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Second Amendment Roundup: 1st Volley of Briefs Filed in Viramontes

AR-15 ban issue attracts filing of 45 amicus briefs in Supreme Court.

Stephen Halbrook | 9.7.2026 9:29 PM

On August 28, petitioners in Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois, and Grant v. Higgins filed their opening brief challenging the "assault firearm" bans of Cook County and the state of Connecticut that were upheld by the Seventh and Second Circuits respectively.  The cases are consolidated, and the petitioners in each are represented by Cooper & Kirk.  The question presented is: "Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles."  As the brief explains, the rifle is a paradigmatic American arm and the AR-15 is the paradigmatic American rifle.  Textually, such semiautomatic rifles are "arms," they are in common use and are thus protected under the Court's precedents, and nothing in the Nation's historical traditions justifies banning them.

By the following week's deadline, some forty-five amicus briefs had been filed, all in support of petitioners except for two claiming not to support either party.  The Court's docket is here if you'd like to skim through the briefs.  Overall, the briefs address the entirety of the ever-expanding arguments that have been advanced since the first ban was passed in 1989 (unsurprisingly, California's), as........

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