Supreme Court agrees to consider AR-15 case next term

The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will consider whether there is a Second Amendment right to possess AR-15s and similar rifles, setting up the court’s latest potential expansion of gun rights.

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The issue will be argued in the next term, which starts in October, with a decision expected by July 2027.

The court has expanded gun rights in recent years and just backed those rights in multiple rulings this term.

The court’s announcement that it will review the issue came in an order list on Tuesday that announced the latest action on pending petitions to the justices. In line with the court’s typical practice, the list was published after the justices issued their final rulings in cases argued this term earlier in the day.

Although the court has broadly backed Second Amendment rights, it has not jumped at considering every permutation of the issue. That has been true for AR-15s specifically. When the court declined to consider the issue last year, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in his own separate statement that the court “should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”