A coalition of pro-gun groups claims that state “assault weapons” bans try to keep Second Amendment rights stuck in the 19th century, submitting filings ahead of the Supreme Court’s December oral arguments weighing the legality of a pair of these sweeping bans.
The consolidated cases in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins will deal with whether assault weapons bans, which typically outlaw the purchase of AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles, are constitutional under the Second and 14th amendments. The two cases are over laws in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut, but are similar to laws in various other states that will be affected by the high court’s eventual ruling. A brief filed to the Supreme Court arguing the laws are unconstitutional warns that broadly banning popular modern firearms, such as AR-15 style guns, would be incompatible with federal law and set Second Amendment rights back hundreds of years.
“Advances in firearms have always been part of the American experience,” said the brief filed by the National Rifle Association, American Suppressor Association, and Independence Institute, noting how modern semiautomatic firearms are the latest iteration of weapons the founders wanted to protect with the Second Amendment.
“The challenged bans aim to halt this tradition and trap firearms in nineteenth-century amber. But this Court has repeatedly emphasized that modern arms are protected. And the Court has twice highlighted the Amendment’s protection of modern arms to illustrate how its historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances,” the pro-gun groups added, pointing to Supreme Court rulings in the past two decades affirming the broad right to own handguns and semiautomatic firearms.
Several of the other briefs filed to the Supreme Court by conservative and pro-gun groups in support of striking down the pair of “assault weapons” bans argue that banning one of the most popular firearms in the country over an alleged unique danger requiring its prohibition would run counter to the Second Amendment’s meaning.
“To hold that Americans’ most popular firearm is in fact not an ‘Arm’ at all defies reason,” a brief filed by several pro-gun groups, led by Gun Owners of America, said. “AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles ‘fall squarely’ within the Second Amendment’s basic definition of ‘Arms.’ That is all that is needed for the bans under review to be ‘presumptively unconstitutional.’”
The Trump administration threw its weight behind the bid to strike down “assault weapons” bans, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer arguing that the laws are flatly unconstitutional. The Department of Justice brief asserts that the bans do not comport with the country’s history and tradition of firearm regulation and violate the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
“The AR-15 rifle is unquestionably in common use among law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” Sauer wrote. “Today, AR-15s are lawful at the federal level and in 40 States. The overwhelming majority of AR-15 owners possess those rifles for the lawful purposes to which they are adapted, such as self-defense in the home, hunting, and target shooting. A ban on possessing such rifles thus violates the Second Amendment.”
‘ASSAULT WEAPONS’ BANS ARE ON THEIR WAY TO THE SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court announced last week that the “assault weapons” ban cases will be argued on Dec. 2, as part of a two-week argument session that will include other high-profile cases involving parental rights, religious rights, and voter registration laws. The high court is expected to issue a ruling in the Viramontes case by the end of June 2027.
Ahead of oral arguments, officials from Cook County and Connecticut, along with anti-gun groups supporting the two governments, are set to file briefs asking the Supreme Court to uphold the pair of laws as constitutional by the end of October.