Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans at SCOTUS

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, who has followed the AR-15 cases from the cert petitions to the merits briefs

Quick take: Cook County and Connecticut filed their Supreme Court briefs on October 21, and both ask the justices to let them keep banning AR-15s because the rifle is, in their words, unusually dangerous. Neither asks the Court to overrule Heller, but both attack the “common use” test the challengers rely on. The case will be argued on December 2.

• The filings: Merits briefs from Cook County in Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238, and from Connecticut in Grant v. Higgins, No. 25-566, both submitted October 21, 2026.
• The question: Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
• The other side: The challengers filed August 28, and the United States filed an amicus brief backing them and asked for argument time.
• What comes next: The challengers can reply by November 20, and the Court hears one hour of argument on Wednesday, December 2.

These are the governments’ merits briefs, the full defense of their bans now that the Court has agreed to decide the AR-15 question, and they show exactly how the argument will be made. I read both, plus the federal government’s brief on the other side, so here is the argument in plain English before December.

Table of Contents

What Cook County and Connecticut Filed

The deadline was October 21, set by the Court in July, and both governments used it. The docket for No. 25-238 shows two entries that day: a brief from Connecticut’s public safety commissioner, Ronnell Higgins, and a brief from Cook County.

The Court granted review on June 30, consolidated the two cases and gave them one hour of argument in total. It took a single question from the Cook County petition: “Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”

Our report on the grant covers why that phrasing matters. The short version is that the Court asked about one class of rifle, by name, with no public-safety balancing built into the question.

The Core Argument: Unusually Dangerous, Not Common Use

Both briefs make the same move. They accept that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, and then argue that governments have always been allowed to ban weapons that are unusually dangerous, even popular ones.

The Cook County brief opens with it: “The Second Amendment does not preclude Cook County from banning AR-15 platform weapons given their exceptional danger, lethality, and threat to public safety.” It calls AR-15s “offensive weapons of war designed for maximum lethality” that “are not customarily used for self-defense,” and it goes further than Connecticut on the threshold question. “To the extent that AR-15-platform weapons are ‘Arms,'” the county writes, “it is because they are customarily used for offensive purposes.”

The Connecticut brief says the state may ban “an unusually dangerous weapon that has inflicted incalculable harm in the State.” It rests on the law the legislature passed within months of the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 20 first-graders and six adults.

Both briefs walk the same history: the medieval launcegay, trap guns, Bowie knives, slungshots and, in Connecticut’s version, Tommy guns. Connecticut’s point is that some of those weapons were popular when they were restricted, so popularity alone never ended the government’s power to regulate them.

How They Attack the Common Use Test

The challengers’ case rests on the line from Heller that the Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes. Millions of AR-15s are in private hands, so on that test the bans fall.

Connecticut calls that position one that “defies history, precedent, and logic.” Its sharpest example is stun guns and machineguns. The brief says the Court has protected stun guns but not fully automatic machineguns “even though those weapons are owned at comparable rates,” so something other than how common a weapon is must decide the question. It also says the Court has “repeatedly rejected a use-it-or-lose-it view of legislative authority.”

Cook County attacks the evidence instead. It calls the challengers’ proof that AR-15s are in common use for a protected purpose “woefully deficient” and says their approach is unworkable. Neither brief asks the Court to overrule Heller. They ask the Court to read it so that common ownership does not settle the case.

The Federal Government Is on the Other Side

This is the unusual part. The United States filed a brief on September 4 “in support of petitioners,” the gun owners, and on September 9 asked to split argument time with them.

Its position is blunt: “Connecticut’s and Cook County’s categorical bans on AR-15 rifles violate the Second Amendment.” And it says “our regulatory tradition precludes banning arms that are in common use among law-abiding citizens for traditionally lawful purposes,” which is the exact test the two governments are trying to narrow.

So on December 2 the justices will hear a county and a state defending their bans, and the Justice Department arguing beside the gun owners against them.

What the Two Bans Cover Today

Nothing changes at the gun counter before a decision. Connecticut’s 2013 law added the AR-15 by name and bans any semiautomatic centerfire rifle that takes a detachable magazine and has one listed feature, such as a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip that puts the trigger hand below the action, a forward grip or a flash suppressor. Owners of rifles bought before the ban could register them for certificates of possession. Our Connecticut gun laws guide has the rest.

Cook County expanded its ordinance in 2006 and renamed it the Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, after a Chicago high school student killed when a gunman opened fire on a public transit bus, then amended it again in 2013. Illinois also has its own statewide ban, covered in our Illinois gun laws guide. Both lower courts upheld the laws at issue here: the Seventh Circuit for Cook County and the Second Circuit for Connecticut.

A ruling for the challengers would reach well past those two places. New Jersey has already asked the Court to hold its own AR-15 case until this one is decided.

What Happens Before December 2

Under the Court’s Rule 25.3, the challengers get a reply brief, due within 30 days of these filings, which puts it on or before November 20. Argument is set for Wednesday, December 2, and a decision would normally come by the end of the term next summer.

Until then, both bans stay in force. Two briefs, one theory: popular is not the same as protected.

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Related Reading

• Supreme Court Takes the AR-15 Question Head On
• New Jersey Asks SCOTUS to Hold Its AR-15 Ban Case
• Connecticut Gun Laws (2026)
• Illinois Gun Laws (2026)
• 10 Best AR-15 Rifles (2026)
• US Gun Laws by State