Arguments will not be heard until December, but that does not diminish the importance of Monday’s new U.S. Supreme Court term kickoff in Washington, D.C.
Justices announced on the last day of June that they would accept the consolidated cases of Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. Both challenge bans on the AR-15 and similar semi-automatic rifles and whether the Second Amendment protects these popular weapons.
This issue should be a slam dunk, but this court has not been without its surprises.
2A supporters are cautiously optimistic about AR-15 case
After all, Heller and then Bruen powerfully reaffirmed that the Second Amendment does not merely apply to state militias, as gun rights opponents gleefully assert. Instead, it protects the freedom to possess weapons “in common use at the time.”
For example, the AR-15. These modern sporting rifles are lawfully owned by tens of millions of Americans who use them for everything from sport shooting to defending life and property.
Can state and local governments prohibit these firearms commonly smeared as “assault weapons” along with standard-capacity magazines?
Expert believes gun rights will carry the day
ABC News interviewed former federal prosecutor Jonathan Fahey about the pending case, and he pointed to Heller and Bruen as the possible basis for a ruling with broad gun rights implications.
The first swept aside the false narrative that the Second Amendment protects possession and use of firearms for militia purposes only. Self-defense in the home, for example. Fahey noted that, in Heller’s aftermath, “you can’t ban things that are basically commonly owned or commonly used.”
Are some 40 million AR-15s and similar models in civilian hands common enough? Roughly 38% of gun owners have at least one of these weapons.
With “common use” well established, Fahey turned his attention to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling. This required government authorities to show consistency between the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation and modern gun control laws.
“Do we have a historical precedent of a whole category of weapons being banned back then?” he asked. “…I don’t think so.”
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