A Supreme Court Case on AR

Supported by A Supreme Court Case on AR-15s Could Hinge on Their ‘Common Use’ Last week, the Supreme Court took up challenges to two assault weapons bans. Its decision could seriously limit the government’s ability to ban certain guns. We all may know what makes a gun dangerous, but what makes it both dangerous and unusual? Largely lost amid the Supreme Court’s decisions on birthright citizenship, asylum and campaign finance was its announcement last Tuesday that it would take up that enigmatic question, which is at the heart of the country’s struggle to balance the rights of gun owners against the specter of mass shootings. The court’s decision could be a watershed moment. The conservative majority may double down on a string of rulings that greatly expanded Second Amendment protections, or the justices could reconsider legal tests they created to weigh the constitutionality of firearms — like the “dangerous and unusual” question — that have confounded lower courts. The stakes are clear from the opening pages of briefs by the parties in two cases that the court said it will hear in the fall. Lawyers for Cook County, Ill., whose ban on assault weapons is being challenged by pro-gun groups, listed 25 mass shootings to show that AR-15-type rifles are unquestionably dangerous. “Assault rifles are the weapon of choice for criminals and terrorists set on quickly massacring innocents,” they wrote, “but are rarely put to lawful public use.” But are they unusual? Gun rights plaintiffs in the other case, seeking to overturn a similar ban in Connecticut, argued that the AR-15 is so popular it has been called America’s rifle: “If the Second Amendment does not protect it,” the plaintiffs wrote, “then it is unclear what that amendment does protect.” The court’s ruling is likely to come down by next summer — 20 years after it agreed to take up District of Columbia v. Heller. Its landmark opinion in that case, issued a year later, declared that the Constitution safeguards an individual right to keep arms at home for self-defense. In 2022, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the court went further, extending the right to also include carrying firearms in public. Related Content Advertisement