Quote of the Day
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in December in Viramontes v. Cook County, a challenge to state and local bans on AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. The challengers say the rifles are “in common use” for lawful purposes such as self-defense. The state governments defending their gun-bans say they are weapons better suited to war than to civilian life.
Neither side recognizes that the Second Amendment’s reference to the “militia” counts in favor of protecting AR-15s either way.
The challengers emphasize self-defense, an individually focused concern, while the governments argue that AR-15s’ military character is a reason to ban them. But AR-15s are the sort of small arms historically suited for a militia. This is actually the heart of the case, as we argued in a friend-of-the-court brief for the Cato Institute.
Small arms that an infantryman would historically have kept and borne are not marginal to the Second Amendment. Rather, they sit at its center.
Matthew P. Cavedon
October 27, 2026
Opinion: The ‘weapon of war’ argument has backfired on AR-15 bans
I thought the “weapon of war” argument would be dropped by the anti-gun lawyers. They should know that the Miller decision said only guns useful for the militia were protected. The argument had some weight when used by and for ignorant anti-gun people.
Either the anti-gun lawyers are willfully ignorant, or they are so stupid as to believe the pro rights lawyers and SCOTUS are ignorant because they are trying to make that argument fly. The other argument they are trying to make is that AR-15s are not “arms” and therefore are not protected by the Second Amendment.
I’m not making this up! They really are trying to sell those arguments:
There is another thing they are arguing that is a deliberate lie. And it’s almost clever. They are saying “unusually dangerous” weapons can be constitutionally banned. They are conflating the “dangerous and unusual” phrase from Heller. They will not get away with that.
We are going to win this case in a big way. Mark Smith thinks is possible we may even get a 9-0 decision:
I’m skeptical of that, but looking at the quality of the arguments I’m nearly certain it will be an easy win.
I think they are counting on John Roberts being a snake and bringing his mini-me along. They may be right and I hope that Alito and Thomas are good at vote counting.
The clown who tried to show how ARs put out 60,000 foot-pounds of energy per minute cracks me up. He is trying to invent a measure of lethality called “Muzzle Energy per Minute” or “MEpM.” My answer to that foolishness is to compare it to another privately owned Revolutionary War weapon, The private warship Caesar of Boston.
Revolutionary War private warship Caesar of Boston had 26 guns. Worst case they were 9 pounders firing every 2 minutes @ 1,400 fps for 274K ft-lbs/shot
13 guns (one side) every 2 minutes is 1,781,000 ft-lbs/min, roughly 30 times his calculated “MEpM” for an AR15.
Checkmate!
https://x.com/SorrentinoSean/status/2115822456392786136?a=P6Kx6t4HLk_kEoNyasc&s=20