US top court rejects challenge to California gun waiting period

Signalling its continued reluctance to step into the growing national debate over gun control, the nine justices left in place a lower court ruling that upheld the waiting period put in place in the Democratic-governed state that has some of the broadest US firearms restrictions.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s decision not to hear the case.

Gun rights groups and individual gun owners had argued that the measure violated their right to keep and bear arms under the US Constitution’s Second Amendment. The challengers did not seek to invalidate California’s waiting period for everyone, just for people who already own guns and have passed a background check.

Scolding his colleagues for not taking up the case, Thomas wrote in his dissent that the “Second Amendment is a disfavoured right in this court.”

The Supreme Court has not taken up a major firearms case since issuing important gun rulings in 2008 and 2010.