Olympic Arms, a Washington Corporation v. Bradley A. Buckles, Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms United States of America

What the court held

On remand after an earlier ruling that licensed manufacturers and dealers had standing, firearm makers argued that the 1994 federal semiautomatic assault weapons ban violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment because the banned weapons are functionally equivalent to the roughly 670 hunting and sporting rifles Congress exempted, and because the feature-based criteria are arbitrary. The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the government, holding that even assuming equal protection analysis applies to classifications of weapons, Congress rationally banned weapons commonly used in crime while exempting those commonly used for recreation. A belatedly raised First Amendment argument was declined as unpreserved and unsupported.

Summarized from the court's opinion.

What this case is about

firearm manufacturers' challenge to the federal assault weapons ban and the rifles excluded from it

GunMapUSA summary of the issue, not a quotation from the court.

Key Dates

• 2002-08-06 — Decided

Sources

• CourtListener — retrieved 2026-08-08