Long Rifle (File)

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have escalated their legal fight against Connecticut’s “assault weapons” ban, formally petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, Grant v. Rovella.

The challenge takes aim at Connecticut’s law, which bans specific semi-automatic rifles both by name and by feature set, placing the state among a minority of jurisdictions with such prohibitions. SAF argues the ban violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, contending that these laws are in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution and prior Supreme Court precedents.

This move follows a “troubling and misguided” preliminary injunction decision issued by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in August. According to SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, the organization is leveraging this case to provide the Supreme Court with an opportunity to address the constitutionality of these types of bans.

“Last term Justice Kavanaugh said that he suspected the Court would take up the assault weapons issue in the next term or two,” Kraut said. “Our goal as a leader in the Second Amendment advocacy space is to build and present every possible opportunity for the Court to do exactly that.”

The petition argues that the ban extends to “many ordinary and common semiautomatic firearms—including the AR-15 rifle,” noting that these covered firearms are “mechanically and functionally identical to every other semiautomatic firearm in the way that they fire.”

Grant v. Rovella is one of several SAF cases now before the Supreme Court, including Viramontes, which challenges the Cook County, Illinois, assault weapons ban.

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb emphasized the wide-reaching importance of the challenge. “This case has far-reaching implications for the entire country,” Gottlieb stated, noting that residents in Connecticut and the 10 other states with similar laws face potential felony prosecution for owning firearms “in common use around the country.”

The organization maintains that the Constitution protects all arms in common use by citizens for lawful purposes, regardless of how “activist lawmakers have lumped [them] into artificially conjured definitions.”

The SAF is joined in the suit, originally filed in 2022, by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens.

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