The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to New Jersey's law concerning the right to carry a handgun in public, although two dissenting justices said the court should have heard the case.

The high court's decision lets stand a U.S. District Court ruling that rejected a challenge to New Jersey's law requiring anyone seeking a permit to carry a weapon to prove they have a justifiable need. But Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh said in a 19-page dissenting opinion that they saw the case as an opportunity to provide guidance to lower courts and to resolve a split among the circuits.

The challenge to New Jersey's law was brought by Thomas Rogers, who works supplying automatic teller machines with cash. His application for a permit to carry a weapon was turned down by his town's police chief, who concluded that Rogers failed to specify specific threats as a reason why he should be allowed to carry a handgun. U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti dismissed Rogers' constitutional challenge to New Jersey's law requiring people to demonstrate a justifiable need in order to carry a firearm.

The case was among several petitions on the Second Amendment that the justices declined to take up.

Also on Monday the justices declined to take up another challenge to the same New Jersey law brought by Douglas Ciolek. In that case, the Appellate Division affirmed a decision by Ciolek's local police chief finding Ciolek did not demonstrate a justifiable need to carry a handgun in public.

In Rogers' case, Martinotti's dismissal was based on a 2013 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Drake v. Filko, which found that New Jersey's "justifiable need" requirement did not infringe on the Second Amendment. But Thomas and Kavanaugh noted that the Third Circuit decision conflicted with Wrenn v. District of Columbia, a 2017 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, overturning a requirement that a person seeking to carry a firearm in public demonstrate a special need.

Thomas, in his dissent, said Rogers' case "presents the court with an opportunity to clarify that the Second Amendment protects a right to public carry. While some Circuits have recognized that the Second Amendment extends outside the home, many have declined to define the scope of the right, simply assuming that the right to public carry exists for purposes of applying a scrutiny-based analysis. Other courts have specifically indicated that they would not interpret the Second Amendment to apply outside the home without further instruction from this Court. We should provide the requested instruction."

Thomas wrote that the court has referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a "fundamental right," but that right is barred in jurisdictions requiring a good reason to do so in public. If the court were faced with a law requiring the showing of a justifiable need before exercising their free speech rights or the the right to an abortion, the court would almost certainly review that law, he wrote. "But today, faced with a petition challenging just such a restriction on citizens' Second Amendment rights, the court simply looks the other way," Thomas wrote.

David Thompson, of Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C., counsel of record for Rogers at the Supreme Court, and Daniel Schmutter of Hartman & Winnicki in Ridgewood, Rogers' local counsel, did not respond to requests for comment. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a joint statement, "As we've said all along, New Jersey's law limiting public carrying of weapons protects our residents and makes our communities safer.  We are thrilled that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed our law, like other public carry laws across the nation, to remain in place."