Alarm bells as Supreme Court takes up major case it ducked last year: ex-DOJ prosecutor

The Supreme Court ended its most recent term on Tuesday with an announcement that it has “agreed to hear a case that asks them to determine whether bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles are constitutional,” wrote former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, who then warned that the end of controversial rulings has not come to an end.

As she noted on her Substack platform, the Supreme Court is never really dormant and less so recently, using the so-called "shadow docket" to excess in the service of Donald Trump.

With that in mind, she raised a red flag over a case involving the availability of assault-style weapons, which could lead to another controversial ruling.

The significance is unmistakable, Vance wrote, explaining, "The Court doesn’t take cases like this just to pat a state on the head and sign off on its ban—it has bigger fish to fry than affirming the status quo."

According to Vance, the case marks a dramatic reversal from just last year. In June 2025, the court declined to hear Snope v. Brown, a direct challenge to Maryland's semiautomatic rifle ban. But that decision masked a deeply fractured court teetering on the edge of upheaval.

At the time, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an eight-page dissent from the denial, explaining: “This petition presents the question whether this ban is consistent with the Second Amendment. The Fourth Circuit held that it is, reasoning that AR–15s are not 'arms' protected by the Second Amendment … I would grant certiorari to review this surprising conclusion.”

"That’s not the kind of language you use if you intend to affirm the ban," Vance suggested before noting that now the case will be taken up after getting the needed fourth vote to grant cert, pointing out that Justice Brett Kavanaugh once wrote, "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," before adding, "...in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”

"We don’t know if the four Justices picked up a fifth vote along the way that convinced Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh this was 'the right time,'” Vance warned.