Second Amendment: does "in common use" mean in common use?

American Thinker ^ | 5 Sep, 2026 | Mike McDaniel

[MtnClimber]

Considering our contemporary political turmoil and the threat posed by internal Communists, Americans may need every gun they can get.

In its next term, the Supreme Court will take up “assault weapon” bans. Such bans refer specifically to the AR-15 rifle family and similar semiautomatic rifles. Not only are they emotional rather than rational, but they’re also an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s Heller and Bruen decisions, which held, among other things, that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right and that controversies must be decided under the Strict Scrutiny standard, the highest standard of judicial review.

A primary issue is the “in common use” standard. From Bruen:

But apart from a handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions, the historical record compiled by respondents does not demonstrate a tradition of broadly prohibiting the public carry of commonly used firearms for self-defense.

From “What Part of Common Use Don’t You Understand?” Mark W. Smith in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy:

Because the “in common use” test looks to arms that are in common use today, that test automatically and necessarily protects existing technology, and addresses any contemporary societal concerns stemming from such modern technology. Lower courts are not free to disregard Heller’s “in common use” test and instead substitute a “dangerousness” test of their own devising. Doing so is merely “interest balancing” in a different guise, which is prohibited by both Heller and Bruen in Second Amendment challenges to gun-control laws.

Graphic: An AR-15 variant. Author.

That argument against “assault weapons” is that they are so uniquely dangerous that public safety requires their banning. There is no such thing in firearm nomenclature as an “assault weapon.” It is an invented term intended to dishonestly conflate classes of automatic weapons such as the military assault rifle

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: banglist

[MtnClimber]

This is one of the reasons the left wants to pack the Supreme Court.

[Red Badger]

At some point in time, man will invent the Star-Trek style directed energy weapons that will be small enough to carry and conceal.

Will THEY be ‘in common use’ as well?...............

[alancarp]

Funny, I didn’t know that the 2nd Amendment contained the phrase ‘common use’.

[Sirius Lee]

If we still have a Constitutional Republic by then, yes.

[Deaf Smith]

Nor anywhere in the Bill of Rights.

[Red Badger]

2A Ping!................

[motor_racer]

Some enterprising gun manufacturer should produce a semi-automatic rifle that physically resembles an 18th century musket or a Kentucky long rifle. Maybe a magazine could be concealed in the stock.

I’d like to see the gun control crowd’s heads explode, as both the musket and the long rifle actually WERE used as assault weapons.

[Psalm 73]

"This is one of the reasons the left wants to pack the Supreme Court."

And we pretty-much know what that would trigger.

[NonValueAdded]

I’ll bat every man Jack in Ukraine wished they could pull down an AR-15 from over their mantlepiece. And that, my FRiends, is the gist of the 2nd Amendment. Do you not think the Founders wanted to enshrine just what happened in 1775 in Lexington and Concord? It was to use the best weapon possible as Capt. Isaac Davis made sure his Acton Minutemen had available to them.

[oldtech]

I was of the opinion that AR-15s were certainly common use weapons. There must be a ton of them around. Of course, I guess they would not be legal as “full auto”....that really would be a military adaptation but under a different designation. When i was still working I noticed many empty cases of .223 variety in various vehicles indicating wide usage.

[Antihero101607]

𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘙-15𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥.

I’d be inclined to agree. There are about four forges that produce the receivers and other critical parts, dozens of companies that produce various other parts for the rifle, at least 50 companies that make several different variants of the AR-15, and a colossal aftermarket for the platform. Very successful platform.

[marktwain]

The latest, best survey shows about 40 million AR15 “type” firearms in the USA.

[PROCON]

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[Carry_Okie]

Funny, I didn’t know that the 2nd Amendment contained the phrase ‘common use’.

Correct. The term is a restrictive qualification the 2A itself does not apply. At the time it was written, there were privately owned warships, complete with cannon. Were there had been any original intent to restrict private ownership of weapons of war, it would have been there.

[Carry_Okie]

Wrap your head around privately-owned nuclear weapons in the hands of American Islamists to see where this question goes.

[Sacajaweau]

Cuz it’s not written...

[bert]

I made the wrap around and concluded that I would immediately kill the nuc bearer

[bunkerhill7]

Sheridan’s 1790 Dictionary defines “in common use” as “used by many persons”.

[Red Badger]

In Dune they were called the “Family Atomics”......

Atom bombs aren’t all that complicated and basically can be crudely made using Off-the-Shelf materials, with the exception of the enriched Uranium component.

They are necessarily large and cumbersome like the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

While the prospect of a small ‘suitcase’ sized one exists, I don’t believe anyone has actually manufactured one, else it would have been used already........