The nation's high court is being asked to decide whether the Constitution guarantees the right to possess AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles.

That is the question at the heart of an appeal sent to the U.S. Supreme Court by three individuals backed by the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation. The case, Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois, challenges the county's ban on commonly owned semi-auto rifles on both Second and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. 

"This case is the ideal vehicle for the Supreme Court to say – once and for all – that semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 are protected by the Constitution," said FPC President Brandon Combs in an email sent to Guns.com. "The stakes could not be higher: If the Second Amendment doesn’t cover the most popular rifles in America, then it covers virtually nothing at all."
 

Viramontes has been moving through the federal courts since 2021, with first a district court in March 2024 and then the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals this June declining to overturn the ban. 

"The issue raised by this case is exceptionally important," the petition to the Supreme Court argues. "The AR-15 platform rifle is the most popular rifle in the country, and modern semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are the second-best-selling type of firearm in the country behind only semi-automatic handguns."

While the high court has turned away at least two different "assault ban" challenges last term, Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this year said the time when it accepts a case on the subject may be just over the horizon.

"Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly, and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two," said Kavanaugh in June.

The court's next term will hold its opening conference on Sept. 29. 

The Supreme Court typically only accepts around 1 percent of the 7,000-8,000 cases docketed each term.