Upon consideration of Defendants’ Emergency Motion for Stay Pending Appeal, the Court orders that the district court’s preliminary injunction dated March 18, 2025, as clarified by its order dated March 20, 2025, be stayed and hereby is stayed pending the resolution of this appeal.
Entered at the direction of Judge Quattlebaum with the concurrence of Judge Niemeyer. Judge Gregory filed a separate opinion concurring in the result
Category: Courts
Supreme Court Second Amendment Update 3-27-2025
Edit: The Antonyuk cert petition was rescheduled after this article was published. That was not on my Bingo card, but I hope it is a good sign.
One of the two cases in which the gun-rights community seems to be the most interested, the case challenging a ban on “large capacity” magazines, has a new wrinkle. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds. The timing was interesting. The decision was published last Thursday, the day before the interlocutory magazine ban cert petition out of Rhode Island was scheduled for its ninth SCOTUS conference, in which the justices vote on which cert petitions they will grant.
We will never know for certain whether that 9th CCA opinion played a deciding role, but the petition was once again relisted. Tomorrow is the tenth time the cert petition was scheduled for a conference; it was rescheduled twice. On its heels is a cert petition seeking review of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld the District’s “large capacity” magazine ban.
Last year, SCOTUS made it clear that it isn’t going to grant any Second Amendment interlocutory petitions, and so it is surprising that the petition out of Rhode Island has survived this long. This is particularly true in light of Supreme Court Rule 10, which says the Supreme Court rarely grants petitions that don’t involve a split between the Federal circuits or a split with a state court of last resort on a Federal question. Given that these magazine bans are only in Federal circuits where there is no doubt the appellate courts will uphold the bans, there will not be a circuit split.
That said, SCOTUS Rule 10 does say that SCOTUS can grant cert petitions that present questions of national importance. It remains to be seen whether or not there are four justices who think magazine bans present a question of national importance.
The second petition involves “assault rifles.” It has been listed for conference nine times and rescheduled once. It is out of Maryland (the Fourth Circuit). The petition seeks review of a final judgment, so no interlocutory appeal problem there. However, it suffers from the same SCOTUS Rule 10 obstacle as the “large capacity” magazine bans. These “assault rifle” bans are found in Federal circuits where there is no possibility of one being overturned, and thus no possibility of a Rule 10 split for the justices to resolve.
If there is anything we learned from the oral argument in the bumpstock case, it is that the justices know very little about firearms.
Both the magazine ban (Ocean State Tactical) and the rifle ban cert petitions (Snope) are scheduled for tomorrow’s conference. Another extremely important petition (Antonyuk) out of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is among the petitions scheduled for the conference.
Antonyuk presents the following two questions in its petition. 1. Whether the proper historical time period for ascertaining the Second Amendment’s original meaning as applied to the states is 1791, rather than 1868; and 2. Whether “the people” must convince government officials of their “good moral character” before exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The justices could have answered the first question in NYSRPA v. Bruen, but did not. I see no reason why they would ever grant a petition to answer that question. Suppose they did and held that 1791 is the proper historical time period; that would entail that nearly every gun law violates the Second Amendment. That will never happen. As for the second question, the justices certainly do not want to put themselves in the position of deciding what constitutes “good moral character.” And again, there is that pesky Rule 10 obstacle to granting cert and deciding the case on its merits.
There are three more Second Amendment cert petitions and a motion for reconsideration scheduled for tomorrow’s conference. If it were up to me, SCOTUS would not be allowed to pick and choose which appeals it will decide. One hundred years ago, Congress gave SCOTUS that power after the justices promised to decide five hundred cases each term. SCOTUS never came anywhere near that number.
Congress can change that, but voters are easily distracted by shiny objects. Earlier this week, the issue was whether poor people should be allowed to buy soda pop with their food stamps. Okay! The object does not have to be shiny. Voters are easily distracted and have the attention span of a trout.
Here are the cases scheduled for tomorrow’s conference. Click on the case number, and you will be taken to the SCOTUS docket for that case, should you wish to take a deep dive into the case. As always, if a waiver was filed (or no response was filed) and the petition goes into conference without a justice requesting a response, then the petition was never voted on. The petition was placed on the SCOTUS deadlist and will appear as “Petition Denied” on next week’s Orders list. A “GVR” is a Grant, Vacate, and Remand, which, for all intents and purposes, sends the case back to the lower courts for a do-over. In the past two terms, I can only recall one petition where the Feds asked for a GVR, which was denied. I chalk that up to a clerical error.
Civilian gun club wins lawsuit against Fort Devens for violating their rights
Gun club had to file a lawsuit against the Fort in 2022.
A small civilian gun club located just 50 miles northwest of Boston has won a “landmark” lawsuit against nearby Fort Devens for violating their rights and federal law by denying them access to military rifle ranges at reasonable rates.
The Ft. Devens Rifle & Pistol Club, Inc., filed suit in 2022 claiming that Fort officials were charging range fees in violation of federal law, according to club treasurer Jim Gettens, a retired attorney who assisted with the legal fight.
Gettens said Monday that his club’s victory was a major “David vs. Goliath” event.
“They were running an illegal profiteering racket,” he said. “That’s the best way to describe it. This was a landmark case.”
Gettens and other club members noticed that their problems with the range began only three days after Joe Biden took office in 2022, which they said would never have happened under President Donald Trump’s Administration.
At issue was a little-known section of U.S. code that requires the Army to make rifle and pistol ranges available for civilian use as long as it does not interfere with military training, and it prohibits officials from charging exorbitant fees for range access.
Another federal statute requires the Army to provide logistical support to the Civilian Marksmanship Program. The Fort Devens Rifle & Pistol Club, Inc., is an affiliate of both the Civilian Marksmanship Program and the National Rifle Association.
For decades prior to the 2020 election, club members had been using a wide array of rifle and pistol ranges at Fort Devens free of charge. Club members supplied their own targets, ammunition, Range Safety Officers and other supplies. They even policed their own brass. Most of the club members are veterans, so they are intimately familiar with range safety protocols and other best practices. To be clear, in terms of taxpayer dollars, the club cost the Fort very little, which is why club member were so surprised when the Fort began charging them.
Just days after the 2020 election, the club was notified in writing that they would have to start paying a minimum of $250 per range, and that the fees would increase based upon the total number of shooters.
The bottom line was that Fort Devens tried to charge personnel costs for Range Safety Officers and technicians who were never there. In addition, a range staff member admitted in a memorandum that the range was unable to prove maintenance, supply and repair costs because the Fort never kept any such records.
“The odds were certainly stacked against us,” Getten said Monday. “As it turned out, the U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Devens croaked themselves with their own administrative records. A range officer filed a memo for the record admitting they kept no maintenance, supply or repair records—one of the most egregious abuses. We detailed all of this stuff in a memorandum in support for summary judgement. We just destroyed them.”
While the gun club won and can stop paying fraudulent fees, hundreds of civilian police officers are still charged for their time at the range, which Getten said is a legal problem for their agencies.
“Non-DoD law enforcement officers, state police and municipal police departments are still paying out the wazoo for all of those costs,” Getten said. “Non-DoD law enforcement agencies should not be getting hosed the way they are. Also, ICE, FBI, U.S. Customs and other federal law enforcement agencies pay out the wazoo for their range time and pass the costs onto taxpayers.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julian N. Canzoneri, who defended the government against the gun club’s lawsuit, did not return phone calls or emails seeking his comments for this story.
Chavez v. Bonta. California’s 18-20 year old ban on buying semiauto centerfire rifles is upheld
This is ‘merely’ in the District Court; as it were, Act 1 in the play. The Firearms Policy Center will almost undoubtedly appeal and from the 9th Circus historical record we know how that will ultimately turn out, so in a few years, we may see it appealed to SCOTUS.
The judge cites that the Plaintiffs have failed to show that the restriction on retail sales, meaningfully constrained the 18-20 year old Californians’ right to acquire firearms. The judge says that there are other routes e.g. private sales, gifts etc. BUT, this is ‘interest balancing‘, which SCOTUS has ruled is unconstitutional and repeated that several times.
The Supreme Court has upheld the ATF’s “frame or receiver” rule.
During the Biden ‘administration’ ATF ruled that “80%” receivers were to be treated and regulated just like they were fully finished guns.
The were sued and it went all the way to SCOTUS.
Justices Alito and Thomas were the only ones to dissent. All the others agreed. Regard the fate of future decisions accordingly.
Why Lawrence VanDyke’s Video Dissent in Duncan is a Real Problem For Anti-Gun Judges
Courts do have a lot of rules for introducing evidence and arguments. The net effect of all of those rules is simple: they tend to entrench the things that the court wants to believe. If your argument benefits from the court’s biases, the rules of evidence will help you. If you’re working against the court’s biases, the rules of evidence can be fatal to your case.
VanDyke is in a unique position here. As a judge rather than a party to the case, he can do pretty much whatever he wants. And he’s using that power to say the majority is using the rule against judges bringing outside facts to cover up their real goal: preventing judges from bringing outside logic. They don’t like standard-capacity magazines. And that’s a personal opinion that people are free to have. But under Bruen, the only way a court could uphold a ban on those magazines is if they prevent people like VanDyke from pointing out the holes not in their facts, but in their basic logic.
Lay people don’t read court rulings, let alone dissents. But video is a much more effective medium, and VanDyke’s video is all over social media right now. That’s a problem for the majority’s logic, but it’s good for logic in general.
— Open Source Defense in Judges on gun knowledge: “That’s for me not to know and for you not to find out”
SCOTUS Still Silent on Semi-Auto, Magazine Bans as More 2A Cases Head Its Way
Another Monday has rolled around with the Supreme Court taking no action whatsoever on two cases that have been heard in conference on an almost weekly basis since last December.
Monday mornings are starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day when it comes to Snope and Ocean State Tactical, and I have no idea what’s going on with either of these cases. Both were heard in conference for first time back in December, so even if there’s going to be a denial with a written dissent the justices who are penning their displeasure with the decision not to grant cert have had plenty of time to formalize their objections. The same is true when it comes to a per curium opinion that would find either or both of the challenged laws to be a violation of the right to keep and bear arms.
It’s possible that the justices are still wrestling with the issue of whether or not to accept one or both of these cases, but that strikes me as pretty unlikely as well. The Court has had months to consider granting cert, and while other Second Amendment challenges like Heller and Bruen went through multiple conferences before cert was granted, neither of those cases were kept in limbo nearly as long as Snope and Ocean State Tactical have been.
Meanwhile, there are several other cases dealing with the right to keep and bear arms that are slated to be heard in conference for the first time in the coming days and weeks. This Thursday the justices should take up Antonyuk v. James in their weekly conference. That’s the case that deals with one of the post-Bruen restrictions that New York put in place in defiance of what the Supreme Court had to say about the right to bear arms; the “good moral character” requirement for a concealed carry license that is essentially serves as a replacement for the subjective “justifiable need” gun owners had to demonstrate under the may-issue permitting regime the Court ruled unconstitutional.
The justices are also expected to debate a case called Price v. U.S. this week that deals with whether or not possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number constitutes Second Amendment-protected conduct. That case has yet to be fully briefed and decided on the merits, however, and I suspect that the justices will turn it aside, at least for now.
There are three other cases slated for conference in April as well:
- Wade v. University of Michigan, which addresses “Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments allow a criminal ordinance that prohibits mere possession of firearms on an entire poorly-delineated university campus, except by permission of a single government official with unfettered discretion, which is granted onlyfor “extraordinary circumstances.”
- Jacobson v. Worth, which seeks to answer “Does Minnesota’s statute limiting permits for public carry of pistols to those 21 and older comport with the principles underlying the Second Amendment?
- B & L Productions v. Newsom, a challenge to California’s ban on “sales” of firearms and ammunition on any state-owned property.
The odds of the Court granting cert to every one of these cases is slim. In fact, at this point the odds of the Court taking any of them feels pretty small. I’m still holding out hope for Snope, but at this point it’s anyone’s guess as to what the justices will do with Maryland’s semi-auto ban… other than once again considering the Snope case (and Ocean State Tactical v. Neronha) at this Thursday’s conference.
BLUF
A decision point is coming. Decisive action by the Chief Justice could save the judicial branch by restoring the judicial modesty that preserves the respect of the other branches. If only we could be confident that John Roberts was wise enough to do it.
Pity poor John Roberts. No, he’s not corrupt or compromised. He is simply a man who has found himself at a pivotal time and place in a position of great responsibility for which he is utterly unsuited. He’s not a dumb man. He is, in fact, a very smart man – Hugh Hewitt knew him personally in the Reagan administration and testifies to that. I have no doubt it’s true. I know many smart people who have similar flaws. As objectively intelligent as John Roberts is, he is unwise, and he is endangering the institution he wants to preserve because he does not understand human nature or the times he finds himself in.
Frankly, I’ll take wisdom over raw intellect any day of the week.
If he had the capacity to lead that he so manifestly lacks, John Roberts could save his institution with decisive and bold action. But that’s not who he is. Understand what John Roberts wants. He is an institutionalist who has always wanted to protect the judiciary branch. He wants it to be a fully co-equal branch that is respected by all. But the very actions he has chosen to take – or not to take – in response to the current crisis of out-of-control subordinate courts are guaranteeing that it will fall. Continue reading “”
— GiantLdaV (@GiantLdaV) March 24, 2025
Since “Judge” Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids…after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare. https://t.co/CNrl252Irs
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 22, 2025
The Unitary Executive Meets the Unitary Judiciary
The Use of Nationwide Injunctions by U.S. District Courts
Authors
Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Center
Federal courts may—and should—supply complete relief to a victorious party, but that can be done without granting strangers the same judicially enforceable rights that a judgment provides to a successful litigant. Nationwide injunctions not only cross that line, but also prevent the federal government from enforcing an act of Congress, executive order, or agency rule against nonparties. Unless and until Congress endorses that practice, the federal courts should limit the reach of their judgments to the parties to a lawsuit. The Supreme Court would need to overrule its unanimous decisions in Zbaraz and Mendoza to uphold a nationwide injunction like the ones that have been entered against the government. That is as unlikely as it would be unwise.
Key Takeaways
- Supplying complete relief to a victorious party can be done without granting strangers the same judicially enforceable rights that a successful litigant enjoys.
- Nationwide injunctions both cross that line and prevent the federal government from enforcing an act of Congress, executive order, or agency rule against nonparties.
- Unless and until Congress endorses that practice, the federal courts should limit the reach of their judgments to only the parties to a lawsuit.
[FYI; It’s l-o-n-g, and like all legal treatises by lawyers, they interject the source of citation directly after a cite, breaking up the text and making it difficult to read.]
So:
Introduction: The Practice of Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
The Unitary Executive Theory1
Judge includes new USAID head in order against dismantling the agency
Days after a federal judge blocked billionaire Elon Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service from taking further actions to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, he made clear in a separate ruling this week that the prohibition also applied to the agency’s new chief operating officer — a former DOGE team leader inside USAID who started his new role on the day of the first order.
Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old Harvard Law School grad on DOGE’s team dismantling USAID, joined the humanitarian agency Tuesday as its chief operating officer and deputy administrator for policy and programming, according to a court filing Wednesday by the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice asked the Maryland federal judge to clarify or modify his order so that it wouldn’t apply to Lewin.
U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang, in declining the request Thursday, added that he reserves the right to modify the preliminary injunction to expand who it applies to if “additional personnel actions have the effect of circumventing” it.
On Friday, the Department of Justice filed notice that it will appeal Chuang’s original ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Supreme Court Second Amendment Update 3-20-2025
Given that the Supreme Court has scheduled a “large capacity” magazine ban cert petition to tomorrow’s conference for the ninth time (plus two reschedules), the timing of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals en banc panel upholding California’s ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds is interesting.
“[T]he en banc court concluded that California’s law comported with the Second Amendment for two independent reasons. First, the text of the Second Amendment does not encompass the right to possess large-capacity magazines because large-capacity magazines are neither “arms” nor protected accessories. Second, even assuming that the text of the Second Amendment encompasses the possession of optional accessories like large-capacity magazines, California’s ban on large-capacity magazines falls within the Nation’s tradition of protecting innocent persons by prohibiting especially dangerous uses of weapons and by regulating components necessary to the firing of a firearm.” Here is a link to the decision.
In any event, there are other Second Amendment cert petitions scheduled for the conference. I’ve listed them below, along with the questions presented. Clicking on the docket number will take you to the SCOTUS docket, where you can take a deep dive into the petitions.
I’m actually shocked.
New York’s Top Court Rules Noncitizen Voting in NYC Elections Is Unconstitutional.
New York’s highest court struck down NYC’s controversial law allowing non-citizens to vote in a 6-to-1 decision, limiting voting only to citizens after a three-year legal battle.
In a blow to Democrats, liberal judges on the New York State Court of Appeals sided with their conservative colleagues on March 20 to reject the law as unconstitutional in a major victory for voter integrity.
The law, which was passed by the Democrat-run New York City Council in December 2021, would have enabled nearly 800,000 “lawful permanent residents” with green cards, work authorization and DACA status, and who have lived in the city for at least a month, to vote to vote in local elections.
Non-citizens under those categories would have been entitled to vote in city elections for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and the City Council, thus giving the Democrats an even larger majority of votes.
Ninth Circuit Upholds California Mag Ban, But Not Without Epic Dissent From Trump-Appointed Judge
Thursday’s decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding California’s ban on “large capacity” magazines wasn’t exactly unexpected, but the video dissent from Judge Lawrence Van Dyke was a curveball that I doubt anyone saw coming.
An en banc panel had previously ruled the state’s magazine ban in line with the Second Amendment, but SCOTUS vacated that decision and remanded the case back to the appellate court after Bruen in 2022. In turn, the Ninth Circuit sent the case back down to U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who’d previously declared the ban unconstitutional. Benitez reached the same conclusion the second time around, and just like before an en banc panel has now overruled the West Coast “saint” of the Second Amendment.
“First, the Founders protected the right to keep and bear ‘Arms,’ not a right to keep and bear ‘Arms and Accoutrements,’ a common expression at the time of the Founding,” the opinion said. “Large-capacity magazines are optional accessories to firearms, and firearms operate as intended without a large-capacity magazine. A large-capacity magazine is thus an accessory or accoutrement, not an ‘Arm’ in itself. Possession of a large-capacity magazine therefore falls outside the text of the Second Amendment.”
The judges wrote that even if large-capacity magazines were covered by the Second Amendment, “California’s law falls neatly within the Nation’s traditions of protecting innocent persons by prohibiting especially dangerous uses of weapons and by regulating components necessary to the firing of a firearm.”
Under the Ninth Circuit’s argument, virtually all detachable magazines, regardless of their capacity, would fall beyond the Second Amendment’s protections because they’re “accoutrements” and not arms. The Court tried to get around that absurdity with its argument about a national tradition of prohibiting “especially dangerous uses of weapons”; establishing a whole new test that flies in the face of existing Supreme Court precedent. Going back to Heller the Court has held that arms that are in common use for lawful purposes are, prima facie, protected by the right to keep and bear arms. Magazines that can hold more than ten rounds aren’t just common, they’re ubiquitous, and they are possessed and used by far more lawful gun owners than violent criminals or mass shooters.
Three judges appointed during President Donald Trump’s first term authored dissenting opinions. Judge Ryan Nelson wrote that his colleagues flouted the standard set by the Bruen ruling and in so doing “(butchered) the Second Amendment and (gave) a judicial middle finger to the Supreme Court.”
Judge Lawrence VanDyke included in his dissent a video of himself operating firearms in his chambers. Seven of the eight judges who were part of the majority opinion joined in an opinion calling the video “wildly improper,” both because the video introduced facts that were not part of the record and because VanDyke appeared to be attempting to offer expert testimony.
It may be wildly improper in the eyes of VanDyke’s gun-controlling colleagues, but frankly I’d like to see more of this. Most folks aren’t going to read through more than 100 pages of legal arguments, but they’d be much more inclined to watch an 18-minute video on YouTube.
Dear Chief Justice Roberts – Do Your Job – if you want the normal appellate process to work, you have to make it work. You have to do your job. The Supreme Court needs to do its job, and the appeals courts need to do their jobs. Yes, ideally we wouldn’t even be talking about… pic.twitter.com/FI4QVrnpnv
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) March 18, 2025
What’s been made crystal clear is what they would really rather Trump simply go away so they can return to their normal, everyday corruption. This includes the courts.
Today, Chief Justice Roberts issued a statement:
For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.
This statement follows on the heels of the Judicial Conference meeting last week, in which Judges Sutton and Sullivan raised similar alarms about impeachment:
“Impeachment shouldn’t be a short circuiting of that process,” Sullivan said. “And so it is concerning if impeachment is used in a way that is designed to do just that.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush on the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who chairs the Judicial Conference’s executive committee, echoed those comments.
“One thing worth keeping in mind is if we dilute the standards for impeachment, that’s not just a problem for judges,” Sutton said. “That’s a problem for all three branches of government.”
I think we need a sense of perspective.
Last year Representative AOC and other members of Congress introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito. As best as I can recall, Roberts said nothing about this. Likewise, the Federal Judges Association and the American Bar Association said not a word about the never-ending crusade against two members of the Supreme Court. These attacks were never about disclosures. These critics were trying to delegitimize the Court. Yet, everyone was silent.
Likewise, in 2023, Senator Ron Wyden told President Biden to “ignore” any ruling from Judge Matt Kacsmaryk concerning mifepristone. We aren’t talking about turning planes around over international waters. This would be a ruling that could be timely appealed in the normal course. Yet Roberts did not say a word about this in his end-of-year address or anywhere else. The FJA, the ABA, and all the usual suspects were silent. To the contrary, the Judicial Conference acceded to the criticism of Judge Kacsmaryk by trying to force down a rule to take cases away from him! I realize that Chief Justice Roberts is hitting the panic button, but his protest has started a bit too late.
Taking a step back, I think the standard for the impeachment process has indeed been diluted. At least with regard to the presidency, the first Trump Administration demonstrated that nebulous offenses that are untethered to any actual crime were impeachable offenses. Remember “abuse of power”?
A great Second Amendment victory in the 9th CCA, for now.
21-16756 Todd Yukutake, et al v. Anne E. Lopez, et al
On Friday, March 14, 2025, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that two Hawaii laws violate the Second Amendment. Invalidating the two laws, in and of themselves, although a victory, was not a great victory.
The most important thing is how the laws were invalidated.
The two laws invalidated were 1) a permit to purchase a handgun that expired 30 days after it was issued and 2) a requirement that newly purchased firearms be brought to a police station to verify that the paperwork to purchase the firearm matched the firearm.
Two of the three judges on the panel facially invalidated the two laws.
Why is this of great importance? Because in 2022, the United States Supreme Court held in US v. Rahimi that a Second Amendment facial challenge fails if there are any constitutional applications of the law (seemingly, a single application is all it takes for a facial challenge to fail).
SAF FILES RESPONSE BRIEF WITH SCOTUS IN MINNESOTA CARRY CASE
BELLEVUE, Wash. — March 10, 2025 — Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a case challenging the State of Minnesota’s prohibition on licensed concealed carry by young adults ages 18-20 have filed a response brief with the U.S. Supreme Court encouraging the justices to “grant plenary review and set the case for argument.”
The case is known as Jacobson v. Worth, originally filed in June 2021 as Worth v. Harrington. SAF is joined by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Firearms Policy Coalition, and three private citizens, Kristin Worth, for whom the case is named, Austin Dye, and Axel Anderson. While all three have turned 21, the Eighth Circuit Court granted a motion to supplement the record and allow another individual, Joe Knudsen, to carry the complaint. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, John D. Ohlendorf and William V. Bergstrom at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C.
SAF won this case at trial and at the appeals court level. Minnesota is appealing the ruling.
“Today’s filing is unique in that we are agreeing with Minnesota’s request in asking the Supreme Court to hear our case to resolve a dispute between the circuits,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The lower courts are not unanimous in their approach to the Second Amendment rights of 18-20-year-olds. It is important that the Court weigh in to confirm that 18-20-year-olds are part of ‘the People’ and the Second Amendment applies in full to those individuals. The ban Minnesota seeks to uphold eviscerates the right of those adults to be able to carry a firearm for self-defense. This is patently unconstitutional and while we prevailed at the court of appeals, the Supreme Court needs to ensure all the lower courts reach the proper result. By taking this case, they can do just that.”
“A clear majority of federal courts have already protected the Second Amendment rights of young adults,” added SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “As we note in our brief, we are not aware of any evidence of colonial or Founding-era laws restricting 18-to-20-year-olds from their right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, history is full of evidence that people in this age group were not prevented from keeping or carrying their own arms.”
My Hot Take on Democat Lawfare: “There is no constitutional crisis other than the Democrats lost. They are trying to create a constitutional crisis by having the judiciary and the federal district courts assume control of the executive branch.”
Democrats have launched a pre-planned, well-organized lawfare campaign against the Trump administration.
The NY Times reported in late November 2024 on the massive effort which was two-years in the making and in the immediate post-election period focused heavily on finding plaintiffs and lining up legal groups to challenge expected Trump policies:
More than 800 lawyers at 280 organizations have begun developing cases and workshopping specific challenges to what the group has identified as 600 “priority legal threats” — potential regulations, laws and other administrative actions that could require a legal response, its leaders said. The project, called Democracy 2025, aims to be a hub of opposition to the new Trump administration….
Democracy Forward has spent the last two years working to identify the possible actions the new Trump administration could take on issues they see as key priorities to defend, the group’s leaders said, using as a blueprint Mr. Trump’s first-term actions, his campaign promises and plans released by his allies, including the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 agenda….
The flotilla of lawyers is preparing to challenge new regulations released by the Trump administration, even beginning the process of recruiting potential plaintiffs who would have legal standing in court.
We have seen the fruits of the lawfare planning in the opening three weeks of the Trump administration, with several dozen lawsuits filed, and many (not all) district court judges willing at least to grant temporary restraining orders, incuding one ex parte TRO issued by an emergency duty judge at 1 a.m. last Saturday morning that by its terms removed political appointee control of Treasury payment systems. (That TRO was scaled back by the judge permanently assigned to the case, and is under review by her in a ruling expected soon.) It may be that the short-term TROs are not extended to longer-term preliminary injunctions, and if that happens the “crisis” may solve itself, but I’m not hopeful.
Here is my ‘hot take’ on how the lawfare, not the Trump administration, is creating the real ‘constitutional crisis’. This is a short excerpt from my much longer (almost 20 minute) explanation as part of the podcast we just posted.