Cook County designates AK-47 style rifles as belonging to the category known as “AR-15 platform weapons.”
In the case Viramontes v. Cook County, which is before the Supreme Court, Cook County has submitted a Suggestion of Mootness in response to a Motion to Dismiss petitioner Cutberto Viramontes from the matter. The pivotal question presented asks: “Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.” Cook County maintains that the challenger’s standing rests on Viramontes’s desire to acquire an AR-15‑style firearm, whereas Christopher Khaya—the only other petitioner in the case—expresses interest solely in obtaining an AK-47–style rifle. The argument goes that Khaya does not have standing to litigate the question presented because he did not state a wish to obtain an AR-15.
Yet Cook County itself had previously categorized the AK-47 as falling within the broad label “AR-15 platform weapons.” The Brief for the Cook County Respondents states:
Specific firearms are outlawed under the Ordinance, including the “AK-47,” “AR-15,” “Bushmaster XM15,” “Bushmaster Carbon 15,” “Bushmaster MOE series,” “ArmaLite M15,” “Armalite M15-T,” and “Olympic Arms PCR.” [Cook County, Ill., Code of Ordinances] § 54-211(7) (hereafter AR-15 platform weapons).
The County employs the term “AR-15 platform weapons” throughout its Brief as a convenient shorthand to describe the rifles it bans. For example, the Brief notes that “the public increasingly purchased AR-15 platform weapons,” and then discusses a shooting in which the perpetrator used “a semiautomatic AK-47 style rifle.” Describing the features that knit these rifles together, the Brief states: “The Ordinance is limited to ‘assault weapons’ that are strictly defined as ‘semiautomatic rifle[s]’ able to accept a detachable large capacity magazine and one or more of certain military‑style features, such as a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip without a stock, a barrel shroud, or a muzzle brake.” (There is actually nothing specifically “military-style” about such features.)
In its Suggestion of Mootness, the County attempts to separate these common features by distinguishing the different model names and designs. Viramontes sought “to own a Smith and Wesson Military & Police AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle,” while Khaya “wants an IMI [Industrial Military Industries] Galil semiautomatic rifle,” which the petitioners themselves stated “is not an AR-15 style rifle but is largely based on the AK-47 design.” But the question presented is not so narrowly framed; it refers generally to “AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.” In response, the County contends: “There are no record facts concerning whether the IMI Galil weapon operates similarly to an AR-15.” To begin with, what about the County’s own Brief, which describes the common features as semiautomatic rifles that can accept a detachable magazine and that have a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, and a muzzle brake?
In summary, in its Brief, Cook County treats “AK-47” rifles as encompassed within the general designation “AR-15 platform weapons.” Its denial of that interpretation in the Suggestion of Mootness cannot be regarded as persuasive. Mr. Khaya has standing to challenge the question presented. There are also two associational challengers who thus likewise possess standing.
In any event, as Cook County notes in its filing, Viramontes is consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, the challenge to Connecticut’s prohibition on semiautomatic rifles, which bears considerable similarity to Cook County’s position. Therefore, irrespective of the outcome regarding Cook County’s suggestion of mootness, the Grant case will remain unaffected, and the Supreme Court stands ready to adjudicate this fundamental issue at the core of the Second Amendment.
