US Solicitor General Joins 25+ States Opposing Cook County's AR-15 Ban

Ahead of December 2 oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court, Michael O'Neill of the Landmark Legal Foundation discusses an amicus brief his organization filed challenging Cook County, Illinois's ban on the sale and possession of AR-15 rifles. O'Neill notes that groups filed 33 amicus briefs in the case, including roughly two dozen states and the U.S. Solicitor General, and argues that recent Supreme Court decisions on Second Amendment protections for commonly held firearms suggest the justices are unlikely to uphold the ban. O'Neill explains the legal standard at the center of the case: whether a firearm regulation has a historical analog from the era the Second Amendment was ratified. He argues that the AR-15 compares to the musket, the commonly owned firearm of the founding era, and that no historical tradition supports banning an entire category of widely owned rifles. He also pushes back on the distinction opponents draw between AR-15s and military weapons like the M16, arguing that AR-15s are semi-automatic only and don't meet the legal or technical definition of an assault rifle, despite gun-control groups framing the weapons as a driver of mass shootings. O'Neill lays out what happens if the Court strikes down the Cook County ban, explaining that such a ruling would apply specifically to that law rather than invalidate every state and local gun restriction nationwide, though it could discourage other jurisdictions from pursuing similar bans. The Court will hear the case, Barnett v. Cook County, alongside a related Connecticut gun ban case.