Supreme Court to Decide Whether Assault-Style Rifles Are Protected by the Second Amendment

A Supreme Court case merging Viramontes v. Cook County with a parallel Connecticut lawsuit will address whether state bans on assault-style rifles violate the Second Amendment. Plaintiffs contend that semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 are widely owned and thus fall within the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, citing a recent poll estimating about 30 % of gun owners possess such weapons. Defendants, including Cook County’s district attorney’s office, argue the bans target weapons that are “fundamentally incompatible” with lawful self-defense and are historically classified as dangerous and unusual.

The Court will apply its two-step Bruen framework, first checking the text of the amendment and then historical analogues, a method that has previously upheld restrictions. Lower courts have relied on Justice Scalia’s Heller opinion, which allowed regulation of weapons not in common use at the time of the founding. With eleven states and the District of Columbia maintaining assault-weapon bans, the ruling could either cement or dismantle those restrictions nationwide.