Category: Business

The Right to Fight Back: Colorado Supreme Court Rules Private Employers Can’t Fire Workers for Self-Defense

The Brief:

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that private employers cannot terminate at-will employees for exercising their right to self-defense against imminent bodily harm. This decision, arising from a convenience store incident, establishes that corporate policies cannot override an individual’s fundamental legal privilege to protect their own life while working.

This ruling creates a specific public policy exception to at-will employment. While businesses can still enforce protocols against escalating non-violent thefts, they are prohibited from firing workers for lawful and necessary self-defense. This shifts the legal balance between corporate liability policies and individual safety rights.

DENVER, CO — A legal battlefield that has spent six years winding through the federal and state court systems has culminated in a massive paradigm shift for worker safety and the Second Amendment community.

Writing for the 5-2 majority, State Supreme Court Justice Maria E. Berkenkotter dismantled the long-standing corporate assumption that at-will employment agreements allow businesses to force complete submission from employees facing violent workplace crimes.

“The employment relationship should not be used to strip workers of the ordinary legal privileges every person possesses,” Berkenkotter declared in the historic June 15 opinion. “The right to self-defense has never been cabined by role or location… Rather, the right follows the employee from home to work and back and everywhere in between.”

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Gun Stores Slap Lawsuit On Jared Polis Over Warrantless Transaction Searches

An alliance of firearms dealers and Second Amendment advocates sued Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis over a law authorizing warrantless searches of gun sales records.

Polis signed HB26-1126, which allows any “peace officer” to inspect the sales records of any gun store without a warrant at any time and for any reason, on June 2. The lawsuit filed by the Colorado Shooting Sports Association (CSSA), the Colorado Federal Firearms Licensees Association (CFFLA) on behalf of three federal firearms licensees (FFL) challenges the warrantless inspection provisions of the bill on Fourth Amendment grounds.

“The statute provides no notice of regularity, empowers an overbroad class of inspectors with no nexus to firearms regulation, imposes no temporal or frequency limitations, and places no restrictions on the manner of inspections,” the complaint says regarding the law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

“The contrast with the federal firearms-inspection framework could not be starker,” the complaint continues. “Under 18 U.S.C. § 923(g), compliance inspections of federally licensed firearms dealers may be conducted only by the U.S. Attorney General’s designated agents (in practice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), only during business hours, and no more than once in any 12-month period, absent meeting narrow statutory exceptions.”

CSSA, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation, announced their lawsuit at a Friday event, noting the bill says gun dealers who do not cooperate face a misdemeanor charge.

“Criminals do not follow gun laws. They never have and never will,” CSSA Director of Operations Daniel Fenelson, who described himself as a “school shooting survivor,” said. “They steal firearms, obtain them on the black market and use other illegal means to obtain these weapons.”

“Not a single piece of gun control legislation passed through and by Bloomberg shill Tom Sullivan here in State Senate District 27 ever protected any Coloradans,” Fenelson continued.

Colorado is already being sued by the Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice over its ban on standard-capacity magazines holding more than 15 rounds. The DOJ also is challenging a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms imposed by the city of Denver.

Polis did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Winchester Ammo Parent Olin Corporation to Merge with Huntsman Corp.

Olin Corporation, the parent of Winchester Ammunition and Huntsman Corporation, has entered into a definitive agreement to combine the companies in an all-stock merger of equals to “create a leading North American chemicals company. “ 

The transaction is expected to generate significant value for shareholders of both companies, with more than $400 million in total identified cost synergies and integration benefits. 

The combined organization will be renamed OlinHuntsman Corporation following the close of the transaction and would have had 2025 revenue of approximately $12.5 billion on a combined company basis. 

Olin’s ammunition business, Winchester, will continue to operate as a key business within the combined company, “growing its brand and deepening its long-term relationships with sporting goods, law enforcement and military customers.” 

Upon closing of the transaction, Olin’s President and CEO, Ken Lane, will serve as CEO of OlinHuntsman. Current chairman, president and CEO of Huntsman, Peter Huntsman, will serve as a non-executive chairman of OlinHuntsman’s Board of Directors. Current Huntsman EVP and CFO Phil Lister will serve as CFO of the combined company. 

OlinHuntsman’s Board of Directors will consist of 10 members, with equal representation from Olin and Huntsman, including Peter Huntsman and Ken Lane. 

U.S. District Judge Vacates the Biden ATF ‘Engaged in the Business’ Rule

U.S. District Judge Vacates the Biden ATF ‘Engaged in the Business’ Rule

Biden ATF’s “Engaged in the Business” rule was vacated Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in a case brought by Gun Owners of America.

Kacsmaryk noted that Gun Owners of America and their fellow plaintiffs “succeeded on the merits of their claims, brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, against the challenged Final Rule: Definition of ‘Engaged in the Business’ as a Dealer in Firearms.”

He noted, “The Final Rule is therefore VACATED.”

Moreover, Kacsmaryk ruled that the ATF “may not apply the Final Rule to anyone–including individuals and organizations who are parties to…[the GOA’s] case.”

On May 14, 2023, Breitbart News reported that former President Biden asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to act where Congress had not and take the U.S. “as close as possible” to universal background checks. The ‘Engaged in the Business Rule,’ challenged in the aforementioned lawsuit by GOA, was the result.

That rule is now vacated.

Is ATF’s ‘Sporting Purposes’ Test A Dead Infringement Walking?

One of the oldest regulations that has impacted the ability of law-abiding gun owners to purchase firearms of their choice could be off the books soon.

During an April 29 press conference announcing that three major regulations imposed by the Biden administration were slated to be axed, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the Justice Department was also reviewing the “sporting purposes” test regulations initially implemented by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under the Gun Control Act of 1968. For about 20 years, the regulation was primarily used to restrict handgun imports through the so-called “factoring criteria” outlined on Form 4590 before it was used to target modern semiautomatic rifles that anti-Second Amendment groups labeled as “assault weapons” following a 1989 mass shooting in Stockton, California.

“ATF is studying right now to determine which rifles are generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes,” Blanche said during the press conference. “That’s going to be an ongoing effort over the next several months and we’re going to see that through.”

In 1989, the ATF ultimately blocked the importation of semiautomatic rifles that bore a superficial resemblance to military-issue assault rifles like the AK-47, FN FAL, Heckler and Koch G3 and the Steyr AUG. Nine years later, in 1998, the agency tightened the ban to include rifles capable of accepting standard magazines used in the military-issue rifles and their semi-automatic-only clones.

Anti-Second Amendment agitators and organizations often use the term “assault weapons” in order to gain support for banning semi-automatic firearms with features that give them a cosmetic similarity to firearms capable of fully-automatic operation. Fully-automatic firearms are already heavily regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934.

However, that test may not be around for long in light of the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence. In 2008, 40 years after the “sporting purposes” test was used to restrict firearms imports, the high court issued its ruling in Heller v. District of Columbia, in which it declared that self-defense is a lawful purpose for owning a firearm.

“The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,” former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion. “The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.”

The Supreme Court has since struck down other laws on Second Amendment grounds in McDonald v. Chicago and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Constitutional attorney Stephen Halbrook, one of the foremost Second Amendment scholars, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that those rulings could be a death knell for the “sporting purposes” test, which was used to ban the importation of modern semiautomatic rifles in the late 1980s and 1990s.

“Limitation of the import of firearms to those the government decides are particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes violates the Second Amendment,” Halbrook said. “In 1989 and again in 1998, the government arbitrarily decided that firearms previously considered sporting were no longer sporting.”

Halbrook also outlined how the ban could be taken down via litigation.

“A licensed importer would apply to ATF to import several specific semiauto rifles and include documents in support demonstrating that they are (per Heller) in common use for lawful purposes, including self-defense,” Halbrook told the DCNF. “After the permit is denied, the importer and persons wishing to purchase the rifles would be plaintiffs in a civil suit claiming denial of Second Amendment rights.”

ATF and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment from the DCNF.

Indiana Republicans Snuffed Out Gary’s 26-Year Legal Battle Against Gunmakers

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that Gary’s historic lawsuit must be dismissed. The decision comes after the state legislature retroactively barred city governments from suing gun manufacturers.

After a tumultuous 26-year journey through Indiana’s court system, the city of Gary’s historic lawsuit against the country’s largest gun manufacturers has come to an anticlimactic close.

On May 21, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that it would not hear an appeal from Gary, whose lawyers had argued that a state law aimed at ending the lawsuit was unconstitutional. The ruling means the city’s case is effectively over, with no opportunity for appeal.

New Jersey’s Demand for Gun Store Sales Records is an Unconstitutional Attack on Gun Owner Privacy

The Attorney General of New Jersey has sent subpoenas to gun dealers in the state demanding production of customer records regarding sales of Glock pistols to New Jersey residents for the last ten years. The subpoenas are in connection to its lawsuit against Glock, Inc. under the state’s public nuisance law.

(NOTE: The claims in the state’s frivolous lawfare against Glock are not relevant to this particular article. But for context, the state is claiming the over 40-year-old design of the gun is too easy to illegally convert into a machine gun. Other states have filed similar lawsuits, and some like California have now banned the sale of Glocks, which are the most popular handguns in the country. These efforts are a way to coverup the failures of leadership  in antigun states.) It is not immediately clear why New Jersey needs these records, given the state already maintains a de facto registry for handguns through its pistol permitting system. It could be that the Attorney General wants to make these records public, as under New Jersey law and in a small nod towards respecting privacy, firearm registration records are  exempt from public disclosure  under the state’s laws.

Regardless of the reasoning for the subpoenas, they are an unconstitutional attack on gun owner privacy. This article takes a brief look at this emerging issue in Second Amendment law to show why New Jersey’s actions are unconstitutional. It is adapted from prior amicus briefing the Second Amendment foundation has done on this issue.
Privacy in Firearms Ownership Has Always Been a Fundamental Component of the Second Amendment Right

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Ruger Moves Corporate HQ from CT to Gun-Friendly North Carolina

Reports indicate that Ruger has shifted its headquarters from the state where it was founded to one more closely aligned with the Second Amendment.

Famously founded in 1949 in a small red barn in Southport, Connecticut, by William B. Ruger and Alexander McCormick Sturm, the now publicly traded firearms giant has moved its headquarters to Mayodan, North Carolina. The move, which was official in January, was confirmed by the Hartford Business Journal this week.

Ruger has long had a footprint in the Tar Heel State, with Bill Ruger attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in the 1930s before he went to work for the U.S. arsenal at Springfield Armory in World War II. The company announced its 191,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant at Mayodan in 2013. Since then, Ruger has added a 224,000 sq. ft. distribution center next to the plant, making Mayodan the largest of its operational hubs. When the company acquired Marlin Firearms in 2020, it moved the assets and assembly line from Huntsville, Alabama, to Mayodan.

Other Ruger plants include Newport, New Hampshire; Prescott, Arizona; Earth City, Missouri; and Hebron, Kentucky.

When it comes to gun rights, North Carolina doesn’t have permitless carry – although it has been approved in past legislative sessions – but the state does have a robust “shall-issue” concealed carry scheme with over 900,000 permits in circulation in 2025. Importantly, North Carolina does not have mandatory gun lock laws, a ban on “assault weapons,” or “red flag” gun seizure laws, all of which Connecticut residents suffer.

The Connecticut legislature is nearing a ban on Glock-style firearms this year, which would include the new and popular Ruger RXM. Connecticut has a state ban on binary triggers and bump stocks.

Further, Connecticut has a gun industry liability law that is somewhat at odds with the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, allowing controversial “predicate exception” lawsuits against gun industry members when it comes to the sale or marketing of firearms.

In terms of NFA items such as suppressors, machine guns, and short-barreled firearms, North Carolina had more than 252,000 registered in 2024, one of the highest totals in the country and nearly three times the number in Connecticut (93,297).

Although North Carolina has had a Democratic governor since 2017, he has been balanced by a majority-Republican legislature that has no sign of turning blue in the near future. Of North Carolina’s 14 members of Congress, 10 are from the GOP, as are both of its current U.S. Senators, Tom Tillis and Ted Budd. By comparison, all of Connecticut’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington are Dems, including some very rabid anti-gun champions such as Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.

Ruger isn’t the only gun company to leave Connecticut in recent years for more 2A climes, as Stag Arms moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, while PTR Industries shifted to South Carolina. Mossberg, whose headquarters are in North Haven, Connecticut, makes most of its guns at a facility in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Why Does Capital One Consider Lawful Gun Sales to be a ‘Prohibited Industry’?

Capital One, the corporate banking giant, has an advertising tagline that asks, “What’s in your wallet?” For one Maryland gun shop, the answer to that question appears to be a banking giant that ignores a White House executive order and dismisses Treasury Department regulations that forbid banking discrimination.

Capital One Financial Corporation has been in business since 1994 and the McLean, Va., international banking giant with over $475 billion in assets boasts that it offers credit cards, auto loans, checking and savings accounts and commercial banking services. That is, unless the customer happens to be a firearm retailer.

Just ask Jonathan Bennett, owner of United Gun Shop in Rockville, Md. Bennett tried using Capital One’s payment platform, administered by Melio Payments, for business and billing transactions. The firearm retailer had previously used the payment platform without issue. That changed on April 11, 2025, when Bennett met with Capital One after services were cancelled without notice. That cost Bennett’s business $75,000 in damages and disrupted services.

united gun shop rockville, maryland
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According to reporting by The Daily Wire, Bennett was surprised to learn that his business — legally selling firearms to law-abiding citizens — was considered to be in a “prohibited industry” by the big bank.

Bennett’s not rolling over on the illegal de-banking. He’s making Capital One and Melio Payments answer in court. His lawsuit alleges the two banking service providers blocked United Gun Shop from “making future payments” before disabling the business from completing payment transactions.

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ATF Releases Second Batch of Text for Proposed Rules

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has released the text of more than a dozen proposed rules, after releasing the first tranche earlier this week.

You can find the latest submissions to the Federal Register here. Among the drafts released today is the rule revising Non-Over-the-Counter Firearms Transaction Requirements. Based on the ATF’s summary of the proposed rule, there was a lot of speculation and excitement over the possibility that the ATF would be allowing in-state purchases of firearms to take place without having to visit an FFL to fill out the Form 4473 in person, and the good news for gun owners is that is indeed what the agency is intending.

Federal law permits federal firearms licensees (“FFLs”) to transfer firearms to a person residing in the same state but who does not appear in person. These are “non-over-the-counter” (“NOTC”) sales. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) proposes amending Department of Justice (“Department”) regulations on NOTC sales. These proposed changes would remove restrictions limiting this option to background check-exempt transfers. The proposed rule would permit FFLs to conduct NOTC transfers while complying with background check requirements and adds remote identity proofing and electronic notices to chief law enforcement officers.These changes would provide greater flexibility for individuals lawfully purchasing firearms.

Under the proposed rule, buyers would still have to go through a background check, but FFLs would be able to remotely verify their identity and conduct a NICS check without the buyer being physically present. Based on my reading of the rule, it sounds like gun owners would most likely have to use a service like ID.me as part of the ID verification process, along with FFLs confirming the buyer’s ID matches the identity on their online verification by physically examining those documents using remote videoconferencing software.

Again, this would only apply to in-state firearm transfers, so it wouldn’t lead to nationwide direct-to-consumer sales from gun manufacturers where firearms could be shipped directly from the gun maker to your home. It would also likely require those who want to purchase a firearm without visiting the seller in person to provide a third party with their identification, which some gun owners will undoubtably find to be overly intrusive.

Participating in the system is entirely optional, however. The proposed rule won’t impact anyone who prefers in-person transactions.

Another proposed rule worth mentioning here is the ATFs proposed revision of the definitions of “mental defective” and “committed to a mental institution.” As the agency argues in its proposal, the current definition of “mental defective” is overbroad because it “encompasses individuals who do not suffer from the kinds of mental disabilities that fell within the term… at the time the GCA was enacted.”

Specifically, the regulation —at least as the 1997 final rule has been interpreted — encompasses individuals who have narrow functional deficits, such as the inability only to manage financial benefits. Those with isolated functional deficits are not the kind of individuals who were understood to be mentally defective as that term was used in the GCA. Nor are such individuals the kind of irresponsible or dangerous persons who Congress sought to prohibit from possessing firearms under sections 922(g)(4) and (d)(4).

This would bring the ATF in line with Congress’s prohibition on the VA using the appointment of a fiduciary as reason to declare veterans prohibited persons unable to lawfully possess firearms. At the same time, the ATF wants to change the definition of “committed to a mental institution” by inserting the word “involuntary” to the current definition of ““[a] formal commitment of a person to a mental institution by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority.”

The current regulation states that the term “includes a commitment to a mental institution involuntarily” and “does not include . . . a voluntary admission to a mental institution.” 27 CFR 478.11. Accordingly, the position of ATF and the courts has long been that voluntary admissions of any kind do not qualify under the statute. Consequently, ATF is adding “involuntary” as a core part of the definition.

That’s a relatively minor change, but anything that helps to alleviate the concern that voluntarily seeking help with mental health will lead to the loss of our right to keep and bear arms is a good thing, in my opinion.

I haven’t had a chance to do a deep dive into the other rules that will impact gun owners, gun makers, and gun sellers, but what I’ve seen to date looks pretty good. However…

Again, I haven’t had a chance to read through this in detail, but based on Armed Joy’s take this should be a non-starter. I can understand why ATF would want to have a centralized system like this, but it would also be ripe for abuse and easy enough to turn into a gun registry, at least when it comes to who purchased firearms at retail or those subject to background checks for private gun transfers.

We’ll have 90 days to comment once the rules are officially published, and I hope that gun owners will weigh in on every one of the proposals. Whether you support or oppose a particular rule, make sure your voice is heard.

Trump OCC Gives Customers New Tools to Hold Banks Accountable for Anti-Gun Discrimination.

By Larry Keane

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is giving bank customers, including firearm industry members, a clearer path to document politicized de-banking and enter those concerns into the regulatory record. The move is a welcome development to further implement President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14331, “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” and marks another needed step toward ending the practice of denying lawful businesses access to essential financial services because “woke” banks disfavor the firearm industry.

NSSF has long reported on banks using vague “reputational risk” excuses and woke boardroom gun control policies to choke off access to accounts, loans, credit, payment processing and other essential financial services. That discrimination hit lawful, highly regulated businesses whose only offense was serving Americans who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

President Trump’s order states banking decisions must be based on individualized, objective and risk-based analysis, not politics, ideology or hostility toward lawful business activity. The order specifically cited the former Obama administration-era Operation Choke Point as a “well-documented and systemic” effort by federal regulators to pressure banks away from serving lawful industries that are disfavored by the political left…like the firearm industry.

That insidious practice was discontinued under President Trump’s first term but returned anew in a privatized form under former President Joe Biden.

The OCC’s new public comment guidance, however, gives President Trump’s executive order practical force. The agency says bank customers and stakeholders can share de-banking experiences with the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and those complaints may be considered when the agency reviews bank licensing filings. They may also be considered during Community Reinvestment Act examinations.

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Over 1 Million NFA Forms Processed So Far This Year, 6 Million Suppressors on File

It seems that the feds have had to wade through a year’s worth of National Firearms Act forms just in the first four months of 2026.

In the wake of zero-dollar tax stamps for suppressors and short-barreled firearms becoming a reality on New Year’s Day 2026, the ATF’s NFA Division has since processed a million forms as of April 23. The American Suppressor Association told Guns.com via email that over half of those are for Form 4 applications for suppressor transfers.

Of note, for 2024, the most recent year available, the NFA Division processed 1,373,305 forms. The Division only broke a million forms in a single year for the first time in 2011. Going further back, in 2001, only 311,892 forms of all types were processed.

The big takeaway, however, is the growth in suppressor numbers over that period.

“As of April 10, 2026, 5,998,065 suppressors were registered in the NFRTR, a number that has likely surpassed 6 million as of today,” advised ASA last week. “The number of suppressors registered between Jan. 2026 and April 10, 2026, is almost as many as ALL the suppressors registered between 1934 and 2010 (76 years).”

Below is a chart of selected historical suppressor registration numbers going back to January 2000.

Note that suppressors were rare before the past couple of decades, with just 83,627 cans registered nationwide in 2000 and 223,761 in 2010. (Chart: ASA)

Looking a whole lot like “common use” to me. Just saying.

Final Rule Drives a Stake Through Anti-Gun Left’s De-Banking Strategy.

The decades long discriminatory tension between the financial sector and the firearm industry underwent a positive shift with a final rule published on April 10 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This landmark effort in a long fought battle, which NRA-ILA has reported on extensively, codifies the removal of “reputation risk” as a basis of adverse action under oversight programs that apply to FDIC-supervised financial institutions.

Ultimately, this final rule eliminates reputation risk as a means of injecting politics into banking regulation by prohibiting examiners from using this subjective assessment to pressure or penalize banks. It also prohibits regulators from pushing banks to close accounts or deny services based on their ill-conceived aversion to the lawful firearms and ammunition industries, which are vital to supporting our constitutional rights.

This rule helps to mitigate unjustified biases against these business sectors left over from the Obama-Biden Administration and importantly helps to prevent future efforts in the same vein. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice, in coordination with regulators such as the FDIC, began pressuring banks to cut ties and services to industries they considered to be “high risk,” which under the anti-gun Obama-Biden administration unsurprisingly included firearm and ammunition-related business.re

The program, billed Operation Choke Point, encouraged broad financial “de-risking” and led to banks freezing or terminating services to lawful businesses based on “reputation risk,” instead of any proven misconduct or illegality. Guidance documents provided to banks at the time specifically listed firearm and ammunition sales as high-risk activity, although they are some of the most highly regulated industries in the country.

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Hunt’s Hardware & Guns celebrates 30 years

Hunt’s Hardware & Guns, in Miller marked their 30th anniversary on Saturday, April 18, celebrating the achievement with a customer appreciation event.

The business, run by David and Carrie Hunt, has served the citizens of Miller and beyond since 1996.

Located at 102 E. Main St., the store was originally established in the early 1980s, but after changing hands for the first time in 1994, the Hunts took the opportunity to purchase the establishment in 1996. The business was struggling at the time, and the Hunts decided that they could make it work.

Evolution with family

Over time, the store evolved, incorporating family into the business. Carrie Hunt’s father, Dennis Cooper, was brought into the fold, bringing with him his gun store that he had built into his home. What was once a modest selection of firearms has grown to cover more than half of the store. Cooper came to work full-time in the store in 1998; he has since retired.

The Hunts brought their children into the fold as well, saying that their three kids grew up in the hardware store.

In 2026, the business is still going strong with people coming from all over the state to shop for firearms, and locals coming to purchase a variety of hardware needs.

To celebrate these customers who have kept them in business for 30 years, the Hunts hosted a customer appreciation event where hot dogs were served and contestants entered to win a variety of prizes.

“It flew. It’s gone by so fast,” said Carrie Hunt. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been 30 years. You do it every day, and before you know it, you wake up one day and it’s been 30 years.”

NSSF Commends Indiana Gov. Mike Braun for Protecting Firearm Retailers, Ranges from Zoning Discrimination

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, commends Indiana Gov. Mike Braun for signing a law prohibiting local governments from weaponizing zoning regulations to prevent firearm retailers and ranges from operating in areas already approved for commercial use. The NSSF-priority bill, Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 176, was signed by Gov. Braun earlier this year and a ceremonial signing is scheduled for late April. The bill was led by State Sen. Jim Tomes and State Rep. Ben Smaltz.

“The passage of Senate Enrolled Act 176 into law is a vital step to ensuring that law-abiding gun owners have access to safe and state-of-the-art shooting ranges and firearm retail locations,” explained Chris Lee, NSSF’s Director of Government Relations – State Affairs. “This law will safeguard ranges and retailers from antigun agenda-driven weaponization of local zoning authorities. These establishments, which are necessary to the exercise of Second Amendment rights, are too often relegated to back corners of industrial parks and country roads that are inconvenient to access for most consumers, including hunters and law enforcement. NSSF is grateful to the Indiana legislature and Governor Braun for ensuring these ranges and retailers are protected so Hoosiers can safely and lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

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5.7 Million Suppressors Registered: ATF Data Shows Massive Growth in Ownership

According to the American Suppressor Association (ASA), the number of silencers/suppressors registered in the United States of America was 5,776,685 as of the time the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) responded at the SHOT Show in January of 2026.

This correspondent obtained information from the ATF on January 22, 2026. At that time, it was stated that the information had already been released and that over 150K National Firearms Act (NFA) applications had been approved through January 2026.

The graph of registered silence numbers was created using cumulative January counts from 2011 to 2026. When numbers were unavailable for January, linear interpolation was used to estimate the January number. Each year had at least one reference number. 2017 had three reference numbers, none of them for January.

Cumulative Registered Silencers National Firearms Act by YearImage by Dean Weingarten

The number of registered silencers has been growing at about 22.6% per year.  That rate is roughly equivalent to doubling every 3.2 years.  If such a rate continues, there will be about 50 million registered silencers ten years from now.

It is unlikely there will be 50 million registered silencers ten years from now. This correspondent believes the registration requirement will be removed well before 10 years. It could be removed within two years, given the lawsuits now in play. 50 million silencers in the hands of American gun owners, ten years from now, is plausible.

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DOJ Reverses Course on Defending Biden’s ‘Engaged in the Business’ Rule for Gun Sales

Gun Owners of America is celebrating a win in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals after the Department of Justice abruptly reversed course in a lawsuit challenging the ATF’s expanded definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms that was put into effect under the Biden administration and then-ATF Director Steve Dettelbach.

The rule was explicitly designed to get as close as possible to “universal” background checks without a new law being passed by Congress, and treated the vast majority of private, person-to-person sales as those that should be conducted by a federally licensed firearms dealer. The attorneys general of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah, along with GOA, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, and Tennessee Firearms Association filed a lawsuit to block the law from being enforced, and a district court granted a preliminary injunction barring enforcement against the plaintiffs in June, 2024.

Biden’s DOJ appealed that decision, though, and the Trump administration continued to defend the rule even as officials said that virtually every one of Biden’s executive actions on firearms were in the process of being undone.

On Thursday, however, the DOJ filed a request with the Fifth Circuit to voluntarily dismiss its appeal with the plaintiffs’ consent. In their request, the DOJ’s attorneys said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives “plans to revisit” the rule and “revis[e] the guidelines for determining who is considered ‘engaged in the business’ of selling firearms.”

The DOJ also informed the court (and the rest ofus) that a notice of proposed rulemaking addressing the “engaged in the business rule” is “forthcoming”, and that in light of the proposed rule on the horizon the government “has determined that it is not appropriate to continue this appeal.”

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NRA Foundation Triples Down on Not Being Transparent

The NRA Foundation has gone silent after being sued by the NRA. The attorney general of D.C. stepped in and the Foundation still refuses to disclose their leadership structure.

The ongoing saga of the National Rifle Association v. NRA Foundation continues. Last year there were rumors that the Foundation changed their bylaws and they were contacted about their leadership structure. The Foundation did not reply to those queries. Rumors of a conflict turned out to be true, as the NRA filed a lawsuit against the Foundation. To date, the Foundation refuses to publicly disclose who their trustees are. This lack of transparency continues even after the Office of the Attorney General of Washington, D.C. got involved to mediate. The Foundation still won’t disclose who makes up their current leadership structure.

The NRA made several allegations in the lawsuit. NRA alleges the Foundation was illegally using the NRA trademark as well as not distributing funds promised to NRA programs. The Foundation rebukes those claims stating that they are simply upholding their fiduciary duties. The Foundation also moved to have the case dismissed and that request was denied.

The NRA v. NRA Foundation story runs deep and there are many elements to it. Right now, there are a lot of allegations that have been made through the lawsuit and some public comments from NRA officials and leadership. There’s been near complete silence from the NRA Foundation outside of a press release noting the Foundation’s motion to dismiss the NRA’s lawsuit, a public statement after filing, and some decline to comment replies to queries.

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2026 National Rifle Association Board of Directors Election Results

The annual election of the National Rifle Association Board of Directors has concluded. The 2026 results are in and 36 director candidates have been elected to available one-to-three year terms.

Annually an election is held for the NRA Board of Directors. Under normal circumstances there are 25 three-year director spots up for grabs each year. An additional 76th director who is elected at the NRA Annual Meeting would serve a one-year term. Candidates in the 2026 election had a near clean sweep, with all but two securing a spot. Due to multiple resignations from the board during the 2025 – 2026 year, 36 candidates were able to take posts on the board — including the 76th director’s spot.

As previously reported, the NRA Nominating Committee selected 30 candidates they felt met requirements set forth by the committee in conjunction with input from the NRA president and first vice president. Of those 30 candidates, there were 13 incumbent directors.

There were eight candidates who ran successful petition campaigns. Also notable, there were three director candidates who were selected by the nominating committee and ran successful petition campaigns: incumbent directors Steven C. Schreiner, Amanda Suffecool, and newcomer Robert Beckman.

Between the petition candidates and those selected by the committee, a slate of 38 potential candidates was previously announced.

On April 2, 2026 the NRA announced the results of the Board of Directors election. The original notification stated 35 candidates were elected. An update to NRA’s announcement on American Rifleman indicated that one candidate who was eligible for 76th director withdrew from the slate — Isaac Demarest — leaving Lynn Gipson elected as the de facto 76th director.

The updated results are as follows:

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