Courts issue conflicting 'gun control'
rulings despite Supreme Court guidance

Federal courts across the country are handing back disparate rulings over federal and state gun laws despite nearly back-to-back Second Amendment cases at the Supreme Court that sought to clarify the scope of the right to bear arms.

Although the Supreme Court's landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen held that gun regulations must align with the nation's "history and tradition" of firearms laws and a separate case this summer called Rahimi v. U.S. upheld firearm prohibitions for domestic violence offenders, lower federal courts are still struggling to achieve consistency, as shown by three major decisions last week alone.

First, a federal judge in Kansas appointed by former President Donald Trump caught national attention on Aug. 21 after he dismissed a case for a defendant facing felony charges for possessing a machine gun. Later in the week, two federal appeals courts swung the opposite direction to uphold other restrictions on firearms, with one decision upholding bans on felons possessing guns and a separate appellate court agreeing to uphold a Maryland handgun licensing law.

Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School, told the Washington Examiner the pattern of divergent Second Amendment rulings does not come as a surprise. .....