Connecticut has had a ban on so-called “assault weapons” since way back in 1993. But after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Bruen ruling in 2022, pro-gun advocates began working to defeat the ban by filing a lawsuit challenging the state law on Second Amendment grounds.
Now, three years after that lawsuit was filed, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with partners the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens, have petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case Grant v. Rovella.
After a troubling and misguided preliminary injunction decision from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in August, SAF is now presenting the case to the Supreme Court for its consideration. That court upheld an earlier district court ruling that the arms in question are protected by the Second Amendment, but that the ban fits within the national tradition of gun ownership.
The SAF petition filed with the Supreme Court on November 10 explained the breadth of the Connecticut law and its implications on the Second Amendment rights of Connecticut gun owners.
“Connecticut’s ban on ‘assault weapons’ extends to many ordinary and common semiautomatic firearms—including the AR-15 rifle,” the brief stated. “These covered firearms are mechanically and functionally identical to every other semiautomatic firearm in the way that they fire.”
The brief also argued that lawsuits challenging various AWBs have been kicked around in the lower courts, including appeals courts, long enough.
“There is little to be gained from additional percolation of this issue in the lower courts,” the petition said. “As noted, lower court majorities have set forth several different rationales for upholding bans on AR-15s and similar rifles. And dissenting judges have offered hundreds of pages explaining why these bans violate the Second Amendment and this Court’s precedents.”
Ultimately, the petition asked the Supreme Court justices to hear the case and decide the issue once and for all.
“If anything, additional percolation is likely to inject more confusion into Second Amendment doctrine, as the panel suggested in the decision below,” the petition concluded. “The Court should grant the petition for certiorari.”
Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, said the case is a very important one, and not just for Connecticut gun owners.
“This case has far-reaching implications for the entire country,” Gottlieb said in a news release announcing the filing. “Residents of Connecticut and the other 10 states that have similar laws face felony prosecution for owning any number of firearms that are in common use around the country. The Constitution protects all arms in common use by citizens for lawful purposes, even those that activist lawmakers have lumped into artificially conjured definitions based on features that they don’t even understand.”
Another AWB case, an SAF challenge to the Cook County, Illinois, ban on common semi-automatic firearms, is also before SCOTUS and will begin in December.
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