(Photo Provided by Shutterstock/Cory Seamer)
June 09, 2025
By Darwin Nercesian, News Field Editor
Months have passed as gun owners have waited with bated breath for the United States Supreme Court’s decision to either grant or deny certiorari on a pair of pivotal Second Amendment cases. Unfortunately, after being relisted ad nauseam, the Court’s leftist majority has chosen not to hear arguments in Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island , a decision that will cost taxpayers unknown millions in future litigation and put law-abiding Americans in the crosshairs of tyrannical state governments operating far outside Constitutional bounds.
Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island challenged whether a retrospective and confiscatory ban on the possession of standard-capacity magazines violates the Second Amendment and whether dispossessing citizens of their lawfully acquired property without compensation violates the Fifth Amendment. The case rode the bench to the tune of fifteen relists prior to being denied. Snope v. Brown sought to address the Constitutionality of Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic rifles, including America’s most popular rifle, the AR-15. This case was relisted eleven times before being denied certiorari.
Good News First: Thomas & Alito Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have been the Court’s only true conservatives, and both would have granted certiorari on these cases mentioned above. While Justice Thomas is a solid originalist, Justice Alito has described himself as a "practical originalist,” believing the Constitution has a fixed meaning by which it would have been understood at the time it was written, emphasizing the importance of interpreting the Constitution rather than distorting, adding to, or subtracting from it. The distinction is certainly more pronounced when comparing these Justices to the fake conservatives, such as Roberts, Barrett, and Gorsuch, which explains why Justices Thomas and Alito tend to be well aligned when it comes to the Second Amendment.
“Best People” Fantasy Earlier, I mentioned the Court’s leftist majority, which may have had a few people scratching their heads, so let’s take a look at the scorecard for a moment because I’m about to obliterate the “best people” fantasy we’ve been sold about a 6-3 conservative majority. Jackson, Sotomayor, and Kagan are all dyed-in-the-wool far-left activist judges. Nothing new there. Roberts has long been known as the Court’s swing vote, which is a nice way of saying that his principles are more compromised than conservative. Barrett has increasingly cemented herself as a staunch member of the Court’s liberal wing, recently helping to bring home Democrat wins against homemade guns and siding with lifetime firearm bans for those with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions.
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Gorsuch Don’t let Gorsuch fool you either. I’ll confess to having high hopes, but there is zero integrity in his claim to be a Constitutional originalist, and he clearly admitted to it during his confirmation hearings. When asked about the Second Amendment, and specifically the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), he never once referenced the plain text of the Constitution, instead leaning only on precedent as if the flawed Heller decision that did not frame the true intent of the Second Amendment was tattooed on his tongue. And don’t get me started on the Bondi v. VanDerStok massacre, where he not only contributed to a 7-2 liberal wing majority, but proudly authored the opinion that granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) open season on firearms parts kits and homemade guns, a tradition dating back to the Founding era. While Gorsuch did vote to grant certiorari in Snope and Ocean State, this man is confused, at best, about who he is and what he believes in, or he’s just putting on a show for conservatives because he knew the majority would deny hearing the cases regardless.
Kavanaugh Then there’s Kavanaugh, a feckless coward who voted against granting certiorari only to turn around and issue a statement “respecting the denial of certiorari” that sounds more like a spineless “apology letter,” cringeworthy enough that I had to read it three times just to believe it was real. “In short, under this Court’s precedents, the Fourth Circuit’s decision is questionable,” Kavanaugh wrote in his statement.
The 4th Circuit’s decision wasn’t just “questionable,” it stood in willful defiance of the United States Constitution and the natural rights of Americans, but let’s say that it was “questionable.” How then might one describe your laissez-faire attitude towards such a foundational issue, arguably among the core liberties you’ve sworn to preserve and defend? I’d say that makes your judgeship and indeed your seat on the Supreme Court questionable.
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“Although the Court today denies certiorari, a denial of certiorari does not mean that the Court agrees with a lower-court decision or that the issue is not worthy of review,” Kavanaugh continued. You know what, Brett? That’s precisely what it means, you duplicitous Democrat shill. You have some nerve, condescending to Americans with this morally inept vomit and expecting us to lap it up like lambs rushing to slaughter. He wasn’t done yet, however, letting his anti-Second Amendment flag soar as he vowed to leave the future of AR-15 possession in the hands of states so unscrupulous that they hardly resemble American territories.
“The AR–15 issue was recently decided by the First Circuit and is currently being considered by several other Courts of Appeals. Opinions from other Courts of Appeals should assist this Court’s ultimate decisionmaking on the AR–15 issue,” said Kavanaugh. Anyone want to guess where those “several other Courts of Appeals” are located? California, Connecticut, Illinois, and New Jersey. He’s telling it to conservatives in plain English. Those are the opinions Kavanaugh is waiting for to guide him in the future. Let that sink in. And speaking of the future…
“Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two,” Kavanaugh concluded. This issue has been at the forefront of political debate for almost 40 years, but Kavanaugh seems eager to allow rogue leftist states to subjugate Americans with additional bad faith legislation before he’ll consider hearing arguments on core Constitutional principles. Allow me to put this in perspective. These cases can sometimes take years to progress through the courts and reach the Supreme Court. Those are years that Americans are unable to enjoy the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution, making any claim that ties freedom and liberty to the United States tantamount to false advertising. Does the government intend to compensate citizens for those years they’ll never get back? I won’t hold my breath.
“It shocks me how a President who wants to deport illegal immigrants or wants to cut wasteful and fraudulent government spending can get addressed by the Supreme Court literally two days later, but this issue, which has been kicking around now the better part of two decades, yeah the Supreme Court’s not quite ready to get around to it” Washington Gun Law president William Kirk recently expressed on his YouTube channel.
What’s more disturbing is that the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari on these cases now empowers leftist “states” to pass and enforce bans, and even confiscation in the meantime, which will likely lead to standoffs, early morning raids, and loss of life as some Americans, undoubtebly, will not be so willing to comply with tyrrany, and we all know how quick to the trigger .gov is when it comes to gun owners. That blood is on your hands, Brett, and the rest of your anti-Second Amendment cohorts. Perhaps that’s why you wear those black robes, symbolizing the mourning of our Constitution and the Americans you threw to the wolves.
The proof is in the rotten pudding on this one. The Supreme Court is telling us, without any clarification necessary, that the Second Amendment is a second-class right that they may get to in the future, once the anti-Second Amendment lobby gives them their marching orders, of course. They are willing to allow the government to spend countless millions of your tax dollars to litigate your rights away while Americans spend more of their hard-earned money to fight back against the criminals they are being forced to fund. They are willing to stage future violent confrontations and place citizens in imminent danger from rogue states and authorities being used as jack-booted thugs to enforce their subversion of the Constitution. We were sold a lie, and now we suffer the consequences of that deception.
Darwin Nercesian is a long-time gun rights advocate and shooter of targets far, far away. As a News Field Editor at Firearms News, Darwin writes about the Second Amendment, firearms, and related gear. Follow him on Instagram, X, and YouTube @DTOE_Official.
