Cook County Sees an Opening to Dodge Supreme Court Review of Gun Ban

The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in the challenges to so-called assault weapon bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois in less than a month. But Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke is now launching a last-minute attempt to dismiss Viramontes, et al v. Cook County, Illinois, et al., by arguing that the case against the county could become moot if named plaintiff Cutberto Viramontes is no longer a party to the lawsuit, as he's requested. 

Burke's argument goes something like this: The Supreme Court has agreed to answer whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semi-automatic rifles. Mr. Viramontes states that he wants to purchase an AR-15, but the other named plaintiff in the lawsuit says he wants to purchase a different semi-automatic rifle: an IMI Galil that's based on the AK-47 platform, not the AR-15. 

That distinction matters, she argues, because the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Second Amendment protects AR-15-platform and similar semi-automatic rifles.

She contends that Christopher Khaya's preferred firearm might not fall within the specific question before the justices. Burke then raises three potential obstacles:

• Similarity: The record doesn't establish that the Galil operates similarly to an AR-15.

• Common use: The record doesn't establish that the particular firearm is commonly possessed for lawful purposes. She even cites a firearms dealer's listing for a rare Galil variant, noting that only about 400 were imported.

• Self-defense: Khaya testified that he'd most likely use his Galil, if he's allowed to purchase one, at the range and would rely on it for self-defense only if his other firearms were unavailable.

There's at least one problem with Burke's argument that even a non-lawyer like me can see. Khaya wants to purchase a rifle that Cook County explicitly prohibits him from acquiring. That seems like a pretty clear injury, regardless of whether the rifle is based on the AR-15 or AK-47 platform. Whether the Galil is protected by the Second Amendment is a question for the justices to decide, but Burke appears to be conflating that question with whether Khaya has standing to challenge the law in the first place. And the fact that Khaya primarily wants the rifle for recreational shooting rather than self-defense doesn't mean the county's prohibition hasn't harmed him. 

The question the Supreme Court will answer says nothing about owning these firearms for self-defense, and the Court has repeatedly stated that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for "lawful purposes," even if the core purpose is self-defense. 

Burke also argues that if Mr. Viramontes drops out of the case, the organizational plaintiffs, Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation, "appear to lack standing to litigate the question presented."

For a membership association to have standing, it must “make specific allegations establishing that at least one identified member had suffered or would suffer harm.” In this case, the organizations identified only two members in all of Cook County: Viramontes and Khaya. For the reasons just explained, Khaya lacks standing to litigate the question presented, and so the membership associations cannot establish standing through him. And they equally cannot establish standing through Viramontes if he disassociates himself from the suit.

I'm not an attorney, but I disagree with Burke's conclusion here. Even if Cutberto Viramontes decides he doesn't want to be a named plaintiff, I've seen nothing to suggest that he's no longer a member of either SAF or FPC. And if that's the case, then the organizations do still have members who suffer harm from the county's ordinance. 

Now, even if the Court were to accept Burke's argument, there's still the Grant v. Higgins challenge to Connecticut's "assault weapon" ban, and Mr. Eddie Grant didn't sound like he wanted to drop out of the case when I spoke to him at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in late September. 

Of course, Burke acknowledges that even if Viramontes is dismissed, the Supreme Court can still decide whether bans on AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles violate the Second Amendment in the Connecticut case. But getting Cook County out of the litigation would at least spare the county from a ruling directly addressing its own ordinance. If the justices strike down Connecticut's ban, Cook County would still have to contend with that precedent, but Burke might have a little more room to argue that the county's restrictions are somehow different enough from the Connecticut statute that they're not impacted by the Court's decision. 

Second Amendment Foundation attorney Kostas Moros doesn't think Burke's argument is going to go over well with the justices.

Cook County is trying to get the case dismissed following Mr. Viramontes's departure from it, absurdly arguing that when the question presented says "AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles," that somehow doesn't include the Galil our other individual petitioner wants to buy. Even as they admit the law also bans it! And of course SAF is a petitioner as well, and has other members in Chicago. Cook County may have just foolishly guaranteed that the eventual ruling won't be inadvertently limited to just the AR15 platform. Not that it ever should have been; "and similar semiautomatic rifles" always meant more than just AR15s to cover firearms like the Galil, that's the whole point. But by drawing attention to that aspect of the question presented, I think it closes the book on the concern that the ruling could be misread as only applying to AR15s specifically.

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) November 5, 2026

There's another wrinkle here as well. 

Cook County might want the Supreme Court to dismiss Viramontes, but the justices have already demonstrated that they're willing to proceed with a major constitutional case even after the original plaintiff asks to withdraw. Just last year, transgender athlete Lindsay Hecox sought to abandon a challenge to Idaho's restrictions on women's sports. The Supreme Court heard arguments anyway and ultimately ruled on the constitutionality of those restrictions. And just as the Court had a companion case from West Virginia in Hecox, it has a companion case from Connecticut in Viramontes.

Cutberto Viramontes has asked to withdraw from the case, but SCOTUS doesn't have to accept that request. Until that's been decided, I'd say Burke's suggestion that Viramontes is now moot is premature at best, and may very well be moot itself in the near future. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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