Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito Jr. on Monday appeared to strive to save the U.S. Supreme Court’s first major gun-rights case in nearly a decade from disappearing without a ruling on the scope of the Second Amendment.

Groups supporting broad firearm rights, critical of how lower courts have applied the Second Amendment, have urged the court to use the case to announce a tough standard or test that governments must meet in order for regulations to be upheld as constitutional.