By Dave Workman
Attorney Mark Smith, host of the popular Four Boxes Diner podcast, has high hopes the U.S. Supreme Court takes cases during the new session, which began this week, which determine whether the AR-15 is protected by the Second Amendment, and whether young adults’ 2A rights allow them to purchase handguns.
Cases he hopes do not get picked up by the high court involve marijuana and guns, and a case from Hawaii dealing with firearms carry in so-called “sensitive places.”
Smith, who speaks rapid-fire on just about every topic, covered it all in the course of about ten minutes during the recent Gun Rights Policy Conference in Salt Lake City. He told the audience the most important thing involving the Second Amendment is the Supreme Court.
“While administrations change, while presidents change, while secretaries of state change,” he explained, “when the Supreme Court issues a decision, it will be with us for generations and generations…When they make a decision on our rights, we’re going to have to live with it, the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Smith gave his listeners a down-to-earth overview of the high court, noting how the court may bet anywhere between 7,000 and 8,000 case referrals a year. Of those, the justices may grant review (certiorari) to “somewhere in the magnitude of 70 cases.” And, because the court considers any cases dealing with the ATF and the firearms industry to be Second Amendment-related it becomes critically important that gun rights advocates push the right cases in the court’s direction, and sidetracks the wrong cases, which could result in bad rulings.
“It’s very important that the good cases go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and not the bad ones,” he stressed.
Smith is confident that if the court accepts a case dealing with the rights of young adults in the 18-20-year age bracket, “we’ll win.” He said there are too many examples of Founding-era requirements, specifically the Militia Act of 1792, for young men in that age group to turn out for local militia drills and duties, and to supply their own firearms and ammunition.
The case involving modern semiautomatic rifles is known as Viramontes v. Cook County, Ill., and Smith is keen on this one because he is confident it will also result in a Second Amendment victory. The Viramontes case dates back to August 2021, when the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens filed the lawsuit challenging the rifle ban in Cook County.
Smith reminded the audience that earlier this year, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh strongly hinted the court will take an AR-15 case within the next couple of years, and Viramontes could be that case. The Four Boxes Diner host stated, “We want this case to go to the Supreme Court this term” because “we have a good chance of winning.” He said anti-gunners will not push an AR-15 case because they are afraid of losing. He said the court has to take a rifle case before they address the constitutionality of so-called “large-capacity magazines,” and he actually believes the court will decide the rifle case and then take a case regarding suppressors, before any attention is paid to magazines.
As far as the marijuana issue goes, Smith said his preference would be to eliminate them from consideration, since many of these cases involve people who may have been charged with violating the federal ban on guns for anyone using a controlled substance.
“The reality on the ground,” he said, “is that we will lose this case.”
The strategy for the foreseeable future, he intimated, must be to focus on cases that have the best odds of resulting in a pro-Second Amendment ruling.
