Supreme Court passes on Second Amendment cases challenging lifetime gun ownership ban

 The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up three challenges to a federal ban on gun ownership for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, disappointing Second Amendment advocates who hoped a more conservative court would begin to chip away at the restriction.

By not taking the appeals, the nation's highest court let stand a series of lower court rulings that prohibited people convicted of driving under the influence, making false statements on tax returns and selling counterfeit cassette tapes from owning a gun.

The decisions Monday, which were handed down without explanation, are the latest in a series of instances in which the Supreme Court has skirted Second Amendment questions. The high court last issued major guns rights rulings in 2008 and 2010, cases that struck down handgun restrictions in the District of Columbia and Chicago.

Gun rights groups vowed to continue to press the issue.

...Several of the court's conservatives signaled in recent years that they were interested in revisiting the issue, and it's not clear why they chose not to do so. Four conservative justices have expressed a desire to address outstanding Second Amendment questions – enough to take a case but one vote short of the five needed to corral a majority. Many expected Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, seated last fall, to provide that fifth vote...MORE