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| LUKE MILLER |
In their appeal, the plaintiffs argue that ‘the very term “assault weapon” is a political slogan masquerading as a meaningful designation.’
On the heels of a big Second Amendment victory for gun owners in Hawaii, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear two cases challenging state and local “assault weapons” bans later this year.The cases dispute laws in Illinois and Connecticut, questioning the constitutionality of banning “AR-15 platform and similar semi-automatic rifles” under the Second and 14th Amendments. Grant v. Higgins and Viramontes v. Cook County will be heard together in the Supreme Court’s October 2026 term.
Democrats like Kamala Harris have recently called for a federal ban on assault weapons, which she calls “weapons of war” that “have no place on the streets of civil society.” One of the major problems with that proposition is that Americans have no idea what Democrats mean by “assault weapons.” Even former President Biden’s ATF Director Steve Dettelbach would not offer a definition to Congress, leading Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, to point out that “[i]f we laid a weapon on the table, you could pretty much say, ‘that falls in the category of assault weapon.'”
In its upcoming term, the Supreme Court may finally help outline a legal definition of assault weapons and judge on the constitutionality of broad firearm bans.
Grant v. Higgins challenges Connecticut’s state-level ban on the sale, transfer, or possession of “assault weapons,” which they define as “[a]ny selective-fire firearm capable of fully automatic, semi-automatic or burst fire at the option of the user.” Grant is not challenging the ban on automatic or burst-fire weapons, but the ban on all semi-automatic weapons that meet the state’s criteria. Among the banned firearms are many commonly used rifles, like the AR-15, along with semi-automatic pistols and shotguns.
Viramontes v. Cook County challenges a similarly broad ban on assault weapons in Cook County, Illinois. The law bans over 100 different rifles by name, including the “most popular long gun in the country,” the AR-15 platform rifle, and any other semi-automatic rifle that can fit a magazine capacity over ten rounds.
Both laws were upheld in the lower courts, leading the plaintiffs to bring their cases to the Supreme Court as a vital Second Amendment issue.
In their appeal, the plaintiffs argue that “the very term ‘assault weapon’ is a political slogan masquerading as a meaningful designation, designed to exploit ‘the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic’ firearms.”
Because of this vagueness, they argue, “’assault weapons’ laws restrict many perfectly ordinary and common firearms,” which are “functionally identical to every other semi-automatic firearm in the way they fire,” and are “exceedingly common and fully protected by the Second Amendment.” They further argue that the 14th Amendment incorporation doctrine means that the individual states must recognize their citizens’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Simonov/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 |
‘But it would be frankly shocking to me if there were not attempts by these states after … a likely, hopeful victory here for AR-15s to get around by just making it difficult.’
The U.S. Supreme Court is gearing up to weigh another big Second Amendment issue in its upcoming term — a matter legal specialists say will greatly affect Americans’ constitutional rights.During a Tuesday Federalist Society forum, Notre Dame Law School Professor Haley Proctor and American Suppressor Association General Counsel Michael Williams offered viewers a sneak preview into what’s at stake in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. The pair of consolidated cases — which deal with the legality of laws banning AR-15s and similar semiautomatic firearms — will be heard by the high court in its October 2026 term.
The two panelists began by laying the foundation of the Supreme Court’s existing Second Amendment jurisprudence, which included a discussion of its 2022 NYSRPA v. Bruen decision. In Bruen, the majority (6-3) recognized that Americans have a constitutional right to carry firearms outside the home for purposes of self-defense.
The Bruen ruling established a two-step test lower courts are to use when assessing restrictions on firearm possession. The majority said courts must first assess whether the regulated conduct is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text, and if so, determine if that regulation is consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Turning to Viramontes and Grant, Williams observed how the 2nd and 7th Courts of Appeals effectively failed to properly adopt Bruen‘s two-step framework when considering the challenges to the respective laws.
In Viramontes, Williams noted that the 7th Circuit “essentially stops the argument at step one” by analogizing AR-15s to “automatic weapons” like M-16s, which it found are “presumptively not covered by the Second Amendment” under existing SCOTUS precedent. Meanwhile, in Grant, he said that the 2nd Circuit focused more on the second step by accepting Connecticut’s “historical analogues” regarding bans on “certain types of knives” and “machine guns,” and started “to slip closer and closer” to a framework rejected by the Supreme Court in Bruen.
The attorneys also considered the possibility that the Supreme Court may address the lawfulness of restrictions on gun-magazine size in its decision. The sole question agreed to by the justices is whether the Second and 14th Amendments “guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”
Williams opined that “it’s entirely possible you could see these connected in this decision” because “it’s really kind of hard to separate the magazine out from the firearm to the extent that an AR-15 comes with a standard magazine; it’s generally a 30-round magazine.” He furthermore noted these guns’ wide use among the American public.
Proctor expressed uncertainty on whether the high court will handle the magazine issue in Viramontes and Grant, “especially now that there is a circuit [court] split” on the question. She noted there’s always a chance, however. --->READ MORE HERE
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