Editor’s Note: The prediction below has now become reality. The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, setting up a major Second Amendment fight over bans on AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles. This article was originally published on May 18, 2026, and was updated/pulled forward on June 30, 2026.
“The Supreme Court didn’t skip the AR-15 case this term out of hostility or neglect — they ran out of bandwidth on a generational docket, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has already telegraphed that the AR-15 case is coming as soon as October 2026.” — Professor Mark W. Smith, Four Boxes Diner Host
I’m often asked why the Supreme Court didn’t take an AR-15 or “large-capacity” magazine case this term. The implication is usually that the Court is dodging the Second Amendment. But there is another, more basic explanation: the Justices have one of the most packed, precedent-setting dockets in living memory, and Chief Justice John Roberts decided to ration the Court’s political capital for now.
To be the smartest person in the room on this, you have to start with the institutional reality. The Supreme Court hears roughly 60 to 70 cases per term on the merits docket. Every granted case demands briefing, oral argument, conference deliberation, opinion drafting, concurrences, and dissents, and the Justices have themselves and a small group of clerks. Behind the merits docket sit thousands of cert petitions a year, each one screened and assessed. And on top of all that is the emergency docket (sometimes called the “shadow docket”), which consists of urgent applications like the one Virginia just filed and lost trying to engage in mid-decade redistricting. Those applications get no oral argument but still consume enormous attention. READ MORE AT: https://www.ammoland.com/2026/06/why-the-us-supreme-court-skipped-ar-15s-this-term-and-why-its-coming/?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=SocialSnap