Supreme Court takes up assault-weapons bans, sidesteps age-restriction cases

The U.S. Supreme Court's final day of its 2025-2026 term brought a pair of significant moves on gun rights: the justices agreed to hear challenges to assault-style rifle bans in Illinois and Connecticut next term, while sidestepping several appeals over firearm age restrictions.

The assault weapon cases

The court granted certiorari in two cases contesting bans on semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. One challenges a Cook County, Illinois, ordinance in place since 1993; the other targets Connecticut's law, enacted after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which 20 children and six adults were killed. Both bans were upheld by lower courts, which ruled that the measures do not violate the Second Amendment.

AR-15s are semi-automatic, but so too are most handguns.... Law-abiding citizens use both AR-15s and handguns for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home.

The plaintiffs argue the rifles are "in common use", a key phrase from the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, and point to an estimated 30 million AR- and AK-style firearms in circulation. They contend that banning weapons this popular flouts the Second Amendment. States and localities counter that the rifles are disproportionately used in mass shootings and are similar to military-grade weapons, making them both "dangerous" and beyond what the amendment was meant to protect.

Age-restriction petitions denied

In a separate order, the justices declined to hear challenges to a federal law that bars handgun sales to people aged 18 to 20 and to a similar Florida statute. The Fourth Circuit had upheld the federal restriction, reasoning that historical tradition supports limiting firearm sales to those under 21. The Fifth Circuit, however, struck down the federal ban in a ruling that applies only in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, a split the Supreme Court left unresolved.

The court also let stand a ruling from the Third Circuit that Pennsylvania's ban on carrying firearms during a declared state of emergency, as applied to 18-to-20-year-olds, violates the Second Amendment. That decision remains binding in the Keystone State.

A court moving steadily on guns

Since the 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which required gun restrictions to be "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," the Supreme Court has continued to expand Second Amendment protections. In the term that just ended, the court struck down a Hawaii law that required permission to carry onto private property open to the public and narrowed a federal prohibition on gun possession by drug users.

What comes next

Arguments in the assault weapon cases are expected in the fall, with a decision likely by June 2027. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have similar bans, so a ruling could reshape firearms laws across much of the country. For now, the age-restriction patchwork remains, and the justices' decision not to intervene leaves lower courts to continue grappling with the Bruen standard on their own.