Noah Feldman, Columnist

The Second Amendment Allows a Ban on the AR-15

Ordinary people don’t carry semiautomatic rifles for self-defense.

May 14, 2023 at 12:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Not the weapon of choice for self-defense.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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As the endless parade of mass shootings continues, you might find yourself wondering: Just how far does the Second Amendment extend? If we each have the right to bear arms, is there a constitutional right to a military-style semiautomatic rifle like an AR-15? What about a rocket-propelled grenade launcher? A small tank?

Under current law, the Second Amendment extends only to weapons that are not “unusual” and are “in common use” by law-abiding citizens. Whether that includes AR-15s is a question the Supreme Court has not yet resolved, although the justices have recently been asked to weigh in. A key question today — though not when the Bill of Rights was ratified — is whether a weapon is ordinarily used for self-defense. That could be what allows legislators to limit the sale of so-called assault rifles, as they did in the 1990s.