From the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
SUPREME COURT GRANTS CERT IN SAF ASSAULT WEAPONS CASES
BELLEVUE, Wash. — June 30, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court has granted two of the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) petitions for a writ certiorari in both Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the organization’s challenges to the bans on so-called “assault weapons” in Illinois and Connecticut.
Originally filed in 2021, Viramontes challenges Cook County’s ban on many commonly owned modern guns, which was the precursor for the nearly identical statewide ban passed by the Illinois legislature. In Grant, SAF is challenging Connecticut’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles – both by name and by feature set. After a troubling and misguided preliminary injunction decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, SAF presented the case to the Supreme Court for consideration.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear these pivotal cases will finally provide the courts the necessary guidance as it relates to the types of arms protected by the Second Amendment,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The modern semi-automatic rifles banned in Cook County, Connecticut and elsewhere are among the most commonly owned firearms in the country, placing them well within the scope of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes, and it’s hard to argue that a type of rifle that potentially outnumbers Ford F-150 trucks in America doesn’t meet that standard.”
SAF is joined in Viramontes by the Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens, and is joined in Grant by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens.
“Lawmakers have long relied on fearmongering to pass laws that infringe on the Second Amendment, especially when it comes to common, semi-automatic rifles,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We’re hopeful the Court will finally put to rest the idea that these rifles are not covered by the Second Amendment simply because of their look and features. These arms are no different than other semi-automatic firearms millions of Americans own for self-defense, and we look forward to restoring the right to keep and bear arms for countless citizens through these cases.”
For more information visit SAF.org.
Finally. After years of denial of rights. Lets hope that Thomas and Alito have the votes.
All the historical precedents are there — which is one reason we haven’t had an “assault weapon” case before the High Court yet; we needed other precedents first, to lay the legal foundation so that an “assault weapon” case would be more likely to succeed for us.
All we can do now is hope SAF/CCRKBA convinces SCOTUS to follow their own precedents. (Despite precedents, there’s still a chance they could defy their precedents and rule in favor of allowing AWBs. Such is the nature of lawsuits.)
The wheels of justice grind slow but fine. It’s finally time for the fine part.
They also need to topple the most useless and insulting of all, ie the various magazine bans across the country which are baseless and were rammed through using emotion and fear mongering.
If they follow their own Supreme Court precedents in Heller, McDonald, Caetano and Bruen, it should be a 9-0 decision. But I’m not putting any money on that bet. I am hoping a majority of the justices feel that those previous rulings will rule and should be followed by ALL of the inferior courts. They also need to at some point (soon!) address magazine bans and capacity limits, suppressor bans, and sensitive places.
I’m really excited about this truly landmark case. I just hope that the argument isn’t so narrow that it pigeonholes AR15-type rifles as “commonly used”, and that the verdict doesn’t mimic that. I’m afraid that dark blue Ban States will capitalize on that and argue that rifles such as the Galil or Valmet aren’t “in common use” and therefore continue with their ban on them.
I think we should strive to get a ruling that states that ALL semi-automatic long guns (rifles and shotguns) are protected under the Second Amendment. Then these blue states will have no wiggle room; remember what New York did after Bruen with “sensitive places?”
Just my .02
Mas, after the anchor baby ruling, I’m a little nervous about the SCOTUS decision, but I am hopeful.
The article states “The Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes . . .”
I’m a simple man but I don’t believe the Second Amendment protects any arms. What it does is restricts any government restrictions on firearms ownership ! So, unless the SCOTUS rules that any law restricting firearms as invalid, it is in defiance of the Constitution.
It “will provide the courts the necessary guidance” that the 7 CIRCUS Court will promptly ignore and continue to uphold an unconstitutional law. Allowing the democrats in the state of Hellinois to continue to enforce a law for a 4th year, that every fiunctional brain knows is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, that qualification disqualifies ALL Illinois democrats! The entire group, collectively, cannot achieve a double digit I.Q.
It’s not that they don’t have functional brains. They know EXACTLY what SCOTUS rulings say.
They just don’t care, because so far, what consequences have they faced for defying SCOTUS rulings?
Until there are real consequences for attacking citizens’ natural rights — meaning prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. 241 & 242, and I’m not ruling out tar-and-feathers — they will continue to do so. For them, it’s like playing a lottery with $0 tickets and a billion-dollar jackpot; why wouldn’t you play as often as you can?
Raise the cost of entry and make losing truly unattractive, and they’ll quit. Nobody would ever buy a Powerball ticket again if non-winning tickets imposed a $100,000 penalty. Anti-constitutional* legislation should cost.
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* – Can we as a movement start using this word, “anti-constitutional”? “Unconstitutional” could be an honest mistake, but “anti-constitutional” re-brands it as a deliberate attack.
I can’t get too excited but sharing positive thoughts! If we win, I can’t wait to see Tong’s face and hope we all express our pleasure to him.
Let us hope that the SCOTUS will uphold the 2nd Amendment and back up their, often repeated, claim that the 2nd Amendment is not a 2nd Class Right.
Let us also hope for a broad ruling that acts to cripple all these bans. The Gun-Grabbers most common tactic is the “Death by a Thousand Cuts”. They love piecemeal bans that, slowly, steadily, chip away at the 2nd Amendment. You see them use this tactic everywhere:
1) Semi-automatic rifle bans passed by means of the “Assault Weapon” libel.
2) Magazine bans passed using the “Large Capacity/Tool of Mass Shooters” libel.
3) Glock handgun bans passed using the “Too Easy to Convert to Full Auto” libel.
4) Ammunition bans passed using the “Cop-killer” or (with lead ammo) wildlife-poison libel.
5) Firearms restricted to “Government Approved Lists” using the “Safety” libel.
6) Imported handguns restricted using the scary “Saturday-Night Special” libel.
The above is just the tip of the iceberg. You have knife bans, and body armor bans, and brass-knuckle bans, blackjack/baton bans, Smart Gun/Smart (trackable) ammo restrictions, etc. etc. etc.
The list is limited only by the imagination of the Gun-Grabbers and the range of scary propaganda that the complicit news media is willing to push.
Let’s face it. The favorite tactic of the weapon-prohibitionists is to use scare-mongering to frighten a gullible public and yellow legislators into destroying the 2nd Amendment one step at a time. The Gun-grabbers view the 2nd Amendment as a Great Tree and the news media/legislators are their axe. With enough swings of the axe and enough chips cut from the trunk, they are convinced that, one day, they will be able to yell “TIMBER” and see the 2nd Amendment come crashing to the ground.
We need a ruling from the SCOTUS that will seriously blunt the edge of the anti-gun axe!
With President Trump in office, now is the time to try to restore the original meaning of the Second Amendment. Once he leaves office, I fear America is doomed, because even another Republican President probably won’t be able to Fight! Fight! Fight! to prevail against the Left.