Following closely on the heels of celebrating its 52nd anniversary, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have filed their opening brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in cases challenging assault weapons bans in Cook County, Illinois and Connecticut.
On June 30, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two SAF cases – Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut) – challenging the prohibitions of many commonly owned rifles, including the AR-15. While legal and broadly adopted by Americans all over the country for a litany of lawful purposes – including self-defense – a minority of states have sought to outright ban the possession of these types of firearms. The question presented in Viramontes and Grant is whether those states may categorically ban a widely defined class of the most commonly possessed firearms in the country. SAF’s opening brief explains precisely why the Second Amendment, and well-established Supreme Court caselaw, have already concluded that they may not.
“Assault weapons bans represent one of the largest and most pernicious gun rights issues facing Americans,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Second Amendment demands that it is ‘the People’ who get to choose what firearm is best suited to their lawful needs, not an ideologue legislator. Modern semi-automatic rifles are the overwhelming choice of Americans for all sorts of reasons – they are easy to shoot, mechanically accurate, modular and ergonomically adaptable. As a result, Americans from all walks of life choose these firearms to defend their families and their homes. Our brief today lays out exactly why politicians who hide behind their own armed security do not have the authority to ban these firearms.”
As noted in the brief, “Whatever common use may mean at the margins, AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles fit squarely within that category. Because ‘millions of Americans own AR-15s and…a significant majority of the States allow for possession of those rifles,’ it follows that they ‘are commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.’ A ‘categorical ban of such weapons therefore violates the Second Amendment.'”
“Reckoning day for lawmakers in Illinois, Connecticut, and elsewhere across the country, is not far away and it’s high time they are finally put in their place for infringing on the constitutional rights of citizens,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “Throughout SAF’s more than 50-year history, we have fought to ensure Americans could fully exercise their Second Amendment rights, and we are optimistic this case will be a giant leap forward for the right to keep and bear arms. The ruling in this lawsuit will affect generations of lawful gun owners for years to come, and we are hopeful the Supreme Court will deposit these unconstitutional bans where they belong – in the wastebin of history.”
