Supreme Court to weigh state and local AR-15 bans

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states and cities can keep banning AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles, putting one of the court’s sharpest Second Amendment fights back on the docket. The justices will review challenges to bans in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut, and the cases are expected to be argued in the term that begins in October.

The court consolidated the appeals, both of which target laws that bar possession, acquisition and transfer of the rifles. Cook County’s ordinance covers 125 prohibited rifles, including AR-15s, and county officials have said it applies countywide. County board materials also say voters overwhelmingly backed assault-weapons restrictions in advisory referendums, giving local lawmakers a political record they will likely use to defend the ban.

Connecticut’s law is broader and older. The Connecticut General Assembly expanded the state’s assault-weapons ban in 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, where 20 children and six educators were killed in 2012. The law remains on the books with limited exceptions for some lawfully possessed pre-ban weapons that were registered under state deadlines.

The new cases arrive after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, a decision that has already pushed lower courts and lawmakers to reevaluate gun restrictions. Gun-rights advocates are expected to argue that AR-15s are in common lawful use and therefore protected. Gun-control supporters will counter that assault-weapons bans are a legitimate public-safety measure because the rifles have been used in mass shootings.

The justices’ decision could shape similar laws in about a dozen states, along with major cities including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. It also follows the court’s move in 2025 to decline a Maryland AR-15 case, when Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court should and presumably would address the issue soon, in the next term or two. The result could determine how far the court’s recent expansion of gun rights reaches, and whether state and local governments still have room to restrict weapons tied to the deadliest mass shootings.