Category: Courts
Federal Judge Nixes Delaware’s Ban on Possessing ‘Ghost Guns’ and Home Manufacturing of Firearms
A federal judge in Delaware has ruled the state’s ban on possessing unserialized firearms and the private manufacturing of guns violates the Second Amendment, while keeping in place the state’s laws that forbid the dissemination of computer-aided design files or other code or instructions used in 3D printing gun parts.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika also upheld the state’s prohibition on “knowingly transport[ing], ship[ping], transfer[ring], or sell[ing] an unfinished firearm frame or receiver,” ruling that the “Distribution ban” as she called it does not impose any burden on keeping or bearing unserialized firearms.
For the most part, though, the plaintiffs were victorious in their arguments, with Noreika finding the possession and manufacturing bans facially unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and granting a permanent injunction that applies to the named plaintiffs, including Firearms Policy Coalition members.
The judge had previously granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing those provisions, so in that respect Thursday’s ruling isn’t all that surprising. Still, it’s always good to see a federal judge treat the Second Amendment with the respect that it deserves.
A SCOTUS Petition Argues That the Second Amendment Requires Carry-Permit Reciprocity
Meanwhile, the top court of Massachusetts considers whether the state can deny carry permits to applicants who are deemed “unsuitable.”
Four years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment precludes states from requiring that people demonstrate a “special need” before they are allowed to carry handguns in public for self-defense. But it added that “nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality” of licensing regimes “designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.'”
Two pending cases raise interesting questions about the constraints that Bruen imposes on state carry-permit policies. In Johnson v. Jacobson, a long-haul trucker with carry permits issued by Florida and Georgia is asking the Supreme Court to reject Minnesota’s insistence that he also obtain a license from that state if he wants to bear arms there. And in Pratt v. Westbrook, an unsuccessful carry permit applicant is asking the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to hold that the state’s “suitability” requirement violates the Second Amendment.
Jeffrey Johnson, who is represented by the Liberty Justice Center (LJC), hauls cargo “across the United States and makes regular, annual trips to or through Minnesota,” according to the Supreme Court petition he filed on Tuesday. “Because of the dangers posed to long-haul truck drivers, Johnson always carries a handgun with him for self-defense. But when he travels to Minnesota, state law requires him to unload his weapon and secure it in a container because Minnesota does not grant firearm license reciprocity to fifteen states, including Florida and Georgia.”
That situation, the LJC argues, is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. “Once a person proves he is a law-abiding citizen, he is entitled to carry a gun in public for self-defense,” says LJC Senior Counsel Ryan Morrison. “Constitutional rights, the Second Amendment included, do not require someone to prove their worthiness to exercise their civil liberties over and over again. Forcing someone to carry a Rolodex of firearm licenses to maintain his constitutional rights across the nation reduces the Second Amendment to second-class status and subjects it to an entirely different body of rules than the other rights secured by the Constitution.”
Trump’s Solicitor General Seeks 10 Minutes Before SCOTUS to Argue Against AR-15 Bans
President Donald Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer is asking the Supreme Court of the United States to grant him ten minutes to argue in favor of AR-15 rifles when the Court weighs the constitutionality of “assault weapons” bans.
On June 30, 2026, Breitbart News reported that SCOTUS agreed to hear Grant v. Higgins, a case centering on whether AR-15 ownership is protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. A second case, consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, is Viramontes v. Cook County, and it centers on Cook County’s “assault weapons” ban.
Oral arguments re: AR-15s and AR-15 ownership will take place before SCOTUS on December 2, 2026. The Solicitor General is seeking time before the Court to contend that bans on AR-15s are unconstitional.
FPC LEGAL UPDATE: The federal government has asked the Supreme Court for permission to join the oral arguments in our "assault weapon" lawsuit (in support of us). https://t.co/XgJYe8Y5pv pic.twitter.com/WBFahWPaVt
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 9, 2026
In the motion for time before SCOTUS, Solicitor General Sauer wrote, “These cases present the question whether a categorical ban on the possession of AR-15 semiautomatic rifles infringes the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The United States has filed a brief as amicus curiae supporting petitioners, arguing that such a ban is unconstitutional.”
Pro-Gun Groups File More Amicus Briefs in Viramontes
The cases of Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins are, in essence, one and the same. They challenge assault weapon bans in Illinois and Connecticut, respectively, and they’re perhaps set to be one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of our lifetimes. Yes, bigger than Bruen, Heller, or McDonald.
I don’t say that lightly.
But they matter. They matter so much that pro-gun groups are dropping their amicus briefs. We’ve noted a few already, but I’ve got two more for you today.
First, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
From a statement sent to Bearing Arms:
>“In our brief,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “we take a scholarly journey through the history of arms regulation; not just firearms, but other arms including swords, knives and other lawful arms. Nowhere in history is there any justification for outright bans of any arms, only the regulation of their misuse. As we explain, AR-15-style rifles serve recognized lawful purposes for home and personal defense, hunting, target shooting, organized competition and pest and predator control.”
Studies estimate that firearms labeled “assault weapons” account for well under one percent of violent crimes, the brief says, while such firearms are “commonly possessed safeguards used for lawful purposes—not instruments outside lawful use and not identified with violent criminality.”
“It is gratifying to see that CCRKBA is in very good company with our historical amicus brief,” Gottlieb said. “We are taking sides with 27 state attorneys general, with the U.S. Department of Justice, with law enforcement groups and literally ever other major firearms civil rights organization in the country. We all know what is at stake when the Court hears oral arguments in December, and the Citizens Committee is proud to stand in support of the Constitution and we are confident the Second Amendment will prevail.”
A similar stat about these weapons being used in one percent of crimes was echoed in a statement by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership.
It was followed by this:
“AR15s and other modern sporting rifles are indisputably in common use for all manner of lawful purposes by the American people and, therefore, cannot be banned,” said JPFO Projects Director, James Jones. “Anti-liberty groups who want to abolish the Second Amendment and the right it protects have tried for years to ban one class of firearm after another providing nothing but false rhetoric and misguided emotion as evidence to justify the unjust prohibitions. We’re confident the Supreme Court will see through their schemes and will rely on the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment.”
Jones is 100 percent correct, for the record.
The term “lawful purposes” isn’t limited to self-defense use. It means any lawful purpose, from shooting three-gun competitions to a day at the range to even sitting there and looking at it because it looks dope. Those are all perfectly legal practices, and the AR-15 fits in that niche, too.
Because of that, it cannot be lawfully banned.
Plus, it’s not used in crime that often, and when it is, there’s no evidence that the criminal who used it wouldn’t have just opted for another firearm had the evil “assault weapon” been unavailable.
Gottlieb is also correct in that there is no historical justification for the complete prohibition of a particular type of firearm. It just doesn’t exist, and while the anti-gun zealots will undoubtedly try to manipulate laws about things like Bowie knives to justify the bans, it just shouldn’t fly. They’re different and from a different era.
Viramontes is going to be one of the biggest decisions of our lifetime, whether the anti-gunners like it or not.
Maryland Synagogue Challenges Restrictive Gun Law
Montgomery County officials want to prevent houses of worship from making security decisions.
Houses of worship are often targeted by people with murder on their minds. That’s especially true of synagogues, which were disproportionately attacked even before October 7 and have since been on the receiving end of the “antizionist” reframing of hatred of Jews. But in Montgomery County, Maryland, officials recently renewed efforts to forbid the carrying of firearms within 100 yards of “places of public assembly,” including churches and synagogues. Now, some security volunteers are defying the intrusive law as they await the outcome of courtroom pushback against the restrictions.
Violating the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments
“Today, the Justice Department filed suit against Montgomery County, Maryland (County). The complaint alleges that the County’s newly enacted Bill 23-26 violates the Second Amendment by prohibiting law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms in daily life,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced on August 3. “Bill 23-26 prohibits carrying firearms at thousands of locations, and also creates an arbitrary 100-yard exclusion zone around each location. The law applies even if the person carrying a firearm is duly licensed and has the express consent of the property owner.”
He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viscously killed her children
The Lindsay Clancy jury was packed with teachers and nurses who thought the hero holdout was “very arrogant” and “completely disregarded” their expertise.
“He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viscously killed her children.” pic.twitter.com/dLfbPnpk3f
— Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) September 8, 2026
DOJ Files Amicus to Supreme Court on Gun Ban Cases
The Department of Justice has filed a 40-page amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the consolidated cases of Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut), which will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 2 beginning at 10 a.m.
The document, signed by Solicitor General John D. Sauer and Assistant Attorneys General Harmeet Dhillon and Brett A. Schumate, includes some blockbuster observations from an agency that has historically not been supportive of Second Amendment challenges to state and local gun control laws/
“The right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment is among the “fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 778 (2010). Millions of Americans exercise that right by owning an AR-15 rifle, which is ‘the most popular rifle in the country.’ Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 297 (2025). Yet the State of Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, have made the possession of AR-15s a crime.”
That paragraph is immediately followed by this: “AR-15s a crime. Those bans are unconstitutional. A firearms re striction comports with the Second Amendment only if it is ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’ NYSRPA v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 24 (2022). And this country’s regulatory tradition precludes banning arms that are ‘in common use’ among law abiding citizens for lawful purposes. District of Colum bia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 624 (2008). That common use test has deep historical roots in English and American law. This Court has already adopted that test and has repeatedly applied it to evaluate the validity of arms bans. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 47; Heller, 554 U.S. at 627; United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 179 (1939).”
While some in the firearms community have criticized the brief as being weak in comments at Ammoland News, others are cheering the fact that it was filed.
The Supreme Court will hear a pair of challenges to the constitutionality of bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles on Dec. 2. The oral arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County, which has been consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, headline the December argument calendar, which was released on Friday afternoon. Other highlights of the December argument session include cases involving the rights of parents to bring a lawsuit challenging a state law on care for runaway teens and Arizona election laws.
The justices will hear seven separate arguments during the six days of the December argument session, which runs from Monday, Nov. 30, until Wednesday, Dec. 2, and then again from Monday, Dec. 7, until Wednesday, Dec. 9.
Cutberto Viramontes filed the challenge to the ban on semiautomatic rifles in Cook County, Illinois, while gun owners and gun-rights groups challenged a similar law that Connecticut passed in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. In both cases, the lower courts upheld the bans against arguments that they violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms, prompting the challengers to come to the Supreme Court in 2025. After repeatedly considering the cases at their private conferences, the justices finally agreed on June 30 to weigh in.
New amicus brief filed by Second Amendment Law Center, written by Stephen Halbrook.
“The AR-15 falls within the historical tradition of the right to effective arms for defense of self and state and other lawful purposes. The English freeman had a right and duty to be armed.
From colonial times to the Revolution and beyond, effective arms were critical to the Americans. In reaction to arms confiscation by the British, the colonists asserted their right to keep and use their militia arms in defense of liberty.
The Second Amendment was understood to guarantee a robust concept of the “Arms” that the people have a right to keep and bear.”
Third Circuit Upholds Machine Gun Ban, Creates Bruen Loophole for Gun Registration
The Third Circuit ruled that machine guns are protected “Arms,” then upheld the federal ban anyway. Its treatment of suppressor registration may be even more dangerous for gun owners.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed the federal government two victories Monday, upholding Joseph Paul Berger’s convictions for possessing machine guns and unregistered suppressors.
The machine gun ruling in United States v. Berger is bad enough. The court acknowledged that machine guns fall within the Second Amendment’s plain text, only to uphold the federal ban by declaring them unsuitable for lawful civilian use.
The court’s suppressor analysis could reach much further. A two-judge majority held that registration requirements judges consider “minimal” do not infringe the Second Amendment at all. Under that reasoning, the government can escape the historical test required by N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen merely by convincing a court that its registration scheme is not burdensome enough to count.
NSSF Guidance on NFA Transfers
On Aug. 8, 2026, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in Silencer Shop v. ATF that most of the National Firearms Act (NFA) is unconstitutional, stating that portions of the NFA that no longer collect tax revenue as a result of cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill can no longer be justified as a lawful exercise of Congress’s taxing authority. The court concluded that the registration requirements and other regulations on items like silencers (suppressors), short-barrel rifles (SBRs) and short-barrel shotguns (SBSs) that are ostensibly justified as part of the tax collection process are unconstitutional.
The court entered a permanent injunction providing relief to only the plaintiffs in the legal challenge, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to seek an emergency appeal or stay of that decision, which means that the injunction is now in effect. However, DOJ still has until Oct. 5, 2026, to appeal or seek a stay of the final judgment, and there are many unanswered questions about the implications of the injunction.
MASSIVE WIN: The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico has granted summary judgment holding the state's 7-day waiting period law for firearm purchases unconstitutional!
The NRA brought forward the case with @MSLF, in partnership with @NSSF. pic.twitter.com/hv4uSORDZf
— NRA (@NRA) August 28, 2026
Cuccinelli to Argue Militia Clause Protects AR-15s in Supreme Court Brief
“Former Virginia AG [and former Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security] Ken Cuccinelli is drafting an amicus brief for a coalition of groups and key individuals in the Viramontes semi-automatic gun ban case that is coming in front of the United States Supreme Court,” Second Amendment advocate and NRA “reform director” Dennis Fusaro informed a close circle of fellow activists by email Saturday.
Fusaro, probably most known to AmmoLand readers through his involvement in attempting to persuade an unheeding Association to commit needed resources to a “get out the vote” effort in Virginia’s 2025 election, is soliciting funds to finance the legal work.
Cuccinelli’s novel approach was documented in his challenge to Virginia’s semi-auto/magazine ban asking for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief because the “ban provisions of the Act violate the militia clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia.” (While acknowledging that Plaintiffs will suffer “irreparable harm if the Ban becomes effective and is later determined to be unconstitutional,” Spotsylvania Circuit Court Judge William E. Glover subsequently allowed the ban to stand, citing “the potential of harm to the Commonwealth.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238 (7th Circuit), consolidated with Grant v. Higgins (2nd Circuit), presents an opportunity to do more than win the immediate fight over AR-15-platform rifles,” Cuccinelli argues, recapping proposed language discussed in an Aug. 9 Zoom meeting.
“The Court has never squarely explained how the Second Amendment’s Militia Clause informs the meaning of the operative right ‘to keep and bear Arms.’ United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), plainly connected the Amendment to the militia and to the constitutional importance of arms having a relationship to militia purposes.”
That’s a point some of us have been trying to urge the gun groups filing 2A cases to include.
“Ignoring Core Purpose Makes 2nd Amendment More Vulnerable to Infringements: The Militia Aspect,” Part 1 and Part 2, I wrote for Firearms News in 2020. Forgetting the fighting tyranny part serves no one’s interests but would-be tyrants.
“That is the focus I would bring to an amicus brief: establishing a constitutional principle that not only prevents ‘military’ characteristics from becoming a constitutional liability, but makes them an affirmative basis for protection,” Cuccinelli asserts. “The more effective an arm is for the purposes for which a militia would require arms, the harder it should be to argue that its effectiveness somehow removes it from constitutional protection.”
Establishing this with SCOTUS “could therefore reach substantially further than the particular rifles before the Court,” he adds.
Fusaro is urging gun owners who realize the value of what this means to join and support this effort with contributions sent to RightsWatch.org.
Gun rights lawsuit aims at Colorado’s state & local carry restrictions.
DENVER–Colorado is facing yet another lawsuit over statewide and local gun rights restrictions, this one challenging the state’s concealed carry permitting and the City of Denver’s open-carry ban.
The latest lawsuit, brought by the National Rifle Association and two out-of-state gun owners, argues that the state and city’s carry laws “together leave otherwise qualified nonresidents who travel to Denver with no lawful means to carry a handgun there for self-defense.”
The complaint marks the latest in a line of recent legal challenges, brought by both gun rights groups and the Trump administration, targeting restrictive gun laws in Colorado.
The U.S. court system is 100% broken, and nothing shows that fact better than this case out of Pennsylvania.
Safon Gump was accused of fatally shooting Gregory Prince, but the trial that would have brought justice to Gump derailed because one of the jurors got high in the jury room.
TribLive has the details:
Because Gump remains in custody — and court rules prohibit jurors from seeing a defendant in handcuffs for fear it could prejudice them — jurors were returned to their fifth-floor room to await the all clear to leave for lunch.
When Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski’s tipstaff arrived to release the jurors, Seman said, ‘He’s immediately hit with the smell of marijuana.’
Then, one of the jurors ‘looked at him and said, ‘It wasn’t me.”‘
This is where things really went off the rails.
The prosecution and the defense both agreed that if the juror had a prescription it was fine, and the judge said no one would be in trouble for the incident, but all the jurors also swore that they were not taking any medications that could affect their judgment in the case, so the judge needed to figure out who it was.
One by one, the jurors were brought to the judge’s chambers privately and questioned.
They all answered no in chambers, as well.
The judge also asked the jurors if anyone had ingested anything legally or illegally while in the jury room.
‘All of them denied it,’ Seman said.
The defense asked for a mistrial and the judge agreed to it.
Federal Judge: ATF’s ‘Frame and Receiver Rule’ Unconstitutional
A federal district court judge in Texas ruled Tuesday that the Biden-era “Final Rule” on Frames and Receivers as defined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The case is known as Defense Distributed v Blanche (formerly known as VanDerStok v. Bondi).
In his 29-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas writes, “The Final Rule does not merely lack supporting analogues. It contradicts the actual historical tradition of personal gunsmithing. Self-manufacture of firearms in America was common and indeed foundational to establishing our Nation…
“Thus, the Court ENJOINS Defendants from enforcing 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 and 27 C.F.R. § 478.12(c) against Defense Distributed, SAF, or any of SAF’s current or future members with respect to Defense Distributed’s M1911 80% Frames and G80 Build Kit, Unfinished Receiver, and Grip Module.”
According to a Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) news release announcing the ruling—SAF was a plaintiff in the case—”The court declared the rule unconstitutional as applied to all SAF members and issued a permanent injunction protecting Defense Distributed and current and future Second Amendment Foundation members as it relates to the specific gun kits involved in the case. SAF and its partners filed for a motion summary judgment in April of this year, which today, the Court granted.”
A jubilant SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb stated, “It was obvious from the outset that the Biden ATF’s definition of a ‘firearm’ was intentionally vague and provided no clear guidance to the average law-abiding American as to what was actually legal.
“As it stood previously,” he continued, “the updated definition, in essence, made a law-abiding citizen a criminal for nothing more than owning a piece of plastic that could be converted into a firearm. That isn’t how it works. Congress set the definition and the ATF can’t unilaterally trump up a revised version to suit their political agenda. The ruling also affirms that you are indeed allowed make firearms in your own home without fear of prosecution.”
In his ruling, Judge O’Connor—a 2007 George W. Bush appointee—criticized the ATF’s Final Rule for using “abstract and vague language.”