Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones filed a U.S. Supreme Court brief backing assault weapons bans and treated AR-15s as machine guns even without full automatic fire, saying they share nearly all traits placing machine guns outside Second Amendment protection and calling them machineguns that start with semiautomatic operation. Gun Owners of California criticized the wording on X. The claim conflicts with the June 14, 2024 ruling striking the bump stock ban, in which Justice Clarence Thomas observed that machineguns shoot more than one round automatically by a single trigger function whereas semiautomatic firearms need the trigger reengaged for every shot.