Miyares' SCOTUS Brief Calls AR-15s Machine Guns Minus the Auto-Fire

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed a Supreme Court brief this week defending the state's assault-weapons restrictions, and one line in it has Colion Noir shaking his head. The brief argues AR-15s share nearly all the features that strip machine guns of Second Amendment protection, then adds that they're machine guns "except" they fire semiautomatically rather than automatically. Noir's video picks that argument apart piece by piece.

Key points

• The core claim: Miyares's brief, as reported by Breitbart, says AR-15s function like machine guns aside from lacking automatic fire.
• Noir's rebuttal: he argues that missing feature is the entire definition of a machine gun, not a footnote.
• Cargill cited: the video points to Justice Thomas's language in Garland v. Cargill, which says firearms requiring a trigger pull per shot aren't machine guns.
• Kavanaugh's prior remarks: Noir notes Justice Kavanaugh has already observed AR-15s are legal in 41 states and semiautomatic, like most handguns.
• The slippery slope: Noir argues that if this logic holds, any semiautomatic firearm, including a Glock or an M1 Garand, could be labeled a machine gun under the same reasoning.

Quick take

Noir's argument boils down to this: you can't call something a machine gun while admitting it's missing the one trait that makes it one. Whether that's sloppy lawyering or a deliberate attempt to blur definitions for a sympathetic court, he says the brief is walking into a room where justices have already pushed back on similar claims. Worth watching if you want the play-by-play on how this case could shape AR-15 litigation nationally.

Watch the full video: Colion Noir