Two gun-control organizations just filed briefs with the Supreme Court asking the justices to overturn District of Columbia v. Heller — the 2008 ruling that confirmed what most Americans already knew: the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own a firearm. Not a militia's right. Not a state's right. Yours.

They're not arguing for background checks or magazine limits. They want the constitutional foundation removed.

Americans Against Gun Violence and the American Enlightenment Project — co-founded by Robert Ludwig — submitted their petitions as the Court prepares to hear oral arguments on December 2 in cases challenging assault weapons bans in Cook County, Illinois and Connecticut. The cases themselves deal with whether AR-15s and similar modern semiautomatic firearms fall under Second Amendment protection. But these two groups aren't interested in the narrow question. They want the whole thing gone.

Their brief calls Heller and its progeny "egregiously flawed decisions that are themselves incompatible with the history and plain language of the Second Amendment." That's their legal argument: the Supreme Court got it wrong when it said Americans have an individual right to bear arms. A right, by the way, that traces back to the English Declaration of Rights in 1689 — roughly 337 years of legal tradition these groups would like the Court to memory-hole in a single term.

The brief goes further. It argues that "by constitutionalizing broad firearms possession, Heller magnifies the predictable consequences of anger, passion, intoxication, and impaired impulse control." Translation: you can't be trusted with a constitutional right because you might get angry someday. That's not a legal argument. That's a therapist's intake form dressed up in legalese.

They aren't alone. Roughly 40 amicus briefs have been filed supporting the legal challenges to these assault weapons bans. Twenty-seven states are backing the challengers. The gun-control lobby smells opportunity after the midterm results and they're swinging for the fences — not at a specific weapon or accessory, but at the individual right itself.

Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has been sounding the alarm on exactly this escalation. The argument from the gun-control side has always been incremental — "we just want common-sense reforms" — while the actual legal strategy moved steadily toward this moment. Every "nobody wants to take your guns" press conference was a holding pattern while the briefs were being drafted.

Before Heller, Washington D.C. had banned handgun ownership outright starting in 1982. That's what the pre-Heller world actually looked like — not "sensible regulation" but a flat prohibition on the most common self-defense weapon in America. The 2008 ruling didn't invent a right. It confirmed one that D.C. had been violating for 26 years.

The Court is expected to issue its decision by summer 2027. Between now and then, every senator who says "nobody's coming for your guns" will have these briefs sitting in the public record, asking the Supreme Court to do exactly that.

Forty amicus briefs. Two organizations asking to scrap individual gun rights entirely. A decision expected by summer.

The mask didn't slip. They took it off and filed it with the clerk.