Supreme Court Justices Get Swamped By Flood Of Briefs As Semi-Auto Showdown Looms

The Supreme Court received 40 briefs on a significant Second Amendment Case involving semiautomatic firearms as of Friday.

The justices agreed on June 30 to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, a Second Amendment challenge to the Illinois locality’s ban on modern semiautomatic firearms. According to the Supreme Court’s website, “amicus” briefs, also known as “friend of the court” briefs, were submitted by members of the House of Representatives led by Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, multiple United States Senators, 27 states, the federal government via the Department of Justice (DOJ) and numerous pro-Second Amendment organizations at the national and state levels.

“Tennessee and Kansas, along with Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming, have a significant interest in ensuring that the Second Amendment receives the full protection this Court’s precedents require,” the brief from the states, led by Republican Attorneys General Kris Kobach of Kansas and Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, said. “Amici States’ citizens are among the millions of Americans who own AR-15 platform and other similar semiautomatic rifles for numerous lawful purposes—including for hunting, for sport, and for defense of self and others.”

“The AR-15 platform rifle is popular for many reasons, not the least of which are its reliability and relatively low recoil, which make it an excellent target gun,” the brief continued. “Amici States are also home to lawful businesses that manufacture and sell these semiautomatic rifles across the country.”

An amicus brief is a legal document filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by someone who is not a party to the case. Its purpose is to offer the justices extra information, specialized expertise, or a broader view of how a ruling might affect people or groups beyond the litigants themselves, according to Cornell University.

One of the briefs was filed by the Liberal Gun Club, alongside the National African American Gun Association, the Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association and Operation Blazing Sword–Pink Pistols.

“The specific features and firearm models Connecticut and Cook County have banned are among the best-suited for self-defense of any firearm currently available,” the brief said. “Far from lending themselves to criminality, the features that define the rifles respondents have chosen to denigrate are precisely what make them so well-suited to the Second Amendment’s ne plus ultra purpose.”

The Trump administration also weighed in. In a brief filed by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who was joined by Assistant Attorneys General Harmeet Dhillon and Brett Shumate and Second Amendment Section Chief Barry Arrington, the officials urged the Supreme Court to strike down the bans on so-called “assault weapons.”

“The AR-15 rifle is unquestionably in common use among law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Today, AR-15s are lawful at the federal level and in 40 States,” the DOJ brief said. “The overwhelming majority of AR-15 owners possess those rifles for the lawful purposes to which they are adapted, such as self-defense in the home, hunting, and target shooting. A ban on possessing such rifles thus violates the Second Amendment.”