Durbin, Blumenthal, Schiff, Raskin, McBath File Amicus Brief Urging The Supreme Court To Uphold Illinois & Connecticut Assault Weapon Bans

Durbin, Blumenthal, Schiff, Raskin, McBath File Amicus Brief Urging The Supreme Court To Uphold Illinois & Connecticut Assault Weapon Bans

The amicus brief addresses Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, two cases challenging state and local bans on semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15s

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), along with U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Lucy McBath (D-GA-06), led 184 of their House and Senate colleagues in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold two assault weapon bans that are being challenged by Viramontes v. Cook County, an Illinois case out of the Seventh Circuit, and Grant v. Higgins, a Connecticut case out of the Second Circuit. Viramontes v. Cook County challenges Cook County's ban on assault weapons, first enacted in 2006 and later mirrored in Illinois's statewide ban on assault weapons, the Protect Illinois Communities Act. Grant v. Higgins challenges Connecticut's ban on certain semiautomatic rifles acquired after April 3, 2013, enacted in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. Both bans were upheld by the respective courts of appeals. The Supreme Court's ruling could affect assault weapons bans currently in place in 11 states, including Illinois, and the District of Columbia.

In the brief, the Members of Congress explain where and why the Second Amendment permits regulation and decisions about its scope, design, and revision properly belong to elected legislatures-and why preserving that responsibility is essential to representative government.

The Members wrote, "Congress's experience with the Federal Assault Weapons Ban shows what that responsibility looks like in practice, and why preserving it is important to our constitutional system. Congress spent years examining assault weapons, hearing from competing constituencies, and debating whether and how a federal restriction should be drawn. The resulting statute reflected a series of policy judgments, including which weapons and features to regulate, how to treat existing lawful owners, what exceptions to recognize, and whether the federal regime should continue indefinitely. Congress then had the benefit of evidence generated while the Ban was in force-evidence both of its meaningful effects and of limitations in the law's design."

In the brief, the lawmakers argue that within constitutional limits, assault-weapons policy belongs to lawmakers, not the courts; lawmakers have broad authority to address gun violence, subject to the Second Amendment's limits; the Constitution assigns policy judgments about public safety to Congress and the States, not the courts; lawmakers are accountable to voters for both action and inaction on assault weapons, the courts are not; Congress's experience with the federal assault weapons ban illustrates the importance of preserving lawmaker authority; Congress enacted the Federal Assault Weapons Ban through a deliberate legislative process; The Federal Assault Weapons Ban effectively reduced the criminal use of assault weapons and mass-shooting deaths; and a categorical rule would improperly foreclose policy judgments like those Congress made in enacting the Ban.

The Members continued, "To be clear, courts retain the responsibility to enforce the Second Amendment's limits, but that is not the same as making the policy judgments the Constitution leaves open. A categorical rule foreclosing prohibitions on the semiautomatic rifles at issue, as Petitioners urge, would remove that regulatory option from Congress, the States, and local governments, even as weapons, evidence, and experience continue to change. The Constitution protects individual rights while entrusting elected lawmakers with the policy judgments that remain within constitutional bounds. Amici therefore urge the Court to reject the categorical prohibition Petitioners seek and affirm the judgments below, preserving the authority of elected lawmakers to determine whether and how to regulate assault weapons consistent with the Second Amendment."

In addition to Durbin, Blumenthal, Schiff, Raskin, and McBath, the amicus brief is signed by U.S. Senators Peter Welch (D-VT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Fetterman (D-PA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Chris Coons (D-DE), along with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Pete Aguilar (D-CA), and 154 other House Members.

Read the full amicus brief here.

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