Important Judicial Decisions Regarding Self-Defense Law
The following legal decisions concern the law of self-defense. Some of the rulings are final and others are not. They’re presented here, along with salient excerpts, to be read for their excellent judicial logic about the absolute civil right of armed self-defense as established by the framers of the US Constitution.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, USA State Constitutions Providing for Armed Self-Defense ]
- US Supreme Court unanimous ruling: Mexico v. Smith and Wesson (June 5, 2025) by Justice Elana Kagan (pdf).
- This unanimous ruling says American gun makers are not liable for cartel violence carried out with their products in Mexico.
“Mexico’s allegations about the manufacturers’ ‘design and marketing decisions’ add nothing of consequence….Mexico here focuses on the manufacturers’ production of ‘military style’ assault weapons, among which it includes AR–15 rifles, AK–47 rifles, and .50 caliber sniper rifles. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. (The AR–15 is the most popular rifle in the country.) The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too.” * *
[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of the SECOND AMENDMENT ]
- US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting from the denial of certiorari in: David Snope, et al. v. Anthony G. Brown, et al., Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit No. 24–203 (June 2, 2025) (pdf pages 21-28).
- “AR–15s are clearly ‘Arms’ under the Second Amendment’s plain text. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 US 570 (2008), we held that the term ‘Arms’ in this context covers all ‘[w]eapons of offence, or armour of defence’ (explaining that ‘Arms’ include ‘any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another’). Thus, ‘the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’ AR–15s fall squarely within this category.”
“[W]eapons ‘in common use’ today for self-defense and other lawful purposes remain fully protected….AR–15s appear to fit neatly within that category of protected arms. Tens of millions of Americans own AR–15s, and the ‘overwhelming majority’ of them ‘do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting.’….[A] prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for th[ese] lawful purpose[s] falls outside the government’s power.”
“Our Constitution allows the American people—not the government—to decide which weapons are useful for self-defense. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.”
“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America. That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country. We have avoided deciding it for a full decade….And, further percolation is of little value when lower courts in the jurisdictions that ban AR–15s appear bent on distorting this Court’s Second Amendment precedents.”
“I doubt we would sit idly by if lower courts were to so subvert our precedents involving any other constitutional right. Until we are vigilant in enforcing it, the right to bear arms will remain ‘a second-class right.’” *