The Supreme Court has decided to leave a couple of bad lower court rulings in place regarding the 2nd amendment, one in Rhode Island and one in Maryland.

The latter bans the sale of semi-automatic firearms like the AR and AK-style rifles. The Rhode Island law, which was upheld in the lower courts, make the possession of magazines larger than 10-rounds illegal to possess.

Here’s more from CNN:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear arguments in a pair of significant Second Amendment challenges involving certain semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, a move that leaves both of those laws in place.

One of the appeals dealt with Maryland’s ban on certain semi-automatic weapons such as AR- and AK-style rifles. The law, enacted after the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, was challenged by David Snope, a state resident who wants to purchase those rifles for self-defense and other purposes.

The Supreme Court also declined to hear a challenge to Rhode Island’s ban on high-capacity gun magazines, leaving that law in place.

As is typical, the court did not explain its reasoning in denying the cases, though it has denied several high profile gun appeals over the past year. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s decision not to hear the pair of cases.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another member of the court’s conservative wing, noted that other cases involving AR-style rifles are pending in lower courts and said that “this court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon.”

The 2022 Rhode Island law prohibits the possession of large-capacity feeding devices or magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It requires owners of such devices to either modify them to fit the 10-round limit, sell them to a firearms dealer, remove them from Rhode Island or hand them over to law enforcement.

The law required such action to be taken within 180 days of its passage, after which time violators faced up to five years in prison.

Meanwhile, in the Maryland case involving automatic rifles, the Richmond-based federal appeals court upheld Maryland’s law over the summer, finding that the guns at issue are “dangerous and unusual weapons” and therefore are not covered by the Second Amendment’s protections. The majority also concluded that there were historical analogues to the Maryland statute that were adopted by state legislatures across the country in the 19th and 20th century.

This is seriously messed up. These laws not only alter someone’s right to self-defense, but make possession of these guns and magazines illegal, even when they were purchases legally.

I can only hope the Supreme Court sees something on the legal horizon headed their way that will undo these horrible laws. In the meantime, voters in states like Maryland and Rhode Island need to vote these Democrat legislators out who enacted these laws and put in Republican lawmakers in place who will protect their 2nd amendment rights.