Image Credit: Tennessee Firearms Association & Canva.
Article by David Seal, Tennessee Conservative News –
A coalition of national and state organizations and firearms manufacturers, including the Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA), filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in Viramontes, et al. v. Cook County, Illinois, et al., No. 25-238, and Grant, et al. v. Ronnell Higgins, et al., No. 25-566.
The nation’s high court consolidated the two cases from the Seventh and Second Federal Circuits respectively to address fundamental issues with the Second Amendment.
According to a statement by TFA, the following questions will be decided.
“The Seventh Circuit: In Viramontes, the court relied on its earlier Bevis decision. Bevis treated the AR-15 as outside the Second Amendment at the threshold because it viewed the rifle as not materially different from the M16 and drew a “military or civilian” line that does not appear in the constitutional text. The panel also offered an alternative historical analysis that relied in part on a 1746 Boston ordinance regulating firearm discharge and later nineteenth-century regulations rather than a Founding-era tradition of banning possession of a class of commonly owned rifles.”
“The Second Circuit: In Grant, the court assumed without deciding that the proposed possession of the affected firearms was presumptively protected, but nevertheless upheld Connecticut’s law by reasoning that history permitted regulation of “unusually dangerous” weapons. The brief emphasizes that the historical laws invoked by the Second Circuit concerned public carry and affray-type conduct, not broad prohibitions on acquisition or possession in the home.”
In layman’s terms, certain jurisdictions have regulated firearms outside Second Amendment provisions because a gun looks mean, is deemed to be unusually dangerous, or has military styling. TFA and its fellow amici are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to apply the Second Amendment along 4 important lines.
- AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles are “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment.
- Common use is a decisive reason to invalidate these bans – not a threshold limitation on what counts as an “Arm.
- “Dangerous and unusual” history does not support modern possession bans
- Calling a rifle “military” does not remove it from the Second Amendment.
The full text of the TFA Amicus Brief is linked here.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
“This consolidated case involves Second and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to the “assault weapons” bans of Cook County, Illinois and the State of Connecticut. Both bans generally criminalize the acquisition, disposition, and even the simple possession of magazine-fed, semiautomatic rifles with features commonly associated with the AR-15.”
To see a chronological account of case filings and court actions with the U.S. Supreme court in the consolidated cases, a link to SCOTUSblog is provided here.
A link is provided here to the full text of the TFA Media Release.
About the Author: David Seal is a retired Jefferson County educator, recognized artist, local businessman, 917 Society Volunteer, and past Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He has also served Jefferson County as a County Commissioner and is a citizen lobbyist for the people on issues such as eminent domain, property rights, education, and broadband accessibility on the state level. David is also a 2024 winner of The Tennessee Conservative Flame Award & has received an accolade from the Institute For Justice for successfully lobbing the TN legislature to protect property rights. David can be reached at david@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
