits the Court's November 13 conference. It's another shot at the kind of individualized, text-and-history scrutiny Heller and Bruen promised but lower courts have been slow to apply.

The bottom line: The Court is willing to hear a landmark case on rifle bans next month, but it just passed on two dozen chances to clarify who the government can permanently disarm and on what grounds. For now, felon bans, misdemeanor-triggered prohibitions, and pre-conviction restrictions all stay exactly as they are.