Guns, God and Gender: Supreme Court's New Term Opens Monday With a Docket That Could Reshape America
The justices return Oct. 5 to tackle AR-15 bans, a Catholic preschool's fight with Colorado, and whether parents can be kept in the dark about their kids' gender care.
The Supreme Court gavels in its 2026-27 term on Monday with a docket stacked with fights over assault weapons, religious schools, parental rights and voting rules — any one of which could produce the kind of landmark ruling the court is better known for than its typically quiet October openers.
Arguments begin Oct. 5, and decisions in the biggest cases aren't expected until next spring or summer, but legal analysts say this term could rival the blockbuster rulings on guns and abortion that have defined the Roberts court in recent years.
The Second Amendment Returns
The justices will hear challenges out of Illinois's Cook County and Connecticut to state bans on AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles — the court's most direct look at assault-weapon restrictions since 2022's New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen reshaped gun law nationwide. Justice Brett Kavanaugh has signaled the court would need to resolve the question "soon, in the next Term or two," according to Just the News.
In a separate case, St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, the court will decide whether Colorado can exclude a Catholic preschool from its universal pre-K program over the parish's refusal to comply with state nondiscrimination rules — a fight with major implications for how far states can go in attaching strings to public benefits that reach religious institutions.
Also on the docket: whether parents can sue Washington state over a law letting youth shelters provide gender-transition care to runaway minors without notifying their parents, a Florida death-penalty case testing whether non-unanimous jury recommendations can support a death sentence, and an Arizona voting-rights dispute over purging noncitizens from registration rolls within a 90-day window before an election.
A ninth case, Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, asks whether federal law blocks state courts from hearing climate-damage lawsuits against oil companies — with oral arguments also set for Monday.
THE COURT WOULD NEED TO ADDRESS IT "SOON, IN THE NEXT TERM OR TWO."
— Justice Brett Kavanaugh, on the assault-weapons question.
The term opens five weeks before the midterm elections, guaranteeing that whatever the justices say — or decline to say — about guns, religion and voting rules will ripple straight into November's campaigns. Oral arguments run through the fall, with rulings expected to land in a wave next spring and summer.