Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas showed his hand on Tuesday on the issue of whether AR-15-style rifles are legal. His Second Amendment analysis: They are.
In a brief dissent related to an Illinois ban on the “assault weapon,” Thomas said that the overwhelming popularity of the firearm, coupled with its non-military operation, makes it a clear fit under the Second Amendment.
What’s more, the justice said that he is eager for the case to reach the highest court in America so that it can produce a list of what is allowed under the Second Amendment. “This Court must provide more guidance on which weapons the Second Amendment covers,” Thomas said.
His comments come as President Joe Biden is stepping up his assault on the popular “modern sporting rifle.” Biden was behind the 1994 ban and has been seeking to ban it since that law died in 2004.
The AR-15 has become the most popular rifle in America. The National Shooting Sports Foundation said that at 28.1 million, there are more AR-15-style firearms in circulation than Ford F-150s on the road.
Thomas was airing his thoughts on the firearm in a dissent to the high court’s refusal to weigh in on an Illinois case targeting the state’s ban of the rifle. The Supreme Court said it wanted the appeals court to finish its work before jumping in.
In February 2023, the Illinois State Rifle Association challenged Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D-IL) ban. In its plea to the Supreme Court, the association was hopeful of speeding up the case.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the petitioners’ request for a preliminary injunction, saying the AR-15 is not protected by the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court justices have declined to get involved for now.
“We are obviously very disappointed for the millions of legal gun owners in Illinois by today’s decision not to grant emergency relief, but we’re not giving up. And today’s decision does not impact the merits of our case for our upcoming hearing on September 16h in the Southern District of Illinois,” ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson said.
“Our objective from the very beginning of the process that started the moment Gov. Pritzker signed the bill into law — was to take our case to the United States Supreme Court. And we followed through on that promise, and despite today’s decision — if given the chance, we’d do it all over again because it is the right thing to do,” Pearson said.
Thomas encouraged that plan. “If the Seventh Circuit ultimately allows Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, we can — and should — review that decision once the cases reach a final judgment. The Court must not permit ‘the Seventh Circuit [to] relegat[e] the Second Amendment to a second-class right,’” the Supreme Court justice wrote.
Most in the media who write about the AR-15 seem to think that it is a military-grade automatic weapon. It’s not. It fires just like many other rifles and handguns in semi-automatic and uses a magazine to hold cartridges.
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Thomas made a point of emphasizing that AR-15s sold in sporting stores and gun shops are military-grade.
“The Seventh Circuit’s decision illustrates why this Court must provide more guidance on which weapons the Second Amendment covers. By contorting what little guidance our precedents provide, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the Second Amendment does not protect ‘militaristic’ weapons. It then tautologically defined ‘militaristic’ weapons as those ‘that may be reserved for military use.’ The Seventh Circuit’s contrived ‘non-militaristic’ limitation on the Arms protected by the Second Amendment seems unmoored from both text and history,” Thomas wrote.
He also called the ban “highly suspect.”