The justices won't hear a challenge to a California law that limits who can carry a concealed gun in public -- a restriction that proponents of gun rights consider unconstitutional, but which the high court has yet to decide.

In a related case, the justices also refused to hear the federal government's appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed two men with criminal records to win back their right to possess firearms despite a federal ban. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have heard the case.

On the guns-in-public case, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented, arguing that a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2008 upholding the right to keep guns at home suggested that the right extends beyond the home.