Solicitor General Asks SCOTUS for the Microphone in December’s AR-15 Ban Oral Arguments

The United States of America wants a microphone on December 2 in front of the US Supreme Court.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer has asked the Supreme Court for ten minutes of oral argument in the consolidated AR-15 ban cases—Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins—so the federal government can tell the justices, in person, that categorical bans on America’s most popular rifle violate the Second Amendment. Mark Smith of Four Boxes Diner is treating that request as a tell.

Filing an amicus brief is a letter.

Standing at the lectern is a fight.

The Court has scheduled one hour of arguments in the case for December 2. Sauer’s proposal is simple: twenty minutes for the gun-owner petitioners, ten for the United States, and thirty for Cook County and Connecticut.

The plaintiffs have consented. The jurisdictions trying to keep the gun bans in place have not been reported as eager partners. The Court hasn’t yet granted the motion, but almost surely will.

This matters because the last several administrations used the Solicitor General’s office to defend gun control in virtually every circumstance. This time, they’re attacking it.

Sauer has already filed an amicus brief on behalf of the government arguing that a firearms restriction survives only if it fits the nation’s historical tradition, and that tradition doesn’t allow a ban on arms in common use for lawful purposes. The AR-15, the brief says, is “the most popular rifle in the country.” Sale or possession of one can’t be made a crime in Connecticut or Cook County without violating the Constitution.

Smith’s point is larger than two local statutes. If the Court holds that the platform is protected—semi-automatic operation, detachable magazine, ordinary furniture—then the next dodge dies along with it. Ban the same gun by banning certain features. Ban the magazines that make the rifle work as designed. Call the result “reasonable regulation.”

The United States is already warning the justices not to write an opinion so narrow that politicians can outlaw the rifle by other means. Magazines are not a side issue in that fight. They are how an AR-15 is an AR-15.

Twenty-seven states have told the Court the same thing: legislatures don’t get to decide that citizens don’t “need” a common arm. Survey data already in the record puts tens of millions of these rifles in civilian hands. “Dangerous and unusual” is a conjunctive test. Common arms fail the second half. Heller said so. Bruen said how to apply it. And Sauer wants ten minutes to say it out loud in front of the Justices while the other side is standing there.