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Second Amendment Roundup: Viramontes Is Not Moot

Cook County includes AK-47 rifles to be among “AR-15 platform weapons”

Stephen Halbrook | 11.8.2026 10:07 PM

In the Viramontes v. Cook County case pending in the Supreme Court, Cook County has filed a Suggestion of Mootness in response to a Motion to Dismiss Petitioner Cutberto Viramontes from the case.  The question presented in the case is: "Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles."  Cook County argues that standing in the challenge is based on Mr. Viramontes' wish to obtain an AR-15 style rifle, but Christopher Khaya, the only other individual petitioner in the case, only wishes to obtain an AK-47 style rifle.  Mr. Khaya, the argument goes, does not have standing to litigate the question presented because he did not state he wishes to obtain an AR-15.

Yet Cook County itself previously classified the AK-47 as within the general category "AR-15 platform weapons."  The Brief for the Cook County Respondents states:

Specific firearms are outlawed under the........

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