The New Jersey Libertarian Party affirms that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of law-abiding citizens to possess AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
This December the Supreme Court will hear Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. These consolidated cases present a clear question: whether governments may impose categorical bans on the most commonly owned rifles in civilian hands. The Court should answer that they may not.
AR-15-style rifles are possessed by tens of millions of Americans for lawful purposes including self-defense, hunting, and sport shooting. They are semiautomatic firearms that fire one round per trigger pull. Under District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, arms in common use for lawful purposes are protected. Categorical bans on such arms lack any historical tradition of firearm regulation and therefore violate the Constitution.
New Jersey’s own “assault firearm” ban remains in force solely because the Third Circuit stayed its July 2026 ruling that correctly found the ban unconstitutional. That stay will lift or be rendered moot once the Supreme Court decides the pending cases. The outcome will determine whether New Jersey residents finally regain the rights the Constitution already guarantees them.
The proper response to criminal misuse of firearms is vigorous enforcement against the guilty, not the disarmament of the peaceable majority. Liberty requires that the default position be freedom. The state may punish violence; it may not prohibit free citizens from keeping the tools of self-defense simply because those tools are effective.
The New Jersey Libertarian Party calls upon the Supreme Court to affirm that the right to keep and bear arms includes AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles. We further call upon New Jersey officials to cease defending a ban that has already been held unconstitutional and that cannot survive principled application of the Second Amendment.
Individual rights are not privileges subject to legislative preference. They are the foundation of a free society.