Why it matters: The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether a state or county may ban the AR-15 outright. The answer now has an argument date, and the federal government has asked for a seat at the lectern on the challengers' side.
The Second Amendment legal-news channel Armed Scholar published a video this month on two scheduling developments in the consolidated AR-15 ban cases now before the Supreme Court. The first is that the Court has set oral argument for December 2. The second is that the Solicitor General has asked to take part in that argument in support of the challengers. Both check out against the Court's docket.
The lead case is Viramontes v. Cook County (No. 25-238), a challenge to a Cook County, Illinois ordinance that makes it a crime to sell, transfer or possess what the county defines as assault weapons. That list reaches AR-15 and AK-pattern rifles and other semiautomatic rifles with listed features such as pistol grips, folding stocks and flash suppressors. The plaintiffs are Cook County residents Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya, joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. It is consolidated with Grant v. Higgins (No. 25-566), a challenge to Connecticut's ban on similar rifles. The Court granted review on June 30 and will hear the pair together in a single hour.
Solicitor General motion for AR-15 ban oral argument time
Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae on September 4, arguing that AR-15 rifles are constitutionally protected arms in common use and that the challenged bans are unconstitutional. Five days later he filed a motion for leave to participate in oral argument. It proposes splitting the hour three ways: 20 minutes for the petitioners, 10 for the United States and 30 for the respondents. Counsel for the petitioners consents, and the government takes no position on how Cook County and Connecticut should divide their half.
The motion says the United States has "a substantial interest in the preservation of the right to keep and bear arms and in the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment." It lists four Second Amendment cases the government has argued in before as amicus: District of Columbia v. Heller, NYSRPA v. City of New York, NYSRPA v. Bruen and, most recently, Wolford v. Lopez. The video describes the request as participation beyond amicus status, as an interested party. The filing itself is titled a motion to participate in oral argument "as amicus curiae," which is the standing the government has held in those earlier cases. The motion was pending when this piece was published. Armed Scholar's host says he expects it to be granted.
What the AR-15 ban challengers argue under Heller and Bruen
The video walks through the petitioners' opening merits brief, filed August 28, which the Court framed around a single question: whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles. As the video summarizes it, the brief makes two main moves.
“The Supreme Court has never said whether the AR-15 can be banned outright; it now has a date to hear the question and a request from the federal government to help argue it.”
Coleman Reyes, The ReticleThe first is about the threshold of the Bruen test. The Seventh Circuit held that the Cook County ban was likely constitutional by following its own 2023 decision in Bevis v. City of Naperville. That ruling treated AR-15s as close relatives of the military M16 and concluded they may fall outside the Second Amendment's protection entirely. The petitioners argue Heller already settled that modern firearms are "arms" under the plain text. In their view, questions of military character and dangerousness do not belong at that first step.
The second is about common use. The petitioners argue that Heller bars outright bans on arms commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. The video says the brief relies on a 2026 National Firearms Survey. That survey, by Georgetown professor William English, was also filed with the Court in his own amicus brief. It estimates that about 26.4 million American adults own at least one AR-15 or similar semiautomatic rifle, and that about 60 million such rifles are in private hands. The Second Circuit upheld Connecticut's law in August 2025, finding it relevantly similar to historical limits on weapons seen as especially dangerous. The petitioners characterize that approach as allowing a commonly owned arm to be banned if judges deem it dangerous enough. They argue this revives the interest balancing Heller and Bruen rejected.
The petitioners are not asking for a new test and a remand. The video notes they want both lower-court judgments reversed and judgment entered in their favor, which would resolve the bans' constitutionality in this case rather than sending it back for further litigation.
When a Supreme Court AR-15 ruling could come
A December argument places the case early in the October 2026 term. The host notes that the Court could still hold a high-profile decision until the end of the term, typically late June, but that an early argument leaves room for a sooner ruling. He predicts the Court will strike the bans down and says the open question is how broad or narrow the ruling will be. Cook County and Connecticut have yet to file their merits briefs defending the laws. Under the Court's rules those briefs come next, followed by the amicus briefs supporting them.
For context
- District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right and that arms "in common use" for lawful purposes cannot be banned outright, while leaving room for bans on "dangerous and unusual" weapons.
- NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022) replaced the lower courts' interest-balancing tests with a text-and-history standard: if the plain text covers the conduct, the government must show the law fits the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.
- The Seventh Circuit upheld the Cook County ordinance in June 2025 by following its 2023 Bevis v. City of Naperville ruling; the Second Circuit upheld Connecticut's ban in August 2025 in consolidated challenges including Grant, since renamed for Connecticut commissioner Ronnell Higgins.
- An amicus curiae is a non-party that files in support of one side; the Court decides separately whether to let it share argument time, and it has granted the United States that time in prior Second Amendment cases.
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BREAKING! Supreme Court Decision To Permanently End "Assault Weapon" Bans Pushes Forward!
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