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The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two hot-button cases next term related to Americans’ right to own semiautomatic rifles.
The suits, Viramontes v. Cook County, and Grant v. Higgins, will be consolidated, per a brief order from the court, and given a total of one hour for oral arguments.
According to SCOTUSblog, plaintiff Cutberto Viramontes’ case is rooted in Illinois, where he argued in federal court in 2021 that a local Cook County ban on semiautomatic rifles violated his Second Amendment rights.
In Grant v. Higgins, the court will consider a Connecticut state ban on so-called semiautomatic firearms.
The court’s decision to consider arguments on this issue comes just days after the high court ruled against stringent gun restrictions in the blue state of Hawaii, deciding in a 6-3 vote that the Aloha State’s ban on carrying guns without a property owner’s permission to do so was a violation of the Second Amendment, RSBN previously reported.
“This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority opinion. “We hold that the law is unconstitutional.”
The two cases that stand to be considered by the Supreme Court may well determine whether specific types of firearms may be banned in the United States.
On Tuesday, National Rifle Association (NRA) EVP and CEO Doug Hamlin issued a response to the development at SCOTUS. “The Supreme Court’s decision to review the unconstitutional bans of common semiautomatic firearms represents a critical step forward restoring the full scope of the Second Amendment as our Founders intended,” he said in a statement.
Although agreeing to take up the semiautomatic firearms question, SCOTUS declined to hear arguments in a case dealing with the question of whether restricting gun sales for adults under the age of 21 violates the Constitution.