Category: Courts

Supreme Court Allows DHS to Suspend Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans.

The latest SCOTUS order shows the justices are taking a more nuanced approach to district court injunctions of Trump Administration policies than its critics, left or right.

Today, over a lone noted dissent, the Supreme Court stayed a district court injunction barring the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans in the United States. The unsigned order in Noem v. National TPS Alliance noted that Justice Jackson would not have granted the stay.

The order was not an unqualified victory for the Trump Administration, as it does not extent–and expressly does not prejudice–challenges to the Administration’s withdrawal of other benefits or status designations for TPS beneficiaries. Those questions will be litigated separately.

The Court’s action was likely driven by the justices’ conclusion that the federal government is likely to prevail on the merits, as the decision whether to confer, maintain, or terminate TPS is largely discretionary. Indeed, it is not even clear TPS decisions are subject to judicial review (as the Administration argued in its stay application).

The Court’s order also highlights that, even within the constraints of the emergency docket, the justices are considering each application for relief on its own terms, and will police district court overreach where such overreach is clear. So while a majority of justices will not allow the Trump Administration to summarily deport individuals under the Alien Enemies Act without providing for adequate process, it is will also prevent individual district court judges from enjoining policy decisions that are clearly within the discretion of the administration.

This approach may not satisfy partisans, or those who presume the Trump Administration is entitled to prevail (or should be stymied) on every question (often without acknowledging, let alone understanding, the legal questions at hand), but it suggests the justices are endeavoring to pay attention to what the law actually allows or requires.

Department of Justice Announces Settlement of Litigation Between the Federal Government and Rare Breed Triggers

oday, in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting Second Amendment Rights, as well as the Attorney General’s Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force, the Department of Justice announced the settlement of litigation between the federal government and Rare Breed Triggers.

“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety.”

In June 2024, in Cargill v. Garland, the Supreme Court held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule classifying a bump stock as a “machinegun.” In July 2024, the Northern District of Texas applied Cargill v. Garland to a device called a “forced-reset trigger” (FRT) and concluded that FRTs also cannot be classified as a “machinegun.”

The Department’s agreement with Rare Breed Triggers avoids the need for continued appeals in United States v. Rare Breed Triggers and continued litigation in other, related cases concerning the same issue. The settlement includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly advance public safety with respect to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not develop or design FRTs for use in any pistol and will enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety. Rare Breed also agrees to promote the safe and responsible use of its products.

The cases that will be resolved under the settlement agreement are:

  • NAGR v. Garland, 23-cv-830-O (N.D. Tex.), on appeal 24-10707 (5th Cir.).
  • United States v. Rare Breed Triggers LLC, No. 23-cv-369 (E.D.N.Y), on appeal 23-7276 (2d Cir.).
  • United States v. Miscellaneous Firearms and Related Parts and Equipment Listed in Exhibit A, 23-cv-17 (D. Utah).
Updated May 16, 2025

SCOTUS to CASA to A.A.R.P.: In Case Of (Perceived) Emergency, Ignore The Rules, And Make Stuff Up
None of the usual rules will apply when the ACLU says there is an emergency.

The past 24 hours have been something of a Rorschach Test for the Supreme Court. In the birthright citizenship case, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the judiciary must retain the power to enter universal injunctions, even if Article III does not otherwise permit such injunctions. And in A.A.R.P. v. Trump, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the court should certify a class without going through Rule 23, and grant an ex parte tro without considering any of the usual TRO factors.

What lesson should lower court judges take away? In cases of perceived emergencies, forget all the rules and make stuff up. When the executive branch takes such actions we call it an autocracy. When the courts do it, they call it the “rule of law.”

I will have much more to say about this order in due course.

Gun owners secure historic settlement with DOJ, ATF over Forced Reset Triggers
The Trump administration will also return all FRT devices that were seized by the Biden administration, if individual owners request the returns by September 30, 2025. Instructions for filing the requests will be posted on the ATF’s website.

Two gun rights groups on Friday signed a historic settlement with the Justice Department (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), over a series of lawsuits regarding Forced Reset Trigger (FRT) devices.

The settlement comes under a new presidential administration, which agreed to drop three pending lawsuits filed under the Biden administration and not prosecute owners of FRTs if the devices meet a legal definition upheld in a summary judgment last year.

The Trump administration will also return all FRT devices that were seized by the Biden administration, if individual owners request the returns by September 30, 2025. Instructions for filing the requests will be posted on the ATF’s website.

The agreement was made by the ATF, DOJ, National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) and Texas Gun Rights (TXGR).

“This is one of the most stunning victories in the history of the gun rights movement. We didn’t just beat the ATF — we put them in a submission hold, and they tapped out,” NAGR President Dudley Brown said in a news release. “This decision marks a new era of holding the DOJ and ATF accountable when they trample the rights of law-abiding gun owners. We made them give back what they took, and that’s a precedent they’ll never forget.”

Well, that would be ‘tried to confiscate’ and it wouldn’t be pretty as I’m sure LOTS of people would go ‘Solzhenitsyn Style’. But then Justice Sotomayor never has been a ‘wise Latina’

Does Justice Sotomayor Really Want To Know What The Remedy Would Be If The Government Confiscated Everyone’s Guns?

Justice Sotomayor is pretty predictable. She walks into oral argument with a set of questions she wants to ask, and she will keep asking them, whether or not she gets the answer she wants. I imagine advocates get frustrated, but that is part of the game.

During the birthright citizenship cases, Justice Sotomayor asked the same line of questions several times–apparently she thought it was clever. To illustrate the limits of the government’s position concerning nationwide injunction, she would change the hypo: what would happen if the government sought to confiscate every gun in America; would every gunowner have to bring an individual law suit to seek relief?

Page 13: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: –so, when a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country and he comes in and he says, I have the right to take away the guns from everyone, then people –and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns –we and the courts have to sit back and wait until every named plaintiff gets –or every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?

Page 41: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: If we’re afraid that this is or even have a thought that this is unlawful executive action, that it is Congress who decides citizenship, not the executive, if we believe, some of us were to believe that, why should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action, as unlawful as an executive taking the guns away from every citizen?

Page 44: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: –it got rejected repeatedly. We can go into the history of citizenship, but I still go back to my question. You claim that there is absolutely no constitutional way to stop, put this aside, to stop a president from an unconstitutional act, a clearly, indisputably unconstitutional act, taking every gun from every citizen, we couldn’t stop that.

Does Justice Sotomayor really want to know what the remedy would be if the government confiscated everyone’s gun? This remedy would not involve Rule 23. [fyi. ‘Rule 23’ is a rule in federal courts about class action suits, MF]

Nearly 250 years ago, King George III and General Gage tried to confiscate the firearms from the Americans. What happened next? Lexington and Concord, the Shot Heard Round the World. As best as I can recall, the patriots did not go to a Court of Chancery to seek an equitable remedy.

We have a similar story in Texas history. During the Texas Revolution, the Mexican Army demanded that the Texians in the City of Gonzales surrender their cannon. What did the Texians say? Come and Take It! The remedy here was not equitable; it was belligerent. The Texians did not reply with a canon of construction; they replied with a cannon of destruction. This was the Lexington of Texas. And the Battle of Gonzales led to the Battle of the Alamo, which led to Texas Independence. Sensing a pattern of what happens when the government tries to disarm the people?

I took this photo during my visit to the museum in Gonzales.

I’m reminded of Judge Kozinski’s opinion in Silviera v. Lockyer:

The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten.

There is an important lesson to be learned here. Courts cannot solve all problems. Courts should not solve all problems. Courts will not solve all problems.

Supreme Court Second Amendment Update 

There are six more conferences where the justices of the United States Supreme Court will vote on petitions for a writ of certiorari before they go on their summer break at the end of June. Prior to reconvening on the first Monday in October, there will be a “long conference” toward the end of September where the justices dispose of the cert petitions that were not disposed of by the end of June, and those where a response (or waiver to respond) were filed during their summer break.

In years past, that long conference typically disposed of far more than 1,000 petitions, but the number of petitions filed each term has significantly declined in recent years. Still, if the past is prologue, the long conference is the conference in which the most petitions will be denied. Last term, 619 petitions that were briefed too late for the 2023-2024 term were disposed of, plus 406 docketed after July 1, 2024, for a total of 1025 petitions. That includes writs of mandamus/prohibition, motions for rehearing, etc.

There are a dozen Second Amendment cert petitions scheduled for this Thursday’s SCOTUS conference. Three are of note: The interlocutory appeal of the Rhode Island ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds (Ocean State Tactical), the appeal of the final judgment challenging Maryland’s semiautomatic rifle ban (Snope), and the return of Edell Jackson, Petitioner v. United States No. 24-6517, in which the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that individuals cannot challenge the Federal law that prohibits persons from possessing firearms who were convicted of felonies punishable by more than one year of confinement or persons convicted of state law misdemeanors punishable my more than two years of confinement (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)).

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Menendez Brothers Have Murder Sentence Reduced & Are Now Eligible For Parole

Erik and Lyle Menendez, who have served roughly 35 years of a life-without-parole prison sentence for the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills, were re-sentenced today to 50 years to life, immediately making them eligible for parole.

The decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic does not automatically mean the pair will be released from prison. They will have to appear before a parole board, which will recommend whether they should be available for parole. The recommendation would then go to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who could reject their release.

More to come…

Ohio Court says concealed carry is not a constitutional right.

Michael Bloomberg is a multibillionaire who hates the Second Amendment. He hates Open Carry most of all. And so it should come as no surprise that a writer for one of his companies (Bloomberg Law) opened his article by saying, “Ohio authorities can prohibit citizens from carrying concealed weapons if they’re able to openly carry guns, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.”

Of course, the judge said no such thing. I suspect that the Bloomberg writer did not read past the “Topics and Issues” description of the case.

The Ohio Court of Appeals held that there is no constitutionally protected right to concealed carry under the Second Amendment and that there is no constitutionally protected right to concealed carry under the State of Ohio Constitution.

The Court explained in paragraph 108 of the decision that the Ohio legislature had created a limited statutory right to concealed carry, and the creation of that state statutory right “to others cannot expand Hall’s constitutional right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, just as Ohio could not contract the scope of that [Open Carry] right by statute.”

The Ohio Court of Appeals addressed the Defendant’s three Constitutional challenges: the Fourth Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms under the United States and the State of Ohio Constitutions.

After the Defendant lost on his Fourth Amendment issue raised on appeal, the Second Amendment analysis began on page 10 and ended on page 45 of the 46-page opinion. The State of Ohio Supreme Court had already decided that, “[T]here is no constitutional right to bear concealed weapons” under the State Constitution, and so that issue raised by the Defendant was quickly disposed of.

What is impressive and unusual about this decision by the Ohio Court of Appeals decision in State of Ohio v. Desmond Hall is the depth and breadth of its analysis.

By contrast, the California Court of Appeals, in the case of People v. Miller (2023), likewise concluded that concealed carry is not protected by the Second Amendment, but did so in just eight paragraphs.

The moral of this story is that one should not rely on reporters, especially not when one can go directly to the source, which in this instance is the published opinion of the Ohio Court of Appeals, available for everyone to read for free.

Most people rely on others’ opinions when those opinions confirm their unfounded beliefs. They never make the effort to seek out the truth, even when the truth, as the judges see it, is one click away.

Don’t be like most people.

State of Ohio v. Desmond Hall 
People v. Miller, 94 Cal. App. 5th 935 (2023).

SCOTUS, Anti-Gun Lawfare, and the Importance of PLCAA

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act is an important bit of legislation that makes it a lot harder for people to sue gun companies because of what third parties do with the products they make and/or sell. It’s ridiculous we need such a law because only the mentally disabled would blame a company for making a product, selling it lawfully, only for some completely different party to do something.

I often liken it to suing Toyota over drunk drivers, and that’s for good reason.

As things are now, though, that protection is starting to crumble a bit. It’s being challenged left and right, with such a challenge currently before the Supreme Court, even as some states try to create workarounds that will let the lawfare against the firearm industry resume.

John Commerford at the NRA-ILA has some thoughts on the subject.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act’s (PLCAA) passage coming up on Oct. 26, the law is imperiled by a new generation of anti-gun litigants seeking to exploit loopholes. In March, however, one such case—Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicano—landed before the U.S. Supreme Court, where it received a chilly reception from skeptical justices across the ideological spectrum.

Most observers believe the plaintiffs overplayed their hand, although the reasoning the justices use to resolve the case will determine whether the PLCAA continues to protect the law-abiding gun industry as intended.

The PLCAA is ultimately about how the industry that enables Americans’ Second Amendment rights is regulated. Is it by relatively fixed and ascertainable statutes enacted by democratically elected legislators? Or is it by unpredictable, shifting and innumerable standards of “reasonableness” imposed after the fact by unelected judges at the behest of firearm prohibitionists?

That latter option promotes lawfare, which has been characterized as death by a thousand cuts. Lawfare practitioners may not care if they win their cases, because even one who is innocent before the law can succumb to the legal process itself.

The biggest cut is the expense of litigation. The lengthier and more complex the proceedings, the more likely the defendant will be unable to sustain a defense.

Another is reputational harm from accusations of wrongdoing, no matter how baseless, particularly if the media and public officials amplify the plaintiff’s case.

Commerford goes on to detail how the lawfare activists are using justifiable exceptions within the PLCAA and exploiting them to try and bring back their zealous attack on the one industry most vital to the right to keep and bear arms.

Gun companies can and should be able to be sued for misconduct. If they make a faulty barrel and it explodes, for example, they should be held accountable. Or, if their gun discharges in your holster, you might want to talk to a lawyer, and you should have that avenue available.

But the gun grabbers are trying to use this by claiming the companies’ marketing is misconduct, that by appealing to their customer base, they’re somehow responsible for what other people do.

The kicker is that many of these efforts don’t even try to present evidence that the criminal party even saw the marketing. That doesn’t matter to these folks, and that’s downright disgusting to me.

All Eyes on SCOTUS: Will the Court Finally Defend the AR15 & the 2nd Amendment?

Opinion: Companion article inspired by Mark Smith’s Four Boxes Diner commentary and Roger Katz’s analysis in AmmoLand News

The Supreme Court has now relisted Snope v. Brown—the Maryland “assault weapons” ban challenge—13 times. That’s not just some bureaucratic delay. It’s a signal. It means the nine justices are circling this case, taking it seriously, and possibly gearing up to act.

In fact, as Mark Smith of the Four Boxes Diner points out, the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade was relisted 12 times before the Court granted review. Snope just passed that.

For pro-gun Americans who’ve had enough of being treated like second-class citizens when it comes to constitutional rights, this might be the moment we’ve been waiting for.

“This is not a trivial matter. It strikes at the heart of the Second Amendment’s protections.” — Roger Katz, AmmoLand News.

Katz is right. The question before the Court is simple but profound:

Can a state ban semiautomatic rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes—like the AR-15, America’s most popular rifle?

Under Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, the answer should be no. But gun control states like Maryland [NJ, NY, CT, IL, et al] think they’ve found a loophole, labeling AR-15s “assault weapons” and pretending that changes the Constitution.

Let’s be clear:

  • Americans commonly own AR-15s in the multiple millions.
  • They’re used for self-defense, sport shooting, and home protection.
  • They are not unusual, high-powered, or reserved for war—they’re the modern-day musket.

The Snope case is a perfect test. It’s clean, it’s direct, and it gives the Court the chance to finally say: The Second Amendment applies to rifles like the AR-15. Period.

Mark Smith explains that strategic justices sometimes wait to grant review until they’re confident they have five solid votes—not just four—to win the case outright. That might be what’s happening now. Thirteen relists mean they’re either preparing to drop a bombshell decision or writing a dissent if the case gets wrongly denied.

And as Roger Katz warns in his AmmoLand News piece, if SCOTUS refuses to take Snope, or worse, lets the ban stand, it would “damage Second Amendment jurisprudence…profound and lasting.”

The math doesn’t lie. According to SCOTUSblog, cases relisted 5+ times have nearly a 40% chance of being granted, especially if the Court plans a summary reversal—a quick smackdown without oral argument, like in Caetano.

So what should we be watching for?

  • Grant of cert: The best-case scenario. Oral arguments and a full ruling.
  • Summary reversal: Also good. A fast correction directing lower courts to follow Heller and Bruen.
  • Denial: A disaster for gun rights, letting anti-gun states keep rewriting the Second Amendment.

But as Mark Smith says:

“Every day the Snope case is still alive at SCOTUS is a good day.”

Let’s hope the Court finally backs the Constitution with action—not just words. And if they do, Snope could be the next Heller. It’s time.

Well, this is ‘final’ so I think it can be appealed directly to SCOTUS.

Washington Supreme Court upholds ban on large ammo magazines

The Washington Supreme Court has upheld the state’s ban on high-capacity magazines, the latest in a two-year-long saga that has largely played out in Southwest Washington.

Lawmakers in 2022 banned the sale of ammo magazines holding more than 10 bullets in an effort to thwart deadly mass shootings. However, a gun store in Kelso allegedly continued to sell the magazines and picked up a civil lawsuit from the Washington State Attorney General in July 2023. The store owner — with help from the Pasco-based advocacy group The Silent Majority — sued, saying the law violated the U.S. Constitution.

A Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge later sided with the gun store and deemed the new law violated the Second Amendment.

Washington Supreme Court justices ruled 7-2 on Thursday that the new state law doesn’t violate Americans’ right to bear arms because “large capacity magazines are not ‘arms.’”

“The ability to purchase [large capacity magazines] is not necessary to the core right to possess a firearm in self-defense,” Justice Charles Johnson wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision also found that the legislation does not violate the state’s constitution.

Wally Wentz, the owner of Gator’s Custom Guns in Kelso, declined to comment Thursday.

Wentz’s attorneys at the Silent Majority Foundation said they plan to appeal to the U.S Supreme Court. Attorney Pete Serrano said they will pore over the justices’ legal analysis first.

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Trump Administration Position on Machine Guns – Not 2A Protected
This Position Undermines Its Second Amendment Credibility

“Trump administration says machine guns aren’t protected by Second Amendment,” The Washington Times reports. “The Trump administration is taking heat from gun rights advocates after the Justice Department argued in court that machine guns fall outside the scope of firearms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

The story quotes Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Case, who, in arguing a brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling, asserted “Machine guns are not the kind of arms protected by the Second Amendment.”

District Judge Carlton Wayne Reeves of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi had properly ruled that the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, codifying that text, history and tradition at the time the Constitution was ratified, defined the standards to be used in determining Founding Era intent.

Besides, the Second Amendment says “arms.” It doesn’t say “kinds of arms.” Continental Congress Delegate Tench Coxe’s views were reflective of what the understanding was at the time, when he wrote, “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…. [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

And for what purpose?
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms,” Coxe declared.

Where’d you pull “kinds of weapons” out of, AUSA Case? She’s relying on the “in common use at the time” artificial construct that restricts “legal” ownership to what has not been banned by infringements, and limits gun uses to “self-defense.”

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Obama Judge Goes Full Theater Kid, Declares It ‘Unconstitutional’ for Trump to Pull Security Clearances

As lower and district court judges continue to one-up each other with absurd usurpations of clearly stated executive authority, another contender has entered the ring.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled on Friday night that the President of the United States does not have the power to pull government security clearances from Perkins Coie, a private law firm. Yeah, that would be the same Perkins Coie that worked with Democrats to gin up the Russian collusion hoax. 

In her order, Howell decided that quoting Shakespeare was appropriate. I guess our judiciary is full of theater kids.

“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’” Howell wrote in the 102-page order on Friday. 

Howell alleges that the Trump administration violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, with her basic argument being that the executive order in question amounted to illegal coercion. In arguably politicized fashion, she went on to express animosity toward the law firms that cut deals with the administration to keep their clearances.

All of this will undoubtedly and justifiably seem ridiculous to onlookers, regardless of what legal arguments may or may not actually exist. Control over security clearances is a vested power in the executive branch, and if the president decides he doesn’t want a law firm that literally targeted him on behalf of Hillary Clinton to have access to classified materials within his administration, one would think he should be able to do so.

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Kostas Moros

Time for a thread on the amicus brief submitted by the United States (!!!) in Wolford v. Lopez. To my knowledge, it is the first-ever Supreme Court brief filed by the United States in full support of petitioners challenging a gun law as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, but someone correct me if I am wrong on that assertion. The amicus brief in Heller that the Bush administration did was more wishy-washy (i.e., yes 2A is an individual right but please remand because the analysis was wrong).
Great introduction that goes into the ramifications of the vampire rule. And as our amicus brief will cover, this was intentional. The vampire rule was created by antigun academics who openly stated the aim was to discourage carry.

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