Slate lamented in a column on July 24 the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit striking down New Jersey’s “assault weapons” ban and claimed it gives SCOTUS “cover” to strike down such bans more broadly.
Breitbart News reported that the Third Circuit’s ruling was handed down on July 17, 2026. In that ruling, the majority made clear that the state’s ban failed to survive the Bruen (2022) test, which is a two-tiered test examining the historicity and tradition of firearms and firearms regulation in America.
The majority opinion for the 3rd Circuit decision was written by Judge Ariana Freeman, a Biden appointee. This fact was not lost on Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, as the astounded duo noted that Freeman is a “progressive appointee” who ruled that the millions of AR-15s in circulation prove they are in “common use for self-defense” and therefore protected by the Second Amendment.
The duo continued:
Although Freeman is very much a liberal judge, this was not a grudging application of Heller and Bruen. She went all-out, enthusiastically applying a maximalist interpretation of Supreme Court precedents. She even expanded the holding beyond Colt AR-15s, which is what the district court had focused on, and applied her judgment to all assault rifles across the board.
Lithwick and Stern wandered aimlessly at points, uttering disconnected thoughts such as “…the Supreme Court has told us that access to medication abortion is not a constitutional right. Yet somehow access to assault weapons is a fundamental right?”
Then they returned to the subject matter, expressing dread over their conviction that the 3rd Circuit’s ruling will provide “cover” to SCOTUS as the high court weighs protections for AR-15 ownership in light of the 2nd and 14th Amendments.
“I can see…[SCOTUS’s] conservative supermajority boosting the fact that Judge Freeman wrote this opinion to emphasize that this isn’t just a liberal vs. conservative thing,” the article continues. “Basically, I think this decision ultimately gives SCOTUS more cover to rule against assault weapons bans. It creates the false impression of consensus and momentum where it doesn’t actually exist.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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