Here is my prediction, and I don't think it takes a crystal ball to make it:
Every so-called “assault weapons” ban in America is headed for the constitutional trash heap.
The Supreme Court has spent nearly two decades rebuilding Second Amendment law one major decision at a time. The message running through those cases is increasingly difficult to ignore: politicians cannot simply invent convenient legislative shortcuts around an enumerated constitutional right because technology changes, political fashions change, or somebody announces a new public-safety emergency.
If politicians want to rewrite the Second Amendment, the Constitution already provides the machinery. Article V allows constitutional amendments to be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states.
Good luck with that.
There is nowhere near the national consensus necessary to repeal the Second Amendment. So legislatures have instead tried to accomplish pieces of that objective through ordinary statutes, including bans on firearms they have politically christened “assault weapons.”
Now those laws are headed directly into the Supreme Court's constitutional buzz saw.
The foundation was laid in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), where the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Then came McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), applying that constitutional protection against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Then came New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), which rejected the interest-balancing approach lower courts had used to sustain gun regulations and required firearm restrictions to be evaluated under the Second Amendment's text and the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.
And now comes the confrontation everyone knew eventually had to happen: the AR-15.
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court granted review in two cases challenging prohibitions involving AR-15-style and similar semiautomatic rifles: Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238, and Grant v. Higgins, No. 25-566. The Court consolidated the cases for briefing and oral argument.
The question presented could hardly be more consequential:
Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
That puts the constitutional legitimacy of these bans squarely in the Supreme Court's sights.
My prediction is simple: the bans are going down.
Not merely because I dislike them. Not because I own firearms. Not because I think they represent terrible public policy. My prediction follows what I see as the trajectory established by Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.
If the Supreme Court concludes that AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles are constitutionally protected arms that cannot categorically be prohibited, the consequences will reach far beyond Connecticut and Illinois. Comparable bans around the country would immediately face the same constitutional challenge.
And waiting behind this battle are numerous other Second Amendment disputes involving concealed carry, licensing requirements, fees, registration schemes, magazine restrictions, prohibited-person laws, and other government restrictions.
How far will the Supreme Court ultimately go?
Nobody knows.
But on so-called “assault weapons,” I'll put my prediction in writing right now:
The constitutional wrecking ball is swinging.
And I believe America's “assault weapons” bans are standing directly in its path.
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