Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Supreme Court Likely To Invoke 5 Major Decisions In Landmark Semi-Auto Gun Ruling

Sunira Moses/Wikimedia Commons

The Supreme Court will hear a case in December to determine the fate of bans on modern semiautomatic firearms with the justices likely spending the bulk of their time discussing how a handful of cases will apply to what is expected to be a landmark ruling.

The high court agreed on June 30 to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, a lawsuit challenging the ban imposed by a Chicago-area county. Which cases will the justices cite when deciding the fate of the bans on modern semi-automatic firearms that have passed in several states? These are the five likely contenders.

District of Columbia v. Heller
The court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes such as self-defense in the home, not just a collective militia right. It struck down D.C.’s handgun ban and its rule that lawfully owned guns had to be kept unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked.

The 5–4 majority opinion, written by then-Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Amendment’s “militia” language is prefatory and does not limit the operative right of “the people.” Scalia noted that the right of self-defense was a crucial component of the rights protected by the Second Amendment.

“[T]he Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Scalia wrote.

The dissenters argued the amendment was mainly about military service and left room for broad civilian gun regulation.

McDonald v. City of Chicago
The court held that the Second Amendment right applied to state and local governments through the 14th Amendment. Chicago’s and Oak Park’s handgun bans therefore had to meet the same constitutional standard as the one enacted by the District of Columbia.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s controlling opinion relied mainly on due-process incorporation; Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurring opinion that he would have used the privileges or immunities clause instead. The 5–4 split tracked Heller (Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor replaced David Souter), with the dissenters warning that incorporation would sweep away a lot of state and city gun laws.

“[T]he Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” Alito wrote.

After the McDonald decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit would strike down Illinois’ ban on carrying concealed firearms, forcing the state to eventually pass a “shall issue” law regarding concealed carry permits.

Caetano v. Massachusetts
In a short unsigned opinion (called a “per curiam” opinion), the court vacated a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that stun guns were not protected by the Second Amendment. It reiterated that the right covered bearable arms even if they did not exist in 1791, and that the right applies to the states.

Thomas and Alito wrote separately to emphasize that a modern self-defense weapon cannot be banned just because it is new or uncommon in the military. The case was sent back, and Caetano was later found not guilty under the state stun-gun ban.

This case could play a key role in how the high court will decide Viramontes, since many supporters of bans on so-called “assault weapons” often claimed that the Founders had no concept of what modern firearms could do.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
The court struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement for a license to carry a handgun in public. The justices ruled that law-abiding people with ordinary self-defense needs have a Second Amendment right to carry commonly used arms outside the home.

Thomas’s opinion rejected the two-step interest-balancing test many lower courts used after Heller and McDonald. Instead, a gun regulation survived only if it fits the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

“When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” Thomas wrote. “The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Wolford v. Lopez
The court held that Hawaii may not make it a crime for licensed concealed-carry holders to bring handguns onto private property open to the public unless the owner gives express permission. That default ban, the majority said, hobbled the right to carry for self-defense in everyday life.

Alito wrote for a 6–3 majority that the law was inconsistent with text and history after Bruen. Alito took particular aim at the Hawaii Supreme Court for its assertion that the Second Amendment had to yield to the “Aloha spirit.”

“As the plurality explained in McDonald, the Second Amendment has the same meaning in all parts of the United States. 561 U. S., at 784–785. It cannot give way to ‘the spirit of Aloha’ in Hawaii any more than it can yield to the spirit of the Big Apple (Bruen) or the Windy City (McDonald),” Alito wrote. “It applies in the same way to our 50th State (where about 8% of adults possess guns) and our 49th State (where the figure is roughly 59%).”

The dissenters treated the statute more as a property-law default than as a gun ban and argued it left owners free to allow carry if they wanted.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Viramontes on Dec. 2, with the ruling expected to be released sometime in June 2027.