{"id":735451,"date":"2026-06-30T19:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/735451\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T19:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:55:09","slug":"supreme-court-will-review-bans-on-semiautomatic-rifles-like-the-ar-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/735451\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court will review bans on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A Supreme Court<\/a> that has expanded gun rights<\/a> will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the Second Amendment. <\/p>\n

The justices said Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans on the AR-15<\/a> and similar semiautomatic firearms in Connecticut and the Chicago area.<\/p>\n

Similar laws are in place in about a dozen states, covering major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, but Democrats<\/a> have supported renewing it in response to a series of mass shootings<\/a>. States have also continued to pass their own laws, including recent measures in Virginia<\/a> and Rhode Island<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It is the latest high-profile dispute over guns to reach the court since its conservative majority handed down a landmark ruling<\/a> in 2022 that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws<\/a> around the country. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: Supreme Court will consider whether laws called assault weapons bans violate the Second Amendment\n <\/p>\n

AP\u2019s Lisa Dwyer reports the Supreme Court will review bans on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15.<\/p>\n

Arguments are expected to be heard in the fall. <\/p>\n

The Connecticut law was passed after a mass shooter used an AR-15 to kill 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The state says the guns are a preferred weapon of mass shooters, and they can be banned because they are similar to military-grade weapons. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese laws are critical public safety measures, and they are consistent with the Second Amendment,\u201d said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment litigation at the gun-control group Everytown Law.<\/p>\n

Gun rights groups, on the other hand, argue it\u2019s unconstitutional to ban semiautomatic rifles, which are legally owned by millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes, and it\u2019s hard to argue that a type of rifle that potentially outnumbers Ford F-150 trucks in America doesn\u2019t meet that standard,\u201d said Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation.<\/p>\n

Four conservative justices on the nine-member court, enough to grant review of a case, had signaled that it was only a matter of time before the court took up the issue.<\/p>\n

The ban in Cook County, Illinois, was first passed in 1993. Lower courts have upheld both laws. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Second Amendment does not protect the most popular rifles in the country, it is hard to see how it protects any firearms at all,\u201d aside from handguns kept in the home, the challengers wrote.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Cook County, on the other hand, say the measure does pass constitutional muster. \u201cThe trauma that assault weapon massacres have inflicted on the public at large has been staggering,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court backed Second Amendment rights in two cases this term, striking down gun carry restrictions in Hawaii and a broad federal ban on gun ownership by marijuana users. They\u2019ve previously upheld some restrictions, though, including a law barring people under domestic-violence restraining orders from having guns.<\/p>\n

Also Tuesday, the court rebuffed a series of cases over restrictions on guns for young adults under age 21, declining to hear an issue that\u2019s sharply divided lower courts in recent years. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/us-supreme-court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A Supreme Court that has expanded gun rights will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[316423,23,28,157,2000,2302,1996,3505,793,90905,5630,5629,316422,3031,2005,3,795,21,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-735451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-adam-kraut","tag-america","tag-business","tag-chicago","tag-connecticut","tag-courts","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-general-news","tag-gun-politics","tag-il-state-wire","tag-illinois","tag-janet-carter","tag-los-angeles","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}