A lot of people on X have been asking me what is going on with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The court is sitting on two of the biggest Second Amendment cases in the country, and the silence is starting to feel deliberate. One is the consolidated en banc challenge to New Jersey’s “assault firearms” ban — Cheeseman v. Platkin and Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Attorney General New Jersey, argued en banc on October 15, 2025. The other is the consolidated New Jersey sensitive-places case — Koons v. Platkin and Siegel v. Platkin, argued en banc on February 11, 2026. Months have passed in both. I do not have inside information, but I have a strong theory, and it is grounded in something the Third Circuit just lived through with Range.
Two Arguments, Two Long Silences
Start with the assault weapons fight. Cheeseman and ANJRPC are a consolidated challenge to New Jersey’s ban on roughly 66 commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. That argument went down on October 15, 2025 — just days after the Senate confirmed law professor Jennifer Mascott to the Third Circuit on October 9 and her commission issued on October 10. The full active court of the Third Circuit, which covers Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and sits in Philadelphia, heard the case. We have heard nothing back.
Now the sensitive-places fight. Koons and Siegel are the post-Bruen challenge to the New Jersey statute signed within days of Bruen that turned libraries, museums, public transit, beaches, movie sets, hospitals, casinos, and a long list of other places into government-mandated gun-free zones for licensed concealed carriers. The full Third Circuit heard that case en banc on February 11, 2026. Again, silence.
Why I Think the Judges Are Waiting
Here is my read. By the end of this Supreme Court term — between now and the first days of July — the Justices are going to issue decisions in two huge Second Amendment cases. Wolford v. Lopez, the Hawaii “vampire rule” sensitive-places challenge, was argued on January 20, 2026. United States v. Hemani, the 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) drug-user prohibitor case, was argued on March 2, 2026. Wolford controls the doctrinal framework for sensitive places. Hemani sharpens how lower courts must apply Bruen’s text-history-tradition test to § 922(g) prohibitors. Both directly overlap with what the Third Circuit was asked to decide in Cheeseman/ANJRPC and Koons/Siegel.
If I am sitting on that en banc panel and I already know two Supreme Court decisions touching my exact doctrinal turf are going to drop in six weeks, why would I rush my opinion out the door in May or June only to have it vacated by the Justices in July?
How I Know This Pattern: The Range Receipt
This is not theory. The Third Circuit just got burned doing exactly that in Range v. Attorney General. The first en banc opinion in Range came down on June 6, 2023 — the court held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) was unconstitutional as applied to Bryan Range, a man who decades earlier had pleaded guilty to a nonviolent Pennsylvania misdemeanor for misstating income on a food-stamp application. A Jean Valjean situation, frankly.
Then the Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), eight to one, upholding § 922(g)(8) under the text-history-tradition framework. The Justices promptly granted certiorari in Range, vacated the en banc decision, and remanded so the Third Circuit could chew it again in light of Rahimi. Months of work, redone. The Third Circuit then issued a second en banc opinion on December 23, 2024 — Range v. Attorney Gen. United States, 124 F.4th 218 (3d Cir. 2024) — again ruling for Bryan Range, this time threading the Rahimi citations through the analysis so the Supreme Court would have nothing left to complain about.
That is the receipt. The judges on that court lived it, and they remember. They are looking at each other and asking, quite reasonably, why we would publish Cheeseman or Koons in May only to have to redo the work in July when Wolford and Hemani arrive.
Why This Is a July Story, Not a May Story
So here is my prediction. Do not expect en banc decisions out of the Third Circuit in Cheeseman/ANJRPC or in Koons/Siegel until the Supreme Court goes home for the summer. Mid-to-late July is my best guess. When the Third Circuit finally writes, expect those opinions to sprinkle in citations to Wolford and Hemani. That is the entire point of the wait. It lets the panel say, in advance, that whatever the Supreme Court decided was already accounted for, which is how you immunize an en banc decision against another grant, vacate, and remand.
I could be totally wrong. But this is how I read the silence, and the history of the future has yet to be written. If you want to be the smartest person in the room on this stuff, you have to geek out a little, as my friend William Kirk over at Washington Gun Law likes to say. The Third Circuit is not asleep. The Third Circuit is waiting.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.