Biazzo Law Files Supreme Court Brief of Amici Curiae in AR-15 Second Amendment Case: Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins
- Corey J. Biazzo, Esq.
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
By Biazzo Law, PLLC
Updated September 2026
Biazzo Law, through Corey J. Biazzo as counsel of record, has filed a Supreme Court brief of amici curiae with Tiange Huang in consolidated Second Amendment cases that may become among the most important firearms-law decisions since District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, and United States v. Rahimi.
The cases are:
Cutberto Viramontes, et al. v. Cook County, Illinois, et al., No. 25-238andEddie Grant, Jr., et al. v. Ronnell Higgins, et al., No. 25-566
The question presented is direct:
Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
The Huang–Biazzo brief of amici curiae supports the petitioners and addresses how the Supreme Court should apply the Second Amendment’s “common use” principle to AR-15 platform rifles, similar semiautomatic rifles, and future arms technology.
Read the Brief Here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-238/423209/20260904220212648_Huang%20Biazzo%20Brief.pdf
This case also fits within Biazzo Law’s broader constitutional and civil-liberties work through the Biazzo Law Government Oversight Program:
Biazzo Law has also covered related Second Amendment developments here:
Quick Answer: What Is This Supreme Court Case About?
This case asks whether the Constitution protects the right of law-abiding citizens to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
The petitioners argue that these rifles are bearable arms, are commonly possessed by law-abiding Americans, and therefore fall within the Second Amendment under Heller and Bruen.
The respondents defend state and local laws regulating or prohibiting weapons they classify as “assault weapons.” They argue that these weapons are unusually dangerous, rarely used for lawful public purposes, and that the case is a poor vehicle because of the record and procedural history.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari, consolidated the Cook County and Connecticut cases, and will decide the question presented in a merits case, not merely through the emergency docket.
Why This Case Matters
This case matters because lower courts have struggled to apply the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment cases to modern arms bans.
After Heller, the Supreme Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. After McDonald, that right applies against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. After Bruen, courts must look to the constitutional text and the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rather than using ordinary interest-balancing.
But questions remain.
How should courts decide whether a modern firearm is protected?
Does “common use” mean common possession by law-abiding citizens?
Can government classify a widely owned semiautomatic rifle as outside the Second Amendment because of selected features, appearance, or perceived dangerousness?
Can a court treat the AR-15 differently from other semiautomatic firearms because of military resemblance, even though the civilian AR-15 is not a machine gun?
Those are the kinds of issues this case presents.
What Is Viramontes v. Cook County?
Viramontes v. Cook County challenges Cook County, Illinois’s regulation of weapons classified as “assault weapons.”
The petition argues that Cook County’s ordinance criminalizes the possession, sale, or transfer of certain semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15 platform rifles and other firearms identified by name or by selected features. The petitioners argue that the ordinance reaches ordinary semiautomatic rifles possessed by law-abiding citizens.
The petitioners contend that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country and that lower courts need guidance on how to apply Heller and Bruen to categorical arms bans.
Cook County responds that the ordinance is constitutional, that courts have upheld similar regulations, and that the petitioners failed to develop an adequate factual record below.
What Is Grant v. Higgins?
Grant v. Higgins is the companion case from Connecticut. It also involves restrictions on AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic firearms.
The Supreme Court consolidated Viramontes and Grant for briefing and oral argument. That means the Court will consider the shared constitutional question in one combined merits proceeding.
The consolidated posture matters because the Court’s eventual decision may affect not only Cook County and Connecticut, but also other jurisdictions with similar laws.
What Is an Amicus Curiae Brief?
An amicus curiae brief is a “friend of the court” brief.
It is filed by a person or organization that is not a party to the case but believes it can help the court understand an important legal issue.
Amicus briefs are common in Supreme Court cases, especially cases involving constitutional rights, federalism, nationwide regulatory schemes, public policy, civil liberties, and questions affecting many people beyond the immediate parties.
A strong amicus brief should not simply repeat the parties’ arguments. It should add something useful, such as:
a narrower legal framework;
a historical perspective;
a practical consequence;
a doctrinal clarification;
technical or subject-matter expertise;
or a broader constitutional principle the Court may find helpful.
In this case, the Huang–Biazzo brief focuses on a specific Second Amendment issue: how the Court should apply the “common use” principle to semiautomatic rifles and technological innovation.
What Did the Huang–Biazzo Amicus Brief Argue?
The joint amicus brief by Tiange Huang and Corey J. Biazzo supports the petitioners.
The brief does not try to duplicate every argument made by the parties. Instead, it focuses on three related points.
First, the brief argues that common lawful possession is itself constitutionally relevant use. The Second Amendment protects the right to “keep” arms, not only the right to discharge them in self-defense. An owner does not need to first fire a firearm in a recorded defensive encounter before possession becomes constitutionally meaningful.
Second, the brief argues that statutory “assault weapon” classifications do not create a distinct constitutional class of arms. A legislature can define what its statute prohibits, but a statutory label does not decide what the Second Amendment protects.
Third, the brief argues that the “common use” principle must account for functionally continuous innovation. Government should not be able to prohibit a new version of an otherwise protected arm at the moment it appears, prevent ordinary citizens from acquiring it, and then later argue that the arm is “unusual” because the government’s own ban kept it from becoming common.
That is the brief’s central contribution.
The “Common Use” Problem
The Supreme Court has used the phrase “in common use” to distinguish protected arms from “dangerous and unusual” weapons.
The dispute is how that principle applies to AR-15 platform rifles and similar semiautomatic rifles.
The petitioners argue that AR-15 platform rifles are commonly possessed by law-abiding Americans and are therefore protected.
The respondents argue that the weapons are unusually dangerous and not sufficiently tied to lawful public use.
The Huang–Biazzo brief focuses on how “common use” should be measured.
A key point is that peaceful possession often leaves little public record. If a citizen lawfully owns a firearm for self-defense but never has to fire it, that is the ideal result. The right has been exercised, but no police report, prosecution, trial, or published case exists.
Criminal misuse, by contrast, is visible. It produces victims, investigations, prosecutions, studies, and news coverage.
A legal test that focuses mainly on recorded discharges risks discounting the peaceful exercise of the right and overemphasizing criminal misuse.
Why the Word “Keep” Matters
The Second Amendment protects the right to “keep and bear Arms.”
The Huang–Biazzo brief emphasizes the word “keep.”
Keeping arms means possessing them. That possession can serve self-defense, deterrence, training, sport, hunting, militia-related purposes, and other lawful uses.
A firearm kept for lawful defense may never be fired in self-defense because the emergency never occurs, the threat is deterred, the owner avoids conflict, or ordinary life simply proceeds peacefully.
That does not make the possession constitutionally irrelevant.
The brief argues that common lawful possession should count in the “common use” analysis because the constitutional text protects keeping arms, not only firing them.
The Problem With Legislative Labels
The case also raises a recurring issue in Second Amendment litigation: whether the label “assault weapon” should control the constitutional analysis.
The Huang–Biazzo brief argues that it should not.
A legislature may choose to regulate firearms by features, model names, grips, stocks, barrel shrouds, muzzle devices, or magazine-related characteristics. Those choices define the statute.
But the constitutional question is different.
The question is whether the regulated firearm is a bearable arm protected by the Second Amendment and, if so, whether the government can justify its restriction under the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The brief argues that selected components or features do not necessarily define a distinct firing function, a distinct ballistic class, or a distinct constitutional category.
Semiautomatic Is Not Automatic
Another issue is the difference between semiautomatic and automatic fire.
A semiautomatic firearm fires one round per separate function of the trigger.
An automatic firearm, such as a machine gun, can continue firing while the trigger remains depressed.
This distinction matters because some lower-court analysis and some regulatory arguments treat AR-15 platform rifles as if military resemblance or lineage were enough to place them outside the Second Amendment.
The Huang–Biazzo brief argues that resemblance is not the test.
A civilian semiautomatic rifle does not become constitutionally unprotected merely because it shares appearance, ammunition, lineage, controls, or components with a military arm. The constitutional analysis should focus on the firearm’s actual operation and historical tradition, not labels or impressions.
Technological Innovation and the Second Amendment
One of the most important parts of the Huang–Biazzo brief concerns technological innovation.
The Supreme Court has already said the Second Amendment is not limited to arms that existed at the Founding.
That principle creates a practical question: what happens when a new firearm design, model, or configuration appears?
If courts require proof that the exact model has already become common before it receives protection, government could ban the new model immediately, prevent it from ever becoming common, and then argue that it is unprotected because it is uncommon.
The Huang–Biazzo brief calls this circular.
The brief proposes a narrower rule:
When a newly developed bearable arm retains a firing function and functionally relevant architecture already common among lawful protected arms, novelty in the exact model, configuration, or improved performance should not, by itself, make the arm constitutionally “unusual.”
Put another way, innovation within an existing protected class should not automatically create a new unprotected class.
What the Brief Does Not Argue
The Huang–Biazzo brief does not argue that all weapons are constitutionally protected.
It does not argue that government can never regulate firearms.
It does not argue that harmful misuse of firearms is immune from punishment.
The brief recognizes that government may punish criminal misuse and may defend restrictions grounded in the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The narrower point is that government should not be allowed to define away constitutional protection by using statutory labels, by treating peaceful possession as legally invisible, or by banning new iterations of protected arms before ordinary citizens can acquire them.
How This Relates to Biazzo Law’s Prior Second Amendment Work
Biazzo Law has previously filed and covered Second Amendment matters involving the Supreme Court’s modern text-and-history framework.
Biazzo Law previously participated on the winning side in United States v. Hemani, a Second Amendment case involving 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the federal firearm-disability statute for unlawful users of controlled substances.
Read Biazzo Law’s coverage of United States v. Hemani here:
Biazzo Law has also covered Virginia’s 2026 assault-firearms and magazine-ban litigation:
Together, these matters reflect a broader constitutional issue: how courts should apply the Second Amendment’s text, history, and tradition to modern regulations without converting constitutional rights into policy preferences.
Why This Is a Government Oversight Issue
This case also connects to the Biazzo Law Government Oversight Program:
Government oversight is not limited to public-records disputes or executive-power cases.
It also includes constitutional-rights litigation.
When government restricts the exercise of an enumerated right, courts must ask whether the government has constitutional authority to do so.
That question is especially important when a regulation affects a large category of arms, a large number of citizens, and a right expressly protected by the Bill of Rights and incorporated against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
This case presents government-oversight issues involving:
constitutional limits on state and local regulation;
the role of courts in protecting enumerated rights;
the meaning of “common use”;
the relationship between public-safety regulation and constitutional text;
the danger of legislative labels replacing constitutional analysis;
and whether modern arms technology can be frozen by government action.
Biazzo Law’s position is institutional: constitutional guarantees should not expand or contract depending on policy preferences, political pressure, or local hostility to a protected right.
What Happens Next?
The Supreme Court has granted review and consolidated the cases for briefing and oral argument.
The petitioners have filed their merits brief. Amicus briefs supporting petitioners are being filed.
Respondents’ merits briefs will follow under the Court’s schedule.
The Supreme Court will then hear argument and issue a merits decision.
The decision could clarify:
whether AR-15 platform rifles and similar semiautomatic rifles are protected arms;
how courts should apply the common-use test;
whether common use is part of the textual inquiry, the historical inquiry, or both;
whether legislative “assault weapon” labels matter constitutionally;
whether military resemblance can remove an otherwise common civilian arm from protection;
and how the Second Amendment applies to modern arms technology.
Key Takeaway
The Supreme Court’s consolidated review in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins may become a major Second Amendment decision.
The question is not simply whether a particular policy is good or bad.
The constitutional question is whether state and local governments may prohibit possession of AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles consistent with the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
The Huang–Biazzo amicus brief asks the Court to clarify that the Second Amendment protects common lawful possession, that statutory labels do not define constitutional categories, and that government cannot freeze the development of protected arms by banning new iterations before citizens can acquire them.
That issue matters beyond one firearm model or one ordinance.
It concerns how constitutional rights apply in a modern world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What case is the Supreme Court hearing?
The Supreme Court is hearing consolidated cases: Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238, and Grant v. Higgins, No. 25-566.
What is the question presented?
The question presented is whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
What is Cook County’s law?
According to the cert petition, Cook County prohibits the sale, transfer, and possession of firearms classified as “assault weapons,” including AR-15 platform rifles and other firearms identified by model or features.
What is an amicus curiae brief?
An amicus curiae brief is a “friend of the court” brief filed by a nonparty who believes their perspective may help the court decide an important issue.
What did the Huang–Biazzo brief argue?
The brief argued that common lawful possession is constitutionally relevant use, that statutory “assault weapon” labels do not define constitutional categories, and that government may not make a new iteration of protected arms “unusual” by banning it before citizens can acquire it.
Does the brief argue that all weapons are protected?
No. The brief focuses on bearable arms that retain firing functions and functionally relevant architecture already common among lawful protected arms. It does not argue that all weapons are constitutionally protected.
Why does technological innovation matter?
Because if constitutional protection required proof that every exact new model was already common, government could ban new protected designs at birth and then use the resulting scarcity to argue they are “unusual.”
How does this case relate to Biazzo Law’s Government Oversight Program?
The case involves government limits on an enumerated constitutional right. Government oversight includes ensuring that federal, state, and local governments act within constitutional limits.
Where can I read the United States’ amicus brief?
The United States’ amicus brief in support of petitioners is available here:
Where can I read Biazzo Law’s related Second Amendment coverage?
Biazzo Law’s related coverage is available here:
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