Pro-2A Organization Fires First Salvo In Supreme Court Battle Over Semi-Auto Gun Bans

The opening salvo of a Second Amendment case centered on bans of modern semiautomatic firearms landed Friday afternoon at the United States Supreme Court.

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on Friday filed its opening brief in Cutberto Viramontes, et al. v. Cook County, Illinois, et al., a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a local ban on so-called “assault weapons” passed by the defendant in 2006. The brief, while noting the popularity of AR-15-style rifles, argues the appellate courts that heard both the Viramontes case and a similar case involving Connecticut’s ban on modern semiautomatic firearms failed to properly apply the Supreme Court’s Heller and Bruen cases, which upheld Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

“Since Heller, the Court has continued to make clear that firearms are arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment,” the brief states. “In Bruen, for instance, the Court explained that the Second Amendment’s text covers all ‘instruments that facilitate armed self-defense,’ regardless of when they were invented.”

“Anti-gun states, relying on circuit courts that are hostile to the Second Amendment, have long gotten away with unserious arguments in AWB cases,” SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “That tactic was always only going to work until the Supreme Court finally decided to take on the issue itself. That time has come, and our opening brief lays out the arguments that we believe will be adopted by the Court in its ruling.”

The justices granted writs of certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins on June 30, consolidating the cases prior to hearing oral arguments once the next term of the Supreme Court begins in October. The high court’s decision to accept the petition came less than a week after it