Big: Assault Weapon Bans Now Headed to SCOTUS

By Ward Clark | 2:58 PM on June 30, 2026

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Of all the schemes dreamed up by the anti-Second Amendment left, the various "assault weapons" bans are among the dumbest. The guns generally lumped into these bans aren't "weapons of war," no matter how many times nitwits repeat that claim. They are functionally identical to many, less-scary guns on the market, which are never included in proposed laws. An AR-15, it seems, is nasty and bad, but a Winchester 100, functionally identical but firing a more powerful cartridge, is not. There's just no sense to any of this.

Now, there may be some light at the end of this stupid tunnel. The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear a list of cases involving "assault weapons." Over at our sister site, Bearing Arms, Tom Knighton has that news.

For years, we've wanted the Supreme Court to agree to hear a case on bans of so-called assault weapons. They've continually kicked the can down the road, and that's been a significant problem for the gun rights community.
However, everything is about to change.
In the Court's list of cases, two in particular came up that deal with assault weapon bans.
Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the latter of which is tied with National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont, both (all?) revolve around the concept of an assault weapon ban. And, as of today, the Supreme Court has merged the two cases into one and granted certiorari on them.
In short, they're going to hear about assault weapons, and unless something very strange happens during this case, it's likely to cause them to be overturned nationwide.

Of course, something very strange may well happen; it wouldn't be the first time. But the current Supreme Court has been fairly friendly to the Second Amendment; a little cautious optimism may be in order here.

As Tom points out, there's a chance this case, or more properly, these cases, could have implications beyond just the silly notion of "assault weapons." Several states have banned or restricted other arms, such as Glock pistols, because of the possibility that criminals may illegally modify them to be fully automatic, never mind that the act of doing so is already illegal, never mind that the mere possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is illegal. But then, straining at gnats and swallowing camels seems to be a job requirement for leftist gun-grabbers.

Even a narrowly defined decision that leaves out the other types of firearms would be a big, beautiful win for the Second Amendment, and the Supreme Court has handed us several of those in recent months, including one in the most recent term in the form of Wolford v. Lopez, which struck down Hawaii's ridiculous vampire law on Second and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

Let's hope for a similar outcome in this new case, one that scotches the idiot notion of "assault weapon bans" for good and ever. Then, maybe, we can move on to national concealed-carry reciprocity.

You can view the Supreme Court's writ of certiorari here.

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