Pro-gun groups warn Supreme Court that ‘assault weapons’ bans revert rights to the 19th century
BY Herschel Smith
3 weeks, 3 days ago
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.
“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.”
There it is again, that phrase: “In Common Use.” I don’t care if there’s only a single AR-15 extant in the world. The 2A forbids the banning of it.
And leave it to the FedGov to use that argument rather than the militia argument we’ve discussed before. Finally, the article doesn’t even bring up that issue – I don’t think Jack Birle did a very good job with this article.
Lol. The Roman Catholic Church weighs in asking the court to inveigh against these weapons. As if I have some reason to care what the RCC says about anything. However, a lot of the justices are catholic so there’s that. Hopefully they’ll see through this. The RCC has also weighed in on AI. That’s like asking me what I think about colorectal surgery. Can’t they just shut up?
On September 14, 2026 at 10:35 am, Frank Clarke said:
It’s very simple. It’s so simple that only the highly-educated elite output of Ivy League universities could possibly get it wrong, they and any others who simply do not value the Idea of America.
We hold as a founding principle that the Creator has endowed us with the right to life (among others). For that right to be effective, there must be a corollary right to defend ones life, and for THAT, there must be a further right to the MEANS of that defense.
Remove the means of defending one’s life, and the right to defend life evaporates along with the initial right to life itself.
If the Declaration of Independence ever meant anything, it means this.
On September 15, 2026 at 5:02 pm, X said:
I think that based upon the existing precedents and the fact that the court granted certiorari to Viramontes at all is an indication that, on the LAW, the assault weapons bans should fall.
HOWEVER… the cynic in me says “Don’t be surprised if, one week before oral argument, the FBI encourages some whackjob to shoot fifty schoolchildren with an AR-15 while the television cameras are rolling, and POLITICALLY Roberts and Barrett refuse to overturn the bans.”
On September 16, 2026 at 9:32 am, Herschel Smith said:
@X,
I think that is as likely as not. I wouldn’t be surprised either.