A federal appeals court upheld Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons Tuesday in an opinion that found regulating “excessively dangerous weapons,” including the AR-15, compatible with the Second Amendment.

The judges of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 10-5 to affirm a lower court decision upholding the ban. The full 4th Circuit heard the case in March.

An Austin gun shop owner succeeded Friday on a years-long quest to overturn a federal ban on bump stocks, winning a 6-3 victory from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bump stocks are devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds in a minute. The court ruled the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can not include bump stocks under legislation banning machine guns. The overturned ATF rule required owners of bump stocks to either destroy them or surrender them to the ATF to avoid criminal prosecution.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a bump stock does not transform a firearm into an automatic weapon, striking down a federal rule that banned bump stocks. 

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, "Congress has long restricted access to "'machinegun[s],'" a category of firearms defined by the ability to "shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger." 

The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, ruling that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority by determining that the gun attachments turn firearms into machine guns.

The case was decided 6-3, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion and Justice Samuel Alito concurring. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the courts three liberals, dissented.

What are bump stocks?

Legendary "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill demanded an "assault weapons" ban along with the passing of red-flag laws in a video to victims of gun violence.

Hamill sent in a video to the 11th Annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence, which was hosted by the Newtown Action Alliance. The alliance is a "national grassroots group formed after the Sandy Hook shooting to bring about legislative & cultural changes" related to gun violence.

Federal prosecutors announced attempted murder charges against an Arizona inmate Friday, a week after ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times inside a library at the Tucson penitentiary where they are both inmates.

The latest mass shooting in the United States, which killed 18 people in Maine, prompted U.S. Representative Jared Golden, whose constituents died in the massacre, to reverse his opposition to a ban on assault-style weapons.

But his change of heart does not change the equation in Washington, where President Joe Biden's push to reinstate a ban of such guns has been a non-starter for Republicans who control the House of Representatives and back gun rights.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday left in place for now state and local laws in Illinois that ban assault-style weapons, turning down a request to block the restrictions as the nation again finds itself grappling with a slew of recent mass shootings.

The brief, unsigned order from the high court rejects an application for emergency relief sought by a gun rights group and gun store owner who argued that the Illinois law and a Naperville ordinance violated their Second Amendment rights. There were no noted dissents.

The Supreme Court could hand down a decision any day now in National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, a case that could legalize assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in all 50 states.