“Assault weapon” is a phony name given by leftists to semiautomatic rifles with certain cosmetic features. After all, it’s easier to vilify and ban something if it has a scary name.

Yet these rifles function the same as many other firearms — one bullet is fired for each trigger pull. Most handguns work this way, as do many hunting rifles and shotguns. But because AR-15s and other sporting rifles have terrifying features like collapsible stocks and barrel shrouds, leftists think these medium-powered, medium-caliber rifles are somehow “high-powered” and extra deadly.

Unfortunately, the Left’s transparently deceptive game works — millions of Americans are deceived. Worse, so are too many of the nation’s judges. Just yesterday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Illinois’s “assault weapons” ban in a case that is sure to become part of the Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing on the subject.

The Supreme Court announced last week that it would (finally!) hear a challenge to a similar ban in Cook County, home of Chicago and one of the most violent places in the country, as well as to another ban in Connecticut. My great hope is that the Court will finish what it started in District of Columbia v. Heller back in 2008, in which a bare majority of justices correctly ruled that the Second Amendment protects the right to own firearms “in common use” for lawful purposes, such as self-defense.

I’d take issue with “common use” because the Second Amendment doesn’t contain such a quantity limitation on a foundational right. In any case, the AR-15 is the most commonly owned rifle in America. It is the modern musket that the Founders clearly had in mind when drafting the Second Amendment to acknowledge the inherent, God-given right to self-defense — not just against criminals but against tyrannical government.

Nevertheless, tyrannical politicians pound the table and scream “public safety” while depriving citizens of the right to ensure their own safety. Tyrannical politicians threaten AR-15-owning Americans with F-15s and nuclear weapons.

To the point about public safety and the Seventh Circuit, the Associated Press reports, “The majority opinion also pushes back on claims made by the plaintiffs that semiautomatic weapons are not at fault for mass shootings.” If the plaintiffs were arguing that the guns themselves are not responsible, that is absolutely correct. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

Still, the Seventh Circuit majority opinion falsely asserted, “The undisputed record evidence undercuts that claim, showing that the presence of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is strongly correlated with the severity of the societal problem.”

“Assault weapon” is a bogus term. “Large-capacity” magazines are actually standard capacity. Correlation is not causation. Societal problems, not firearms, cause crime.

Other than that, the Seventh Circuit is accurate.

Moreover, there are an estimated 30 million AR-platform rifles privately owned in the U.S. — part of the roughly 500 million guns Americans own. In 2024, approximately 350 Americans were killed by other people using rifles of any type — out of roughly 15,000 homicides involving guns. Those murder statistics are pretty consistent across recent years.

Crime is the politicians’ excuse every time they ban law-abiding citizens from owning something. The Connecticut law dates back to Sandy Hook. Illinois Democrats passed, and Governor JB Pritzker signed, the Protect Illinois Communities Act in January 2023 after a mass shooting at the July 4th parade in Highland Park the prior year. Seven were killed and 36 wounded.

I hate to sound crass, but that’s an average weekend in the one-party Democrat paradise of Chicago.

Democrats don’t have much to say about crime, though, when it’s blacks killing other blacks in Democrat-run cities. Instead, they lie using manipulated statistics so they can ban or take guns. We’ve all seen those billboards claiming that guns are the number one killer of children and teens in America. Bogus. That’s only true if you include 18- and 19-year-old gangbangers — who are legally adults — and if you don’t count deaths of infants younger than one year. Never mind abortion, which is the real number one killer of children in America.

How about if you want to create unity around protecting kids, you don’t lie about the numbers?

Back to crime. Just yesterday, researcher John Lott published an article doing what he does best: highlighting the real statistics about violent crime. “While the United States still leads in some categories,” he says, “on the whole it has significantly less violent crime per capita than [Australia and Canada].” He explains:

Regarding homicide, the most heinous crime of all, it’s true that in 2025, the U.S. murder rate was about four per 100,000 people — roughly twice Australia’s and Canada’s 2024 homicide rate. Yet it’s also true that homicides account for only a tiny fraction of violent crime. In 2024, homicides represented just 0.21% of violent crimes in the U.S., based on National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimates of rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Murder comprises an even smaller fraction of crimes in Australia and Canada.

Murders in the U.S. are usually highly concentrated geographically, often connected to street gang activity, and threaten only a tiny fraction of Americans. Just 2% of counties [Cook County is second on the list] account for approximately 54% of all murders, and within those counties roughly two-thirds of killings occur within areas covering only about ten city blocks. By contrast, 53% of U.S. counties report no murders in a typical year, while another 16% report only one.

Moreover, when analyzing the incidence of a broader set of crimes, the U.S. is nowhere near the most dangerous developed country.

With appropriate statistical caveats and adjustments due to counting methods and definitions, Lott notes, “In 2019, Canada’s overall violent-crime victimization rate was at least 175% higher than the U.S.” As for the Land Down Under, he says, “Australia’s rape and sexual assault rate is roughly three times higher than that of the United States. Australia’s assault rate is about twice as high, and its burglary rate is about 2.5 times higher.”

(Cue Vizzini from “The Princess Bride”: “Australia is entirely peopled with criminals.” As everyone knows.)

Let’s recap: “Assault weapon” is a deceptive term. The Second Amendment protects the fundamental right to own a firearm. Americans own a lot of firearms, and the nation is not as dangerous as countries where gun ownership is strictly limited.

This should be a slam dunk for the Supreme Court.

The Founders meant what they said: “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It’s high time the Supreme Court more fully affirmed that.

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