Cook County’s Rifle Fan Faces a Supreme Court Test (Chicago, IL) — A legal fight over Cook County’s assault weapons ban is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, putting a decades-old local ordinance at the center of a national dispute over which firearms the Second Amendment protects.
The justices are scheduled to hear arguments Dec. 2 in two consolidated cases, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, which challenges Connecticut’s restrictions. The question before the court is whether the Constitution guarantees the right to possess AR-15-platform rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms, according to court records.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Oct. 29 that he had joined a coalition of attorneys general supporting the county and Connecticut. Their friend-of-the-court brief argues that governments have constitutional authority to restrict weapons they consider unusually dangerous.
“States and local governments must be able to protect their residents by restricting access to assault weapons,” Raoul said.
The challengers argue that the restrictions prohibit firearms commonly owned for lawful purposes. The Cook County plaintiffs include the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation, while the Connecticut case includes individual gun owners and gun-rights organizations.
In their Supreme Court brief, the challengers contend that the rifles’ widespread ownership places them within the Second Amendment’s protection. They argue that courts cannot uphold a ban simply because judges or lawmakers believe a firearm’s dangers outweigh its usefulness for self-defense.
Their position draws heavily on District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision recognizing an individual right to possess a handgun for self-defense in the home. They maintain that its protection for weapons commonly possessed for lawful purposes also applies to the rifles covered by these bans.
The attorneys general dispute that interpretation. Their brief supporting the restrictions argues that widespread ownership does not, by itself, place a weapon beyond regulation.
They point to historical restrictions on weapons ranging from Bowie knives to machine guns, arguing that governments have long responded to particular threats to public safety. In their view, the challenged rifle restrictions continue that tradition while leaving residents access to other firearms for self-defense.
The rifles at issue are semiautomatic, meaning they fire one round with each pull of the trigger. The disagreement concerns whether their characteristics and lawful civilian use place them within a protected category, or whether governments may prohibit them because of the dangers officials associate with their use in mass shootings.
History plays a central role because the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen requires governments defending covered firearm restrictions to demonstrate consistency with the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation. The parties disagree about what that history establishes and how it applies to modern rifles.
In Cook County, the dispute concerns an ordinance first enacted in 1993 and amended several times. It prohibits the sale, acquisition and possession of specified firearms, including AR-15 models, subject to exceptions.
The ordinance was later named for Blair Holt, a Chicago high school student killed while protecting a friend during a shooting aboard a public transit bus. The county describes that history and the law’s development in its filing defending the ban.
Connecticut also adopted an assault weapons ban in 1993 and expanded its restrictions after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 children and six educators were killed.
The cases directly concern those two jurisdictions, but a ruling defining constitutional protection for the rifles could affect similar laws elsewhere. For gun owners and officials defending the restrictions, the consequences will depend on how broadly the justices answer that question.
A decision is expected before the court’s term concludes in summer 2027.
Cook County’s Rifle Fan Faces a Supreme Court Test
