Category: Courts

FPC Wants Court to Allow Nonresident Carry in Colorado

Colorado is a prime example of what happens when you let too many Californians move into a state. They take over and start wanting the same terrible laws they left California over. If only there was some way to stop them.

One issue in Colorado that predates the current sorry state of affairs is that if you’re a nonresident, you can’t carry a firearm at all unless your state recognizes Colorado’s permits. Luckily, open carry is still legal…unless you’re in Denver.

That’s why Denver is being sued, and why the Firearms Policy Coalition has made an important ask of the court.

From a press release:

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Hoffman v. City and County of Denver, asking the federal court to immediately block enforcement of the Colorado and Denver gun carry ban regime as to Plaintiff Gene Hoffman and similarly situated peaceable nonresidents, and require Colorado to allow them to obtain carry licenses on the same terms as Colorado residents.

The State of Colorado generally requires a permit to carry a concealed handgun but refuses to issue those permits to nonresidents. Instead, the State recognizes permits from another state only when that state recognizes Colorado permits.

Denver separately bans open carry, so peaceable people from outside those states can be left with no lawful way to carry a handgun at all while in Denver. And because federal law generally prohibits firearm possession within 1,000 feet of a school unless the person has a license issued by the state where the school is located, Colorado’s refusal to issue permits to nonresidents creates a massive labyrinth of prohibited areas throughout the State where affected travelers can be effectively disarmed—or risk federal prosecution and imprisonment simply for carrying a firearm.

Colorado law also reserves certain carry privileges in public university and government-building parking areas for permit holders.

“Colorado and Denver cannot turn their borders into a police-state checkpoint where peaceable people are forced to surrender their rights.

The right to bear arms throughout the United States belongs to the People—not only Colorado residents. Colorado and Denver have created an insane regime that completely disarms peaceable Americans simply because they live somewhere else, and we’re asking the court to put an end to it now.

FPC and our Grassroots Army will continue to Fight Forward and eliminate all of these unconstitutional and immoral residency-based bans,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

FPC’s motion argues that the case should be straightforward under the Supreme Court’s binding precedents—the Second Amendment protects the People’s right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, and that protection does not disappear when someone crosses a state line.

As the filing explains, “the Second Amendment, like every guarantee in the Bill of Rights, ‘has the same meaning in all parts of the United States.’”

The historical record makes Colorado’s position even worse. Far from supporting residency-based disarmament, early American laws often gave travelers more protection to carry arms, not less.

The motion identifies colonial laws requiring people traveling away from home to carry arms and later laws expressly exempting travelers from carry restrictions.

The motion also argues that Colorado’s discrimination against nonresidents violates the Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects Americans from being denied fundamental privileges simply because they come from another state.

I mean, they ain’t wrong.

About any of it.

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A lot of police these days seem to be simply be out to arrest and charge whoever they can, for whatever they can.

Supreme Court Turns Away ‘Knock-And-Talk’ Case Backed by Gun Rights Groups

The Supreme Court denied cert to dozens of cases on Monday, and while we’ve talked about a few of those denials already, there’s at least one more that’s worth discussing.

Reel v. North Carolina wasn’t really a Second Amendment case, but a number of 2A organizations signed on to an amicus brief urging the Court to hear the challenge brought by Quashan Reel against the state of North Carolina.

The underlying issue in Reel involves the “implied license” that permits a “visitor to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” As Reel’s cert petition explained:

Police rely on this “implied license” to conduct untold thousands of so-called “knock-and-talk” investigations each year under the theory that entering the curtilage of the home to conduct a “knock and talk” does not implicate the Fourth Amendment.

But this Court in Jardines also instructed that an officer’s purpose in entering the curtilage of the home has constitutional relevance. If police “enter the protected premises of the home in order to do nothing but conduct a search,” they have conducted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

The question Reel posed to SCOTUS was this: When police enter the curtilage of the home to conduct a “knock-and-talk” investigation with the purpose of gathering incriminating evidence against the homeowner, do police conduct a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?

You can see why Second Amendment groups like Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners of California, and Tennessee Firearms Association took an interest in this case. If police can use these “knock-and-talks” to conduct searches of homes, then gun owners, particularly those who reside in places where there’s hostility towards our right to keep and bear arms, can easily be targeted and become the victims of warrantless searches.

Reel’s case stemmed from a police investigation into his activities in 2020. Police in High Point, North Carolina suspected him of dealing narcotics, and parked a patrol car near his home. When a woman walked up to Reel’s front door officers followed, and when the door was closed after allowing her inside, the officers forced the door open and broke inside, where they discovered marijuana and pills.

The officers claimed they smelled marijuana when the door was opened, which gave them probable cause and exigent circumstances to search without a warrant. But if police were already conducting an investigation into Reel’s activities, then the alleged ‘knock and talk’ was nothing more than a pretext to search Reel’s home in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Quoting again from the amicus brief:

The conduct of the police challenged here by Petitioner illustrates how the “implicit license”recognized by this Court has been abused in practice.

Here, the officers did not “approach the home by the front path,” did not “knock promptly,” did not “wait briefly to be received,” or receive an “invitation to linger longer,” and then, did not “leave.” Instead, they forced their way in immediately behind an invited guest, without ever “knocking and talking” at all.

When “knock and talk” is expanded to cover such behavior, and then combined with “exigent circumstances,” the Fourth Amendment’s protections of the home are dramatically weakened.

The court below largely ignored every word this Court has written on principles of relevance here, and it is not alone. Many other federal and state courts have sanctioned all manner of police efforts to expand this rule, granting increasingly abusive intrusions into the home and its curtilage.

The front path rule, the duration limitation, the time of day, and other limitations that apply to other visitors have been stretched beyond any understanding of the original rule.

Accordingly, these amici agree with Fourth Amendment scholars that additional guidance is now required from this Court to prevent further abuses.

These amici urge this Court to grant certiorari to adopt a clear and enforceable rule, that “the right of a police officer to conduct a ‘knock and talk’ is no greater than a Girl Scout has to approach a house to sell cookies.”

The Girl Scout reference comes from the Supreme Court’s decision in an earlier case where the Court held that if “Girl Scouts and trick-or-treaters” have a “knock and talk” implied license, the police should also be granted such a license.

The Girl Scouts don’t have any right to barge into your home just because they can see an empty cookie jar on the kitchen counter when you open the door. Trick-or-treaters don’t have the right to go search your refrigerator just because you offer them candy on your porch. There are limits to that implied license, at least if you’re not wearing a badge.

We don’t know why the Court denied cert to Reel, but this does seem to be an issue that the justices should address. The circumstances that led to Reel’s home being searched are far beyond the limits of the “implied license” SCOTUS has recognized, and these practices will continue in jurisdictions around the country until the Court makes it clear that they must stop. That won’t happen in this case, but I appreciate GOA, GOC, and TFA for taking an interest in this issue and urging the Court to step up and deal with these abuses.

San Diego County Sues Filament Maker Over Its 2A Ties

There’s nothing illegal about selling plastic filament for 3D printers, even if some customers use that filament to manufacture firearms. But according to officials in San Diego County, there’s something legally actionable about a filament maker embracing the Second Amendment community and touting its products to people who print their own guns.

On Monday, San Diego County, aided by Giffords Law Center, filed suit against Polymaker LLC, accusing the company of violating California’s Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws by allegedly promoting it’s products to the 3D-printed firearms community. The county isn’t claiming that Polymaker sells guns, unfinished frames or receivers, or even a product that’s uniquely suited for making firearms. Instead, much of its case rests on what Polymaker has said and done while selling a lawful, general-purpose product.

According to the county’s complaint, Polymaker developed firearm-themed products, sponsored and worked with gun-printing influencers, offered technical advice about using its filament for firearm applications, and cultivated relationships with the broader 3D gun community. San Diego contends those activities helped facilitate violations of California’s restrictive laws governing privately manufactured firearms.

While this lawsuit implicates the Second Amendment, it raises substantial First Amendment questions as well. From the complaint:

To be clear, 3D printing filament is not inherently illicit and has many lawful, productive purposes, and this lawsuit does not seek to ban the sale of filament in California.

Rather, the People bring this lawsuit to hold Polymaker liable for its strategic business choice to design and market its filaments in order to profit from the illegal manufacture of 3D printed ghost guns in California.

These actions violate California law and reflect a conspicuous disregard for the public safety interests of Californians that those laws are designed to protect.

San Diego isn’t taking aim at what Polymaker sells. It’s suing over how the company talks about its products, who it talks to, and what those customers might legally do with them in much of the rest of the country, where California’s idiotic laws are not in place.

Nowhere in the complaint does San Diego allege that Polymaker is designing or marketing it’s filaments with California specifically in mind. Instead, the county heavily relies on California’s ridiculously broad definition of a “firearm precursor part,” which includes “any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body or similar article . . . that is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm once completed, assembled or converted.”

In support of its lawsuit, San Diego County points to the California DOJ’s designation of the Ghost Gunner “AR-00,” which is nothing more than a solid block of aluminum, as a “firearm precursor part” simply because it’s marketed as something that can eventually become a firearm frame or receiver.

While that might buttress San Diego County’s argument, it’s also a perfect illustration of just how expansive and open-ended California’s law is. Under San Diego’s theory, a company that produces a general-purpose product can be held liable for promoting one particular use because California prohibits that activity, even when the marketing isn’t specifically directed at Californians.

Punishing commercial speech directed at a nationwide audience because that speech promotes conduct that’s illegal in one state, even when the same conduct is perfectly lawful elsewhere, seems like a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment to me.

If California can turn a spool of plastic into a regulated “firearm precursor part” based largely on how it’s marketed, then this case isn’t just about what Polymaker sells. What the company says about its products, and even who it associates with and employs, are also fundamental parts of the county’s litigation, and you don’t have to be a Second Amendment supporter or a 3D-printing aficionado to be extremely concerned about where this theory can lead.

A Texas federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit trying to hold UPS and FedEx liable for the Uvalde shooting

gov.uscourts.txwd.1172812709.49.0

Citing this law –
“Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994”.

In brief:
The Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA), 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1) preempts state laws and common law causes of action that are “related to a price, route, or service” of a motor carrier, broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property. Courts have repeatedly held that state tort claims can qualify as a “law … having the force and effect of law” and therefore be preempted

DOJ Sues Minnesota Over Gun Permit-to-Purchase Laws and Waiting Periods

On September 24, the Department of Justice took a huge step that could have major repercussions for gun control. The DOJ filed a lawsuit saying Minnesota’s firearm purchase permit and 30-day waiting period are unconstitutional.

Daniel Rosen, the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Minnesota, said:

“We are committed to protecting Minnesotans’ right to purchase firearms and we will not tolerate procedures that are wielded in a way that impairs that right.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said:

“Law-abiding citizens do not need government permission to purchase a firearm, and forcing a citizen who has already passed a background check to wait up to sixty days to obtain a firearm is intolerable under the Constitution.”

The suit is being brought against the state of Minnesota and the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota’s original purchase permit law was enacted in 1977 but has been modified several times, most recently in 2025.

In 2023, the state expanded its waiting period from seven to 30 days, the same as the time limit for local police or the county sheriff to grant or deny a permit.

According to the DOJ, police in both Minneapolis and St. Paul routinely take more than the 30 days the law allowed and that wait times of up to 60 days are not uncommon.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon commented:

“The Supreme Court held that the home is where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. When a person needs to defend their home, they need to defend it now, not thirty to sixty days from now.”

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Grassroots Judicial Report—September 30, 2026

What’s New — United States Supreme Court: Sept. 28 long conference summary; New York: Second Circuit: Defending Education v. Croton-Harmon Union Free School District: Docket No: 24-1900: Although this is not a 2A case, the court held that an organization may sue on behalf of its members under § 1983 when it satisfies the traditional test established in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission.

An important procedural matter for 2A cases: Hawaii: Ninth Circuit: En Banc: Yukutake v. Lopez, No. 1:19-cv-00578-JMS-RT: As of the 6-5 en banc decision, Hawaii may enforce both the 30-day handgun permit-expiration provision and the specified in-person firearm-inspection requirement;

Delaware: Third Circuit: Rigby v. Jennings: Case 1:21-cv-01523-MN: Decision:Filed 09/10/26 Judge Maryellen Noreika. A new Delaware law purports to “fix” this decision.

Week ending September 25

A review of the week’s available federal-court and Supreme Court materials did not reveal a new Supreme Court merits ruling, certiorari grant or denial squarely presenting a Second Amendment question, federal circuit merits opinion, or consequential preliminary-injunction ruling concerning the constitutional validity of a firearms restriction. However an en banc 6-5 ruling in  Yukutake v. Lopez that reversed the district court and the 3-judge panel’s injunction will probably be on its way to SCOTUS seeking certiorari.

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DOJ Broadens Lawsuit, Targets San Jose Insurance Requirement for Gun Owners as Well

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) amended its original complaint against San Jose, California’s concealed carry license fee so as to target the city’s liability insurance requirement for gun owners as well.

Breitbart News reported the DOJ’s initial complaint against San Jose, noting that it centered on the city’s “presumptively unconstitutional” concealed carry license fee of roughly $1,600.00.

But the DOJ has now amended the complaint so as to go after San Jose’s liability insurance requirement for gun owners, too.

The San Jose Police Department noted that the city has a Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance which “requires firearm owners to obtain and maintain liability insurance and pay an annual gun harm reduction fee.”

The DOJ’s amended complaint lists San Jose’s liability insurance requirement and Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance under the heading, “Abusive Fees.”

Second Shot at the Second Amendment: Could Heller Be Undone by an Errant Qualifier?

Many of us are gearing up with columns previewing the Court’s October term and have highlighted the upcoming arguments over bans on AR-15s and semiautomatic weapons out of the Seventh Circuit in Chicago (Viramontes v. Cook County) and the Second Circuit in New York (Grant v. Higgins).

In a recent column, Professor Rory Little suggests that these cases will strike at what he considers a glaring flaw in the Heller decision that recognized the individual right under the Second Amendment. Professor Little repeats a common claim about Heller that some of us have challenged. I wanted to briefly address that controversy again.The column appeared in Scotusblog, a respected site that offers tracking and commentary on pending Supreme Court cases.  Here is the portion that I wanted to address:

The 2008 Heller decision, which changed precedent to find a Second Amendment right to own handguns for self-defense, was decided 5-4. To me (and others) it is clear that Justice Antonin Scalia had to include various qualifiers in his opinion, or he would have lost one or two of his five votes and Heller would have come out differently.

Part III of the opinion was clearly added to capture, or keep, the narrow but earth-shattering majority, and ought to be viewed as the binding judgement of the court. Specifically, in addition to listing various “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms” left undisturbed, part III said “we also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. … the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’” (quoting United States v.Miller, a 1939 precedent upholding bans on machine guns).

I add emphasis on “at the time,” because the Viramontes briefing all but ignores what the court said was this “important limitation.”

As the solicitor general’s brief notes, “the AR-15 rifle was developed in 1956,” and the first semiautomatic rifle of any kind was sold in 1903. Thus, while they may be the “most commonly owned rifle[] in America” today (albeit by less than 10% of all Americans), semi-automatic rifles were undisputedly not in common use “at the time” the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791.

Indeed, as the SG’s brief also explains, it is the modern technological developments in the AR-15 that makes it popular today. (This is also why they are commonly used in mass-shootings.) Rather, the solicitor general’s Viramontes brief subtly changes the language, saying (on page 21) that the proper Second Amendment test is whether AR-15s “are in common use” today (again, my emphasis).

This radically departs from the doctrinal limits that were essential to cementing the Heller result. In his 2025 dissent from denial of certiorari, Kavanaugh (joined by Justice Samuel Alito) adopted this same semantic transfiguration of Heller (changing “were” to “are”) – an error (or strategy) presaged in Kavanaugh’s 2011 Circuit judge dissent when Heller was remanded in 2011.

Many folks will be listening on Dec. 2 to see whether a majority of justices will agree that Heller did not actually mean what it appeared to say.

As others have noted, this is an old saw repeated by many critics of Heller.

Justice Scalia anticipated this argument in the actual Heller decision. He wrote:

“Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.

We do not interpret constitutional rights that way…Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

As I recently discussed in a column, this issue came up nine years ago when Massachusetts attempted to ban stun guns. The Court issued a per curiam opinion in Caetano v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts that sent back a case to the First Circuit and rejected the logic that they were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment. The Court pointed out that in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), it expressly rejected that argument and held that the Second Amendment “extends . . . to . . . arms . . . that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” It also rejected two other rationales. (Notably, the Court is considering another stun gun case in Calce v. New York after the Second Circuit failed to heed the warning of the Court).

Notably, a new challenge has been filed in Connecticut over a ban of convertible handguns. It is likely to raise many of these same issues. The Firearm Industry Trade Association filed a lawsuit this week that will be before the district court as the Supreme Court hears arguments on the two pending cases.

I obviously disagree with Professor Little and other experts who raise this claim. There are, of course, good-faith arguments against the Heller decision. Some like Professor Little view that decision as “earth-shattering.” I do not. I still believe the Court was correct in viewing this as an individual right. However, I do not believe that this claim of a glaring and hypocritical contradiction between Heller and later cases is fair or supported. There was no sleight of hand in “changing ‘were’ to ‘are.’”

This really does not come down to a change in verbs. While many hope that packing the Supreme Court will result in an immediate reversal of Heller, it is unlikely to turn on the word “were.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

New Jersey Faces Lawsuit Over Knife, Baseball Bat Ban For Self-Defense

pro-Second Amendment group led a lawsuit Monday seeking to have New Jersey’s laws barring the carrying of items like baseball bats and knives for self-defense thrown out.

The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs and Knife Rights filed the lawsuit on behalf of four individual plaintiffs, arguing that by prohibiting the use of items other than firearms for self-defense, New Jersey was violating the Second Amendment rights of residents. The complaint said that the state has been in “panic mode” since the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller v. District of Columbia.

“New Jersey demands that its citizens be defenseless when they go about their day in public. Defenseless. Until forced to issue Permits to Carry a Handgun by the Bruen decision in 2022, New Jersey banned its citizens from carrying any weapon for self-defense,” the complaint filed Monday says. “Still today, New Jerseyans cannot carry any ordinary object for protection against violent crime, not a baseball bat, not a stick, not a knife, not a pair of scissors, not anything. If a person keeps an ordinary baseball bat in her car or if she keeps a small baton (sometimes called a kuboton) on her keychain she can find herself arrested and thrown in prison under New Jersey law.”

“The Second Amendment protects all common arms not just guns. There are many situations in which a person may prefer to defend against violent attack with something other than a firearm,” the legal filing continued. “New Jersey does not allow that. This is how a single mom using a carpet cutter to defend herself and her young daughter against a violent and potentially fatal beating found herself a convicted felon.”

In a 1990 decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court, the conviction of a single mother for carrying a carpet cutter and using it to protect herself when an ex-boyfriend was beating her was upheld.

The Supreme Court has already ruled on non-firearms being protected, issuing a unanimous ruling in Caetano v. Massachusetts that held that stun guns were protected by the Second Amendment. While the main opinion was unsigned (also known as a “per curiam” opinion), a concurrence from Associate Justice Samuel Alito went into more detail.

“A weapon is an effective means of self-defense only if one is prepared to use it, and it is presumptuous to tell Caetano she should have been ready to shoot the father of her two young children if she wanted to protect herself,” Alito wrote in a separate opinion. “Courts should not be in the business of demanding that citizens use more force for self-defense than they are comfortable wielding.”

“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was either unable or unwilling to do what was necessary to protect Jaime Caetano, so she was forced to protect herself,” Alito added. “To make matters worse, the Commonwealth chose to deploy its prosecutorial resources to prosecute and convict her of a criminal offense for arming herself with a nonlethal weapon that may well have saved her life.”

Second Amendment Foundation President Massad Ayoob, who has decades of experience as a law enforcement officer, firearms instructor and an expert witness in the use of force for self-defense, explained why many states tend to treat knives and other items more stringently in self-defense cases in an August interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Historically, the pistol was seen as the weapon that would be chosen by the lady or the gentleman and the knife and the club were seen as the weapons of the thug and there’s a little bit of that yet today,” Ayoob said.

Supreme Court Likely To Invoke 5 Major Decisions In Landmark Semi-Auto Gun Ruling

The Supreme Court will hear a case in December to determine the fate of bans on modern semiautomatic firearms, with the justices likely spending the bulk of their time discussing how a handful of cases will apply to what is expected to be a landmark ruling.

The high court agreed on June 30 to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, a lawsuit challenging the ban imposed by a Chicago-area county. Which cases will the justices cite when deciding the fate of the bans on modern semi-automatic firearms that have passed in several states? These are the five likely contenders.

District of Columbia v. Heller
The court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes such as self-defense in the home, not just a collective militia right. It struck down D.C.’s handgun ban and its rule that lawfully owned guns had to be kept unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked.

The 5–4 majority opinion, written by then-Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Amendment’s “militia” language is prefatory and does not limit the operative right of “the people.” Scalia noted that the right of self-defense was a crucial component of the rights protected by the Second Amendment.

“[T]he Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Scalia wrote.

The dissenters argued the amendment was mainly about military service and left room for broad civilian gun regulation.

McDonald v. City of Chicago
The court held that the Second Amendment right applied to state and local governments through the 14th Amendment. Chicago’s and Oak Park’s handgun bans therefore had to meet the same constitutional standard as the one enacted by the District of Columbia.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s controlling opinion relied mainly on due-process incorporation; Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurring opinion that he would have used the privileges or immunities clause instead. The 5–4 split tracked Heller (Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor replaced David Souter), with the dissenters warning that incorporation would sweep away a lot of state and city gun laws.

“[T]he Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” Alito wrote.

After the McDonald decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit would strike down Illinois’ ban on carrying concealed firearms, forcing the state to eventually pass a “shall issue” law regarding concealed carry permits.

Caetano v. Massachusetts
In a short unsigned opinion (called a “per curiam” opinion), the court vacated a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that stun guns were not protected by the Second Amendment. It reiterated that the right covered bearable arms even if they did not exist in 1791, and that the right applies to the states.

Thomas and Alito wrote separately to emphasize that a modern self-defense weapon cannot be banned just because it is new or uncommon in the military. The case was sent back, and Caetano was later found not guilty under the state stun-gun ban.

This case could play a key role in how the high court will decide Viramontes, since many supporters of bans on so-called “assault weapons” often claimed that the Founders had no concept of what modern firearms could do.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
The court struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement for a license to carry a handgun in public. The justices ruled that law-abiding people with ordinary self-defense needs have a Second Amendment right to carry commonly used arms outside the home.

Thomas’s opinion rejected the two-step interest-balancing test many lower courts used after Heller and McDonald. Instead, a gun regulation survived only if it fits the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

“When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” Thomas wrote. “The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Wolford v. Lopez
The court held that Hawaii may not make it a crime for licensed concealed-carry holders to bring handguns onto private property open to the public unless the owner gives express permission. That default ban, the majority said, hobbled the right to carry for self-defense in everyday life.

Alito wrote for a 6–3 majority that the law was inconsistent with text and history after Bruen. Alito took particular aim at the Hawaii Supreme Court for its assertion that the Second Amendment had to yield to the “Aloha spirit.”

“As the plurality explained in McDonald, the Second Amendment has the same meaning in all parts of the United States. 561 U. S., at 784–785. It cannot give way to ‘the spirit of Aloha’ in Hawaii any more than it can yield to the spirit of the Big Apple (Bruen) or the Windy City (McDonald),” Alito wrote. “It applies in the same way to our 50th State (where about 8% of adults possess guns) and our 49th State (where the figure is roughly 59%).”

The dissenters treated the statute more as a property-law default than as a gun ban and argued it left owners free to allow carry if they wanted.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Viramontes on Dec. 2, with the ruling expected to be released sometime in June 2027.

On the local scene

Sheriff, AG sue to end some firearm registrations

Dave Marshak, the Jefferson County sheriff, said he joined a lawsuit to eliminate federal registration requirements for short-barreled rifles and suppressors, also called silencers, to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

On Sept. 8, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and Marshak filed the lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Marshak said he is participating in the lawsuit as a state resident and not as the sheriff. He said Jefferson County will not pay any money to help finance the suit or cover his legal expenses.

The lawsuit alleges federal restrictions are unconstitutional when applied to short-barreled rifles and suppressors because those items are protected under the Second Amendment, and Congress’ decision to zero out taxes on the purchase of certain short-barreled firearms, suppressors and other weapons invalidated the ATF’s authority to require registration of a gun or firearm accessory’s owner.

“I believe strongly in both the rule of law and the Second Amendment,” Marshak said. “I have spent my career enforcing laws and holding people accountable when they commit crimes, particularly violent crimes. At the same time, government must operate within the limits imposed on it by the Constitution.

“I don’t believe we should treat millions of law-abiding gun owners as though they are potential criminals because of what someone else might do.”

The lawsuit says the federal government’s restrictions through the National Firearms Act are unconstitutional. The NFA, enacted in 1934, has historically required owners of suppressors, short‑barreled rifles and other weapons to register them with the federal government and receive approval before a transfer.

According to the lawsuit, the registration requirements force people to share personal information “akin to that obtained from an individual being arrested and charged with a crime.”

The suit also said completing ATF forms online may take the better part of an hour, and those seeking permission to own short-barreled rifles and suppressors incur costs related to providing fingerprint information and a photograph with each application.

Hanaway argues that people who want to avoid arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for a felony violation of federal law are left with two choices: comply with onerous regulations or forgo possession of short-barreled rifles and suppressors. The lawsuit said those who do not have proper registration could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

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A précis 

Restriction on Handgun Sales to Out-of-State Residents Violates Second Amendment

So held Elite Precision Customs L.L.C. v. BATFE, decided today by Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, joined by Kurt Engelhardt; a very short excerpt of the reasoning, but you can see the opinion for a lot more:

It is no defense of the Ban’s constitutionality to theorize that it is only a minor infringement of Second Amendment rights that still “allow[s] ample access to handguns by those who are permitted to possess and purchase them under state and local laws.” Mance v. Sessions (5th Cir. 2018) (rejecting a pre-Bruen challenge to the Ban)….

Even to the extent that the Ban can be circumvented by the licensee-to-licensee transfer workaround (which vests full veto power over interstate handgun sales in a group of third parties financially dependent on the government’s licensing regime), the Ban invariably calls for the payment of a fee over and above the cost of a handgun. We must pause before endorsing a cost attached to the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. To the extent that prior decisions from this court hint there is an acceptable cost that may be imposed on the basic exercise of Second Amendment rights, they are abrogated by Bruen and its progeny.

Judge Catharina Haynes dissented, stating she agreed with the district court’s decision upholding the law.

David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, and William V. Bergstrom (Cooper & Kirk, PLLC) and Cody J. Wisniewski (FPC Action Foundation) represent plaintiffs. Note that the Firearms Policy Coalition has in the past retained me to file some amicus briefs on their behalf, but I was not at all involved in this particular case.

Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law.

Fifth Circuit holds that the federal ban on direct interstate handgun purchases is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment

2026.09.18_083-1_OPINION

 

Criminal cases coming in the new term – and why the court could and should do more

As many SCOTUSblog readers are likely aware, there are some blockbuster criminal law cases set for the Supreme Court’s upcoming term. Bans on AR-15 and similar semi-automatic rifles. Whether juries in criminal cases must always be 12 persons. Whether seizing a plane for the unlawful transport of a six-pack of beer is an unconstitutional “excessive fine.”

In fact, 11 of the 25 cases already granted for review are, by my calculation, criminal law and related (what I call the court’s “CLAR” cases). They won’t all be headline-grabbers, but 40% of the court’s docket is a very healthy chunk. And the court will surely grant some more after its Sept. 28 “long conference.” I provide more details on the already granted cases below. But first:

The court can and should take more criminal cases

Before discussing the merits of the current 11 CLAR cert grants, I want to point out that the court could do much more. Last month the Congressional Research Service put out a 68-page report on “Circuit Splits from 2025.” That little-reported document details almost 100 cases in which lower courts have disagreed (just in 2025?) on significant federal points of law. The Supreme Court has statutory jurisdiction to address such lower court “splits,” whether from federal or state courts. The Supreme Court’s Rules 10(a) and (b) expressly note that lower court “splits” on federal questions – that is, cases from different courts that disagree on some important point of federal statutory or constitutional law – are a reason for the court to grant review. Granting Supreme Court review on lower court splits makes sense, as national uniformity on federal issues is a major, and one of the oldest, reasons for having (as Article III of the Constitution begins) “one supreme Court.” What’s more, I have to believe that the CRS report did not come out of the blue but was prepared with the knowledge of (and perhaps even encouragement from?) folks in the solicitor general’s office.

By far, the largest category of unresolved such “circuit splits” listed by CRS is criminal law and procedure, with 28 cases – three times larger than the next category, civil procedure. The report provides case citations for all 28 of these (at least one from every circuit except the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit). Just a few examples of important questions that need settling: Is embezzlement a continuing offense that extends the statute of limitations? Is car-jacking a violent felony when the state statute also reaches extortion? Is criminal forfeiture limited to property a defendant has actually acquired (here a cert petition may be pending)? What intent is required for a civil rights violation on a county road?

To make an oft-repeated point, the Supreme Court used to decide as many as 150 cases per term. But during the 2025-26 term the justices heard argument after full briefing in only 58. According to a Federalist Society report that has often been repeated, in 2012 Chief Justice John Roberts said that the court could hear “100 cases without any stress or strain, but the cases just aren’t there,” and he “emphasized that circuit splits are far and away the most important consideration.” The capacity of the justices to handle more cases is not an issue – more grants of review to provide national uniformity in criminal cases ought to be a priority.

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Oregon concealed carry license laws challenged by gun rights group

The lobbying group Gun Owners of America filed suit against the city of Salem and Marion County on Friday, challenging Oregon’s concealed handgun carry license laws.

The lawsuit targets restrictions that bar certain out-of-state residents from obtaining permits in Oregon and the state’s refusal to recognize permits from other states.

Cynthia Ladd, the group’s Oregon director and an Arizona resident, is the plaintiff.

In a sworn declaration filed in federal court, Ladd wrote that she’ll be visiting the state Capitol in Salem and meeting with legislators in the next 90 days as part of her lobbying work and wishes to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense in the city. But her Arizona concealed gun permit is not recognized and she can’t apply for one in Oregon.

The state, though, adopted a law in 2021 that bans guns from the Oregon Capitol, even those who have concealed handgun licenses. The city of Salem also prohibits unlicensed possession of loaded guns in the city.

The suit alleges that Ladd is “a typical, law-abiding American citizen with ordinary self-defense needs, who cannot be dispossessed of her right to bear arms in public for self-defense in Oregon simply due to her nonresident status.”

The city of Salem declined comment, citing the pending litigation, according to Robert B. Layne II, the city’s spokesperson.

To obtain an Oregon concealed handgun license, an applicant must be a resident of Oregon, or a non-resident who lives in a bordering state, including Washington, Idaho, Nevada or California.

Non-residents who live in a state bordering Oregon can apply for a concealed carry license to an Oregon county sheriff’s office that borders their state. Oregon county sheriffs, though, have discretion on whether to process non-resident applications, and many restrict them strictly to people who work or own property in their county.

Ladd’s lawsuit is one of a number of similar suits that have targeted residency barriers and out-of-state restrictions on concealed carry gun permits.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen found New York’s concealed carry laws unconstitutional. It stated that gun-control provisions had to comport with the text and “historical tradition” of the Second Amendment. Since then, state and local governments have had to show their own gun regulations are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Some states recognize many permits, others only a few, and others, like Oregon, only recognize their own permits granted for residents.

On Friday, the Liberty Justice Center petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the state of Minnesota’s law that requires a long-haul trucker who has concealed gun carry permits in Florida and Georgia to also obtain a license from Minnesota if he wants to carry a gun there.

Supreme Court Orders New York City to Defend Stun Gun Ban in ‘Caetano 2.0’

Six months ago, AmmoLand warned that the Second Circuit appeared ready to preserve New York City’s stun gun ban by claiming the challengers had not supplied enough evidence that electronic arms were in “common use.”

That is exactly what happened.

Now, the Supreme Court has ordered New York City to respond in Calce v. New York City, giving the justices an opportunity to stop lower courts from using that evidentiary maneuver to evade the Second Amendment.

The Court’s official docket shows that New York City waived its right to respond on August 6. On September 8, the Supreme Court requested a response anyway. The city’s brief is due October 8.

The order does not mean the Court has agreed to hear the case or ruled against New York City. It does mean the petition will not be rejected without the justices first receiving the city’s defense of a ban that should have been dead after Caetano v. Massachusetts.

Second Circuit’s Attempt at an Escape Route

In March 2025, AmmoLand’s Dean Weingarten reported that U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos had placed the “common use” burden on the challengers. Ramos held that stun guns and Tasers were not presumptively protected because the plaintiffs had not submitted sufficient evidence showing the arms were commonly possessed for lawful purposes.

When the Firearms Policy Coalition appealed, AmmoLand reported that the organization argued the ruling “[flew] in the face of the Second Amendment” because electronic weapons plainly fall within the ordinary meaning of “arms.”

Following the Second Circuit’s March 2026 oral argument, AmmoLand examined Mark Smith’s analysis of the case. Smith, host of The Four Boxes Diner, described Calce as a layup under Caetano. AmmoLand nevertheless warned that the panel appeared interested in a narrow procedural ruling that would leave the ban intact without directly declaring stun guns unprotected.

On April 13, the Second Circuit did exactly that.

Second Circuit Says Citizens Failed to Prove Their Rights

In a summary order, the Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for New York City.

The panel held that the plaintiffs bore the burden of establishing that stun guns and Tasers are in common use for lawful purposes at the first stage of the Bruen analysis. It then faulted them for failing to introduce sufficient admissible evidence in the district court.

That allowed the city to win without proving that its ban is consistent with America’s historical tradition of arms regulation.

This is not a minor procedural dispute. It determines who must prove what when the government bans an entire category of arms.

Under Bruen, once the Second Amendment’s plain text covers a person’s conduct, the government must justify its restriction using history. But if a hostile court inserts “common use” into the plain-text inquiry, it can force citizens to prove that an arm is popular enough before the government carries any constitutional burden.

The government can then ban an arm, suppress its ownership, and argue that the resulting lack of ownership proves the arm was never protected. That is a constitutional Catch-22 created by the infringement itself.

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Pro-2A Group Sues Oregon Over Out-Of-State Permit Recognition

A pro-Second Amendment group filed a lawsuit against Oregon on behalf of one of its lobbyists, accusing the state of leaving no way for non-residents to carry firearms for personal protection.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the group’s Oregon state director, Cynthia Ladd, sued the city of Salem, Oregon, and Marion County, Oregon, Sheriff Nick Hunter Friday in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, demanding that the state’s ban on non-residents carrying firearms be ruled a violation of the Second Amendment. In the complaint, it noted that for over four-fifths of Americans, there was no option to carry firearms in the state.

“Oregon seems to believe that your constitutional rights come with a residency requirement, but the Second Amendment protects the rights of all Americans,” GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Law-abiding gun owners should not lose their right to carry a firearm for self-defense simply because they cross a state line.”

Oregon does not recognize any other state’s concealed carry permit, according to the National Rifle Association.

A similar case centered on out-of-state residents could be considered by the Supreme Court. Liberty Justice Center filed a petition on Aug. 24 asking the high court to hear Johnson v. Jacobsen, regarding Minnesota’s refusal to recognize a long-haul truck driver’s concealed carry permits from Florida and Georgia.

Attorneys for the state of Massachusetts failed to convince a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that accused the state of delaying the processing of carry permits for out of state residents. In an Aug. 28 ruling, Chief United States District Judge Denise Casper of the District of Massachusetts, an Obama appointee, allowed the litigation to proceed

In June, the Supreme Court narrowed the applicability of a federal law prohibiting users of marijuana roughly a week before it issued its ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, a ruling that struck down Hawaii’s “vampire rule” targeting concealed carry.

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.

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