Supreme Court to Review Challenges to AR-15 Bans in Illinois and Connecticut

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday it will consider two lawsuits that contest bans on AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles in Cook County, Illinois, and the state of Connecticut. The cases will be heard during the Court’s next term, which begins in October.

The challenges bring the high court’s first direct review of laws that prohibit certain assault-style weapons. In 2022, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense, but it had previously declined to take up AR-15 bans.

Connecticut’s ban, first enacted in 1993 and tightened after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, makes it a crime to possess assault weapons such as the AR-15. Plaintiffs, including the National Association for Gun Rights and several state residents, argue the ban infringes their Second Amendment rights. Lower courts upheld the law, with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finding the restriction consistent with historical firearm regulation and describing AR-style rifles as “dangerous and unusual.”

Cook County’s ordinance, in effect for nearly two decades, prohibits the sale, transfer or possession of semiautomatic rifles, including the AR-15 and AK-47, as well as rifles that accept magazines holding more than ten rounds. Two residents and two gun-rights groups filed suit in 2021, claiming the ban violates the Second Amendment. The district court and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the challenge, citing the Court’s 2022 framework that requires gun regulations to be rooted in the nation’s historical tradition.

Both cases will allow the Supreme Court to apply that framework to modern assault-weapon bans for the first time.