Last year, in the case of\u00a0Garland v. Cargill<\/em>, Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent that included the following description of the AR-15:<\/p>\n Within a matter of minutes, using several hundred rounds of ammunition, the shooter killed 58 people and wounded over 500. He did so by affixing bump stocks to commonly available, semiautomatic rifles.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n At the time, I noted that this was\u00a0an odd concession to make<\/a>, given a) that Sotomayor is reflexively hostile to Second Amendment challenges, and b) that one of the most important challenges the Court is likely to hear in the coming years will revolve around precisely that claim:<\/p>\n . . . those who wish to ban the AR-15 have taken to claiming that the rifle is not, in fact, \u201cin common use,\u201d and that, as a result, it is not protected under the Second Amendment. Remarkably, Justice Sotomayor just pulled the rug from underneath that argument \u2014 and, to make matters worse, did so in an official Supreme Court opinion\u00a0on the subject of firearms law<\/em>. [. . .]\u00a0Sotomayor even uses the word \u201ccommon\u201d! Not \u201ceveryday\u201d or \u201cuniversal\u201d or \u201cnormal\u201d or \u201cusual,\u201d but\u00a0common<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 the very word that was used in\u00a0Heller<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This morning, in\u00a0her majority opinion<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Smith and Wesson Brands, Inc v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos<\/em>, Justice Kagan did pretty much the same thing:<\/p>\n Finally, Mexico\u2019s allegations about the manufacturers\u2019 \u201cdesign and marketing decisions\u201d add nothing of consequence. Brief for Respondent 23. As noted above, Mexico here focuses on the manufacturers\u2019 production of \u201cmilitary style\u201d assault weapons, among which it includes AR\u201315 rifles, AK\u201347 rifles, and .50 caliber sniper rifles. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n See\u00a0supra,\u00a0<\/i>at 6; App. to Pet. for Cert. 121a. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. (The AR\u201315 is the most popular rifle in the country. See T. Gross, How the AR\u201315 Became the Bestselling Rifle in the U. S., NPR (Apr. 20, 2023.) <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too. The same is true\u00a0of firearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexican history. See\u00a0supra,<\/i>\u00a0at 6. Those guns may be \u201ccoveted by the cartels,\u201d as Mexico alleges; but they also may appeal, as the manufacturers rejoin, to \u201cmillions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Note the language here. \u201cWidely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers.\u201d \u201cThe AR\u201315 is the most popular rifle in the country.\u201d \u201cThey also may appeal, as the manufacturers rejoin, to \u2018millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Under\u00a0Heller<\/em>, all firearms that are \u201cin common use\u201d are presumptively protected. At some point \u2014 and relatively soon \u2014 we are going to get a case in which the plaintiffs contend that the ban on AR-15s in their state is illegal under\u00a0Heller<\/em>. I have no doubt that, when that happens, Kagan and Sotomayor will find some convoluted reason to uphold the ban, but, having twice conceded such a key claim, that reason will need to be much, much more radical than it would otherwise have been.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This time, it’s not in a dissent, but as dicta in the actual decision. Kagan Echoes Sotomayor and Accepts That AR-15s Are \u2018In Common Use\u2019 By\u00a0Charles C. W. Cooke Last year, in the case of\u00a0Garland v. Cargill, Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent that included the following description of the AR-15: Within a matter of minutes, … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,89,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-observation-o-the-day","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110486,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110485\/revisions\/110486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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