A coalition of 19 attorneys general filed an amicus brief on Oct. 28 urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut laws restricting the sale, manufacture, and possession of certain assault rifles.
The brief, filed in Viramontes v. County of Cook, asks the Court to uphold appellate rulings that found the laws consistent with the Second Amendment and the nation's historical tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous weapons, according to the California Department of Justice.
The coalition’s amicus brief explains that the AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles are uniquely dangerous because their features facilitate assaultive mass killing and are poorly designed for self-defense purposes. The brief also explains that the U.S. has a long historical tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous weapons. It also urges the Supreme Court to reject petitioners’ argument that the Second Amendment prohibits laws restricting any weapon, regardless of dangerousness, once it has reached some arbitrary popularity threshold. The brief argues this would be a dangerous, illogical, and ahistorical outcome that is contrary to the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment caselaw , and would also encourage firearms manufacturers to flood communities with new dangerous weapons before a legislature manages to institute restrictions to prevent them from proliferating in shootings and other criminal activity.
The multistate brief was co-led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport. Joining them were the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Virginia filed a separate brief supporting the bans.
Sandy Hook Promise, the group founded by families who lost loved ones in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, filed its own 27-page amicus brief the same day arguing that guns can be banned even if they are in common use.
The Sandy Hook shooter fired 154 bullets in about four minutes, killing 20 first graders and six teachers, according to the Sandy Hook Promise brief.
In all, 40 amicus briefs were filed on Wednesday, according to The Center Square. These include briefs from Giffords Law Center, Everytown for Gun Safety and a group of Democrat members of Congress, led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Adam Schiff (D-CA).
On the other side of the coin, the Trump administration filed an amicus brief on Sept. 4 backing the challengers, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer moved on Sept. 9 for leave to take part in oral argument, according to Law News.
Roughly 40 briefs support the challenge to the bans, including filings from 27 states, House members led by Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde (GA-9), the federal government, and several pro-Second Amendment organizations.
One of the most tragic aspects of how anti-gunners exploit school shootings is that they use devastated families of the victims to push for solutions that would not have protected their children. In so doing, they trick people into advocating for measures that will only cost more lives by stripping people of the right to keep and bear arms.
This is especially true when it comes to so-called “assault rifles.” Very few shootings involve long guns. Handguns account for far more deaths than AR-15s, and the anti-gunners know it. Their objective is to start by banning these firearms before moving on to regular handguns, and they have no problem standing on the graves of dead children to do so.
