On October 28, 2026, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined a multistate amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court defending states' rights to regulate assault weapons. The brief supports Cook County, Illinois, and the State of Connecticut as the Court prepares to hear arguments on December 2, 2026, regarding the legality of such regulations under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

Press Release: Office of the Attorney General of Maryland

Published October 28, 2026. Reproduced in full from the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland.

Attorney General Brown Joins Defense of Assault Weapons Restrictions Before the U.S. Supreme Court

Critical Public Safety Cases To Be Heard in December

BALTIMORE, MD: Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined a multistate amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court of the United States today defending the right of states to protect their residents from the extraordinary lethality of AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.

The brief, joined by a coalition of 19 attorneys general, supports Cook County, Illinois, and the State of Connecticut as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments allow states to regulate these deadly weapons. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two consolidated cases, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, on December 2, 2026, with an opinion expected before the current term ends in the summer of 2027.

“Assault weapons have been used in many of our country’s deadliest mass shootings,” said Attorney General Brown. “Our attorneys successfully defended Maryland’s assault weapons ban in federal court. With this brief, we are urging the Supreme Court to apply that same reasoning nationwide and recognize every state’s authority to keep these dangerous weapons off our streets.”

As the brief explains, states and local jurisdictions have broad authority to enact restrictions on unusually dangerous weapons that pose a serious threat to public safety and public health. These reasonable restrictions include limitations on semiautomatic assault weapons, such as AR-15- and AK-47-style rifles.

Assault weapons were designed and engineered for military combat to cause as many devastating injuries and deaths as quickly as possible. They are the most commonly used weapons in mass shootings in the United States. Commonsense assault weapons restrictions are intended to reduce these senseless injuries and deaths.

Cook County has regulated assault weapons since 1993 and later strengthened its existing weapons ordinance with the Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, named after a 16-year-old who was killed aboard a city bus after school.

Connecticut updated its 1993 assault weapons ban months after the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where a gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle murdered 20 children and six educators in under five minutes.

The brief filed today argues that both laws are well within the country’s historical tradition of reasonable firearm regulations, the test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.

Joining Attorney General Brown in the brief are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.