The US supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional.
The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term.
The high court’s announcement comes on the heels of two recent victories for second amendment attorneys and advocates. On 18 July the court sided with a Texas man and prospective gun owner who argued that policies that bar marijuana users from ownership violate the second amendment. The following week, the court’s conservative majority struck down a Hawaii law that prohibits people from bringing a gun on to private property without the consent of the property’s owner.
The upcoming cases are the court’s latest steps toward clarifying the doctrine set in place by the 2022 Bruen decision, which requires gun laws to pass a “history and tradition test”, said Hayley Lawrence, the executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School.
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