Four Justices Are On Record Against AR-15 Bans. The Supreme Court Case Needs Five.
The Supreme Court will hear Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, deciding whether AR-15 bans survive the Second Amendment. Four justices have already shown their hand.
Supreme Court math has never been complicated: you need five votes. Gun owners just walked into the biggest Second Amendment case in a generation holding four.
The Court agreed to hear Viramontes v. Cook County (Docket No. 25-238), the case that asks, with nowhere left to hide, whether the Second Amendment protects AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles. It consolidated the case with Grant v. Higgins (Docket No. 25-566), the challenge to Connecticut’s statewide ban, and set the pair for a single hour of argument. Between the two, the question lands as clean as it ever will: can a government ban rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes?
How we got here: Viramontes started in August 2021, when two Cook County residents sued over the county’s ban alongside the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. Lower courts have been split over Heller’s “common use” standard since 2008, and Bruen locked Second Amendment analysis to text, history, and tradition in 2022 without ever answering the rifle question. Since then the majority has only tightened the frame: Rahimi in 2023, then Wolford and Hemani this term. In Hemani, the Court rejected the government’s historical analogues because they “targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.” A ban built on pistol grips and collapsible stocks now has to survive that sentence.
The four cards already face-up: Justice Kavanaugh has written that AR-15s are in “common use” by law-abiding citizens “and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment,” putting the count at 20 to 30 million rifles, legal in 41 states. That came when the Court passed on Snope v. Brown, where Justice Thomas joined him on record as deeply skeptical of these bans, and Justices Gorsuch and Alito would have taken the case outright. Four justices, positions in writing. Nobody at this table is bluffing; they published their cards.
The fifth card: court-watchers at the Duke Center for Firearms Law point to Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett as the likely fifth vote, given where both landed in Wolford this term. The honest caveat: the justices will now see full merits briefing, and cert-stage signals don’t always survive it. Four face-up cards is a strong hand, not a finished one.
What to watch: briefing runs through the fall, argument is expected between October and December, and a case argued this term gets decided by the end of it, meaning June 2027. Until then, nothing changes for owners living under an existing ban: the laws stay on the books, and this ruling will set the ceiling for every AR-15 case below it, including Virginia’s four-front fight, where two courts have already blocked that state’s ban.
The most common rifle in America is all-in either way. One card left to turn.
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Call it: 5-4, 6-3, or does the Court blink? Drop your prediction in the comments below.
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Sources
- Supreme Court docket, Viramontes v. Cook County (25-238)
- Supreme Court docket, Grant v. Higgins (25-566)
- Duke Center for Firearms Law, cert analysis
- Firearms Policy Coalition, Viramontes case page
Justin Trump is the managing editor and owner of CAT Outdoors. The son of a Vietnam veteran, he’s a Certified Glock Armorer, an avid gun enthusiast and 2A advocate. He holds two firearm patents for the CAT M4 and Talon tools. When not managing CAT Outdoors, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, rooting for Michigan sports teams, and serving his church.