Key Takeaways
- The Supreme Court will decide if the AR-15 and similar rifles are protected under the Second Amendment in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins.
- Lower courts previously ruled that these rifles are not protected, sparking appeals from gun rights advocates.
- Cook County has defended its ban on these rifles, labeling them as weapons of war.
- The Court’s decision is expected by next year, potentially impacting states with similar bans.
- This case represents a significant moment for Second Amendment rights as it challenges longstanding regulations.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court agreed on June 30 to decide whether the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment. For millions of law-abiding owners, this is the case we have waited more than a decade to see.
The justices granted review in Viramontes v. Cook County, the FPC and Second Amendment Foundation challenge to Cook County, Illinois. They consolidated it with Grant v. Higgins, a SAF and Connecticut Citizens Defense League challenge to Connecticut’s rifle ban. The two cases will be argued together, with one hour set aside for argument.
The question in front of the Court is direct. It is whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to keep commonly owned semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15. Lower courts have spent years dodging that question. Now they cannot.
The Illinois case started in 2021. Cutberto Viramontes and fellow plaintiffs, backed by FPC and SAF, sued over a Cook County ordinance that bars roughly 125 rifles by name, including the most popular rifle in America. The county first passed its ban in 1993 and has expanded it since.
The Seventh Circuit sided with the county. The Second Circuit did the same in the Connecticut case. Both appeals courts concluded these rifles fall outside Second Amendment protection. The petitioners argue the opposite, that an arm owned in the millions by peaceable citizens cannot be called “dangerous and unusual.”
Cook County is defending the ban. State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, who took office in December 2024 and inherited the litigation, said her office will keep fighting to uphold it. She called the banned firearms weapons of war. That is the same tired label used to justify stripping a constitutional right from responsible people.
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The timing is hard to miss. The Court agreed to hear the case days before the nation marks its 250th year. FPC framed the grant as the end of the beginning, not the end of the fight.
This grant did not come from nowhere. Last year, in Snope v. Brown, the Court declined a similar challenge, but Justice Kavanaugh signaled the AR-15 question would reach the Court within a Term or two. That prediction just came true.
Arguments are expected in the fall, with a decision likely by the end of the term next year. A ruling for the petitioners would reach every state that bans common rifles by name, by feature, or by political label.
I will be tracking this case through briefing, oral argument, and the final decision. This is the fight of the decade for the Second Amendment, and I will cover every step.
