Akhil Amar's SCOTUS Brief in Viramontes — Illinois AR-15 Ban

Yale Law School's Akhil Reed Amar — one of the most cited constitutional scholars alive, a man whose work federal judges quote by name — has just filed an amicus brief at the United States Supreme Court in Viramontes v. Cook County, urging the Court to strike down the Cook County AR-15 ban. For anyone following the Illinois PICA litigation and our case, Bevis v. City of Naperville, this is significant news worth reading carefully.

Who Filed, What They Said, and Why It's Unusual

Amicus briefs get filed at the Supreme Court constantly. Most are noise. This one is different.

Professor Amar is not a conservative legal activist. He's a Yale constitutional law professor whose scholarship is cited across the ideological spectrum — by liberal and conservative justices alike. When someone like Amar steps into a Second Amendment fight on the pro-rights side, it sends a clear signal to the Court: the argument for protecting semiautomatic rifles isn't a fringe position. It's grounded in the text, history, and tradition of the Constitution.

His brief in Viramontes v. Cook County argues, in essence, that AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles are arms within the meaning of the Second Amendment — protected by Heller, reinforced by Bruen, and not subject to a blanket government ban. That's the same core argument we've been making in Bevis since day one.

When a constitutional scholar who has spent decades teaching the Bill of Rights tells the Supreme Court that an AR-15 ban is indefensible under the Second Amendment, the justices notice.

The Connection to Bevis v. Naperville and PICA

Viramontes v. Cook County and our case aren't the same lawsuit, but they are fighting the same law in the same state. Cook County enacted its own assault weapons ordinance layered on top of Illinois' PICA — the Protect Illinois Communities Act. Viramontes challenges that ordinance. Bevis challenges PICA itself, along with Naperville's local ban that started all of this for me personally.

The Supreme Court already granted certiorari in Bevis on June 30, 2026 — you can read the full breakdown of that moment in our earlier coverage here. What matters now is that Viramontes is also working its way through the pipeline, and the Court's handling of both cases will likely move in tandem. A favorable ruling in one strengthens the other.

Amar's brief adds weight to the entire pro-rights position across Illinois. The Seventh Circuit upheld PICA in its 2-1 ruling earlier this year, but that decision is now being reviewed at the highest level. Every credible voice that tells the Supreme Court "this ban is unconstitutional" matters — and Akhil Amar is about as credible as it gets.

Why the Seventh Circuit's Reasoning Doesn't Hold Up

The two-judge majority in the Seventh Circuit's PICA ruling leaned heavily on the idea that AR-15-style rifles are "like" military weapons — dangerous and unusual enough to fall outside Second Amendment protection. That framing directly contradicts Bruen's historical-tradition test, and Amar's brief takes aim at exactly that logic.

The State of Illinois has argued all along that semiautomatic rifles used by millions of law-abiding Americans somehow belong to a separate, lesser category of protected arms. Courts that buy that argument are, in effect, rewriting Heller. Heller said arms "in common use" are protected. There are estimated to be somewhere between 20 and 25 million AR-platform rifles in civilian hands in this country. That is not a marginal, unusual firearm. It is the most popular rifle in America.

That argument — common use, common protection — is now being made at the Supreme Court by scholars, gun owners, the DOJ (which filed an amicus brief siding with plaintiffs in our case), and Harmeet Dhillon herself, who argued on our behalf at the Seventh Circuit. The academic community, the executive branch, and the legal advocacy world are all pointing the same direction. The Seventh Circuit's majority opinion is increasingly isolated.

What Illinois Gun Owners Should Watch For

The Supreme Court term that will decide Bevis and likely touch Viramontes is now the most consequential Second Amendment term since Bruen in 2022. Here's what I'm tracking:

• Briefing schedules — Petitioners and respondents will file merits briefs in the coming months. The quality and volume of amicus support will shape how the justices frame the questions.
• Consolidation decisions — The Court may decide to consolidate Viramontes with Bevis or hear them sequentially. Either approach produces an Illinois-specific ruling.
• The DOJ's continued posture — The Department of Justice filed its amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in our case after I wrote directly to AG Pam Bondi. That institutional weight doesn't disappear. Watch to see if the DOJ files again at the merits stage.

If you want to dig into the specifics of how we got here — the forced move from Naperville to Aurora, the letters I wrote, the Seventh Circuit argument — the full history is on our blog. And if you're in the Aurora area and want to talk through what any of this means for your firearms, we're here at the shop.

Where Things Stand as of July 2026

As of this writing, the Supreme Court has granted cert in Bevis v. City of Naperville. Viramontes v. Cook County is working toward the Court with fresh and formidable amicus support. The Seventh Circuit's pro-ban ruling is on review. The DOJ has sided with gun owners. And now one of the country's foremost constitutional scholars has told the highest court in the land that Illinois' rifle ban cannot survive scrutiny under the Constitution he has spent his career studying.

That's not spin. That's the state of play.

I've said from the beginning that this case would end at the Supreme Court. We're there. The scholars, the government, the plaintiffs — we're all pointing the same direction. The Court will have to answer.

We didn't start this fight, but we plan to finish it.

— Robert Bevis, Law Weapons & Supply