The Supreme Court’s Heller decision in 2008 established that the Second Amendment is a fundamental, unalienable—God-given–right that does indeed acknowledge, but not grant, the right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Unfortunately, the wheels of justice grind slowly, and it was not until 2022 that the Court handed down which affirmed that the right to bear arms extends to wherever Americans might be. What good is a right that can only be exercised in one’s home or on one’s property? Where is self-defense more likely, in one’s kitchen or out there in the wild, wild world?
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While the Court did not define every issue involved, it did note that arms in “common use” are presumptively constitutional.
During those 14 years and beyond, anti-liberty/gun zealots wrote all manner of plainly unconstitutional laws to harass, bankrupt, and imprison gun makers and citizens in the expectation that if they made gun ownership too expensive, Americans would give up their guns. The opposite happened, and the more they tried to violate the Constitution, the more guns Americans bought, more than a million a month for many years.
Among the tactics employed against common firearms is labeling them “assault weapons.” And what might an “assault weapon” be? Generally, any gun anti-liberty/gun zealots want to ban. Specifically, they’ve focused on the exceedingly common AR-15, the most popular semiautomatic rifle in America, accounting for well over 20 million.
Graphic: Common AR-15 variant. Author.
Such laws are written in part out of anti-American hatred and rage, and also because leftists know they’ll never be able to create their communist utopia if Americans keep their arms, but tactically, if they can successfully ban a gun in “common use,” they’ve established a precedent to ban them all, guns like this ultra-MAGA high-powered, high-capacity, fully semiautomatic automatic, rapid fire bolt-action, silencer capable silent, military sniper, assault death weapon:
Graphic: Savage 6.5 Creedmore bolt-action rifle. Author.
It’s actually a common bolt-action rifle of the kind used for hunting and target shooting, but “assault weapon” is a catchall without limits, and certainly none in actual firearm nomenclature.
As I’ve so often written, there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” There is a military class of assault rifles, which outwardly resemble the semiautomatic AR-15, but are select-fire rifles, capable of semiautomatic and fully automatic fire. Automatic firearms are virtually impossible for Americans to own. AR-15s and their like are no different than any other semiautomatic firearm, a technology more than a century old.
Now, to the horror of the self-imagined elite, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two assault weapon ban cases in its next term:
SCOTUS will consolidate Viramontes v. Cook County, a Seventh Circuit (Illinois) case and Grant v. Higgins from the Second Circuit (Connecticut).
That means the Court will finally decide the constitutionality of banning America’s favorite rifle, along with other commonly owned and used firearms that politicians and the civilian disarmament industrial complex have tendentiously branded as weapons of war as justification for outlawing them.
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Justice Kavanaugh, upon the Court’s refusal to hear several similar cases, wrote:
I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America. That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country. We have avoided deciding it for a full decade. And, further percolation is of little value when lower courts in the jurisdictions that ban AR–15s appear bent on distorting this Court’s Second Amendment precedents.
And that too is an issue: blue states have all but declared themselves immune from Supreme Court rulings with which they disagree, a dangerous stance that also applies to federal law. Twelve states and the District of Columbia have enacted assault weapon bans.
It appears justices prone to side with the three female anti-constitutional justices were finally unable to prevent the granting of cert on this fundamental issue. By the Court’s own formulation, how can a type of gun among those most commonly owned by Americans for lawful purposes be subject to bans?
Some have accurately observed that the “common use” standard includes its own self-negation. If a new gun design or technology promises to become common, it can theoretically be banned as uncommon before enough are sold to become common. That’s certainly an angle known to anti-liberty/gun zealots.
However, for now, Americans can expect the Court to clarify reality. AR-15s and similarly common, semiautomatic rifles are constitutional and can’t be banned. Of course, Americans thought it obvious that the 14th Amendment didn’t grant birthright citizenship either, but finally, there is cause for optimism.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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