Supreme Court takes up challenges to AR-15 bans
The justices will decide whether AR-15 bans survive the post-Bruen test, putting laws in Cook County and Connecticut on the line nationwide.
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday, June 30, to decide whether AR-15-style rifles can be banned under the Second Amendment, taking up challenges to restrictions in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut. The two cases are set to be argued together in the fall term that begins in October 2026.
The court’s review comes after years of lower-court conflict over District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, which recognized an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022, which requires gun laws to fit the nation’s historical tradition of regulation. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Illinois-area restrictions in Bevis v. City of Naperville in 2023, saying the covered firearms were not meaningfully different from machine guns and military-grade weaponry for Second Amendment purposes.
On June 2, 2025, the justices declined to hear Snope v. Brown, a challenge to Maryland’s AR-15 ban. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that the court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted review. Just days earlier, the court struck down Hawaii’s no-carry default rule in Wolford v. Lopez.
Connecticut’s restrictions grew out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The state expanded its assault-weapons ban in 2013, adding many weapons by name and by feature, and required anyone who lawfully possessed newly banned guns before April 4, 2013, to register them by January 1, 2014. Cook County’s ordinance bars possession, acquisition and transfer of the weapons at issue and covers 125 prohibited rifles, including AR-15s.
Brady says Illinois enacted its ban in response to the July 4, 2022 Highland Park parade shooting, where a gunman armed with an assault weapon killed seven people and injured dozens more. Brady says shootings involving assault weapons or large-capacity magazines leave 155% more people shot and 47% more people killed than shootings without those weapons, and that 18% of mass shootings with four or more fatalities in 2023 involved an assault weapon.
Gun-rights advocates argue that AR-15s are commonly owned lawful firearms protected by the Constitution and that bans sweep too broadly. The broader fight now reaches about a dozen states, along with cities and jurisdictions such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., where similar laws remain in force while the court decides whether the Second Amendment permits them.
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