I’m not. We’ll only know for certain by continuing to wait (or maybe we get lucky and someone leaks SCOTUS internal conversations).
If that was the situation, cert would already have been denied. You have to ask, why keep punting? There is something going on in the background that we are not privy to, but what has NOT been done can hint towards what may be done.
They are waiting for something…
In my fantasy they are now just waiting for the filing of Cert. request in Duncan v. Bonta and as soon as that is filed they grant all 3: Snope, Ocean State Tac. and Duncan, and they combine Ocean State Tac. & Duncan (both mag limit cases).
I feel like you’re on the right track. They are kicking the can for a reason. If they weren’t willing to hear it they would have booted it already.
My $0.02 is that there’s a fight going on. They can’t deny it because there are four strong yeas, and that’s all that is needed to grant cert. My guess is that there’s a lot of pressure from many sides for Thomas and Alito to retire and there’s a lot of horse trading going on to make that happen prior to midterms. I think we will get cert and a decision, but it’s going to be forced to be timed to maximally impact the nomination process and midterm elections. Roberts has his new Kennedy in Barrett, and he’d really like it to go back to 3-3-1 and him so he has hard control of the court again.
ETA: I think part of it is also that Roberts wants to do his usual thing and insert himself into writing potentially severe rulings to moderate decisions one way or another, and Thomas wants to set the world on fire and Alito may be less extreme, he still likely doesn’t want a Roberts’ brand ambiguous decision with which games can be played eternally.
Is there any other issue besides 2A related cases in which so many lower courts are issuing rulings in open defiance of previous SCOTUS rulings?
Grok it.
Are there others? Yes. Is there anything near the volume? No. Although give Trump six months and I’m sure there will be with lower courts trying to drop injunctions on him all over the place on settled law that doesn’t merit an injunction.
So an interesting bit of addendum to the AWB cases is that in the Vanderstok case, the liberal members of the court put their names to a ruling saying that ar-15s cannot be regulated as machine guns. No dissent, no dicta on it as far as I can tell.
This tends to reinforce my belief that there is a lot of complex horse trading going on here.
My current wager is that we are going to get cert. It’s going to be in 2026. THe ruling is going to be brutally strong in general and very clearly stated to apply to a number of things (semi auto, AWB, mag caps, maybe define dangerous and unusual better and or provide a test and clarity on historic precedent). Part of the deal is going to be replacement of Thomas at least, possibly Alito. The decision and nomination process will be used to try to influence midterms, and when more cases show up, whoever is on the bench then will be lead down the path of undermining the previous rulings ala Range.
Alright, here we are, another Monday morning awaiting the results of a Friday SCOTUS conference…
No mention of Snope or Ocean State Tactical in 03/31/25 orders.
Looks like we’re going to get relists again. Waiting for confirmation of that.
DC mag ban case has defendants response slated for 4-30. So don’t expect anything prior to that but relists.
Antonyunk v. James (NY CCW licensing requirements/sensitive places case) is now on the certiori grant watchlist too:
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Antonyunk is DENIED certiori by SCOTUS. No dissents.
No news in Snope or Ocean State Tactical yet.
Antonyunk was interlocutory (did not have all final judgements/appeals exhausted prior to requesting cert. from SCOTUS), however the denial does rattle me - Antonyunk is egregiously anti-Bruen.
Here’s the hopeful theory:
Still no updates on Snope or Ocean State Tactical from the Friday 4/4/25 conference.