33 Amicus Briefs Filed as SCOTUS Prepares to Hear Cook County AR-15 Ban Challenge | The States

On this episode of The States, Supreme Court gun ban arguments, one year since Charlie Kirk's assassination, a Georgia child welfare agency's cell phone surveillance tools, the GOP's midterm convention, and how 9/11 reshaped airport security.

Ahead of December 2 oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court over state and local AR-15 bans, Michael O'Neill of the Landmark Legal Foundation discusses an amicus brief his organization filed challenging Cook County, Illinois's prohibition on the rifles. He walks through the historical-analog legal standard courts use in Second Amendment cases, disputes characterizations of AR-15s as equivalent to military firearms, and lays out possible outcomes if the Court rules on the ban's constitutionality.

President Trump proposed a $5,000 payment to American adults funded by tariff revenue during the first-ever midterm Republican National Convention in Dallas, where several GOP candidates and officials also spoke. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania made an appearance at the convention, while Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker criticized Republicans at a competing Texas Democratic event the same day.

Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on surveillance technology capable of tracking cell phone locations and web activity, according to a Center Square investigation. The agency says the tools help locate trafficked or at-risk runaway foster youth, but lawmakers and a legal scholar are raising questions about its authority to use such technology without law enforcement status, and a state representative plans to introduce legislation addressing oversight.

Aviation security specialist Jeff Price explains how the September 11 attacks changed U.S. air travel, from the creation of the Transportation Security Administration to the shift of screening duties from airlines to the federal government. He traces security measures introduced after later incidents, including the 2001 shoe-bomb attempt and a 2006 liquid-explosives plot, and flags current concerns including drone threats and cybersecurity.

America's Talking: fuel prices are rising nationally amid competing explanations from officials, four California ballot measures could cost taxpayers roughly $155 billion over several years, a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals case addresses a transgender sorority member's admission at the University of Wyoming, and Seattle officials continue disputing the circumstances of the police chief's resignation.