Category: Courts

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Colorado Under-21 Gun Sales Ban

The Centennial State can once again deny 18-to-20-year-olds the ability to purchase any firearms.

A three-judge panel for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a lower court injunction against Colorado’s recently passed gun sales ban for adults under 21. The panel determined that the lower court “abused its discretion” by finding the ban likely unconstitutional. Instead, it ruled that commercial firearm purchases are not covered under the Second Amendment.

“Pineda has partially met his burden at step one by demonstrating that (1) 18- to 20-year-olds fall within ‘the people,’ and (2) the arms he wishes to purchase constitute protected “arms,” Judge Richard Federico wrote for the majority in RMGO v. Polis. “However, Pineda fails to prove that SB 23-169 implicates his right to ‘keep and bear’ arms, the third prong of step one. This is because SB 23-169 is presumptively lawful as a law that imposes conditions or qualifications upon the sale and purchase of arms and thus does not fall within the protections of the plain text of the Second Amendment.”

The ruling deals a significant blow to Colorado gun-rights advocates looking to stave off the state’s increasingly restrictive approach to firearms. The opinion opens the door for the state’s young adult sales ban to take effect for the first time, and its capacious view of permissible commercial sales restrictions could invite many additional regulations.

The case stems from Senate Bill 169, which Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law in May 2023. The bill raised the state’s minimum age to purchase any firearm to 21. State policy previously allowed 18-year-olds to purchase rifles and shotguns but not handguns.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) immediately sued Polis over the law and secured a preliminary injunction against its enforcement last August, the same day it was supposed to take effect.

“The Court finds that the Governor has failed to meet his burden to demonstrate that SB23-169 is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation,” Judge Philip Brimmer wrote at the time.

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I have only been to Minnesota twice. The first on a summer family vacation decades ago, and second, on a layover when flying to Alaska. Other than necessity required by the latter, I have no plans to ever visit that tyrant run state again

Is Your Private Vehicle a ‘Public Space’ When There’s a Gun Involved?

It’s an odd question stemming from an equally strange case, but that’s the question the Minnesota Supreme Court will soon answer after hearing oral arguments on Monday.

Back in 2022, a guy named Kyaw Be Bee was arrested for the misdemeanor charge of carrying a BB gun, rifle, or shotgun in a public place after police discovered a BB gun underneath the driver’s seat of Bee’s car. The deputy had become suspicious of Bee and another man when he spotted them standing near a vehicle in a parking lot around 2 a.m. Bee and his companion strolled back to their own vehicle when they became aware of the deputy, and once they drove away the deputy pulled them over, which is when he discovered the BB gun.

Bee’s attorney argued in a pre-trial hearing that a private vehicle should not be considered a public place and a judge agreed; dismissing the misdemeanor charge after reasoning that a private vehicle is not a public place, even when it’s on a public road.

Prosecutors appealed that decision and the Minnesota Court of Appeals found in their favor, ruling that private cars on public roads should be considered public spaces. Bee’s attorneys then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard from both sides yesterday.

“To focus the law on the method of transportation upon a public roadway, instead of the geographic area of the roadway itself, ignores the clear statutory text, renders portions of the statute ineffective, leads to absurd results and is therefore not reasonable,” Saint Paul city attorney Lyndsey Olson, who argued for the state, told justices Monday.

However Drake Metzger, an attorney for Bee, said the statute is “unambiguous” about what makes a space public.

The law defines public space as “property owned, leased, or controlled by a governmental unit and private property that is regularly and frequently open to or made available for use by the public.”

Lawmakers included exceptions for hunters; target shooters; people’s homes or business; and gun shows and shops.

What the law doesn’t address is whether or not a private vehicle is considered a public place; it simply says that if a gun is being transported in compliance with the law, the statute does not apply.

“At the end of the day, the inside of a motor vehicle is not a public space under this definition,” Metzger said Monday.

Metzger also argued that his client could have been charged with carrying without a license based on how the BB gun was stored in the vehicle, but accusing Bee of having a gun in a public place when it was in his car just doesn’t make sense given the language of the statute.

Olson, arguing for the state, saw it differently.

“I don’t think that this is saying that being in a motor vehicle inherently means that you’re in a public place,” Olson said. “It depends on the geographical place that the vehicle is on.”

Bee could have been charged with another crime as well, Olson said, public safety is at the root of gun laws.

“The consequences of a particular interpretation excluding vehicles on public roadways from public space could risk public safety by allowing the gun possession within vehicles without restriction,” she said.

The problem with Olson’s argument, at least from my perspective, is that it requires “interpreting” the statute instead of simply reading and adhering to the text. As Metzer says, the law in question defines what constitutes a public space, and while it does include some private property, that property must be “regularly and frequently open or made available for use by the public”. Your car, my truck, and (presumably) Bee’s vehicle aren’t open for use by the public, even when they’re on a public road, so how could they reasonably be considered public spaces?

Even if the Minnesota Supreme Court finds in favor of Bee (which, given the makeup of the court, is probably unlikely), as his own attorney pointed out, the state could still have charged Bee with improper storage of the BB gun. Whether that statute is constitutional under the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment is another question for another day, but when it comes to the question of whether a private vehicle is a public space, I think the answer is and should obviously be “no.”

Massachusetts grapples with fallout from landmark Supreme Court gun ruling

A landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling involving a New York gun law has begun to undermine Massachusetts’ gun laws, with a Boston Municipal Court judge recently ordering the Police Department to provide a concealed carry license to a man it had deemed a public safety risk.

At issue is the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in what is known as the Bruen case, which cited the Second Amendment to overturn a New York law that required applicants for licenses to carry concealed handguns to show proper cause for why they needed one.

The ruling prohibited states from requiring gun owners to have a “good reason” to carry, unraveling gun regulations in Massachusetts, New York, and four other states with so called may-issue laws that gave local authorities sweeping discretion over who receives licenses.

Boston Municipal Court Judge Richard Sinnott cited the ruling in August in ordering Police Commissioner Michael Cox to grant a concealed carry license for East Boston resident Jordan Lebedevitch, who wrote in his application that he hoped to work in the firearms industry and needed to carry a gun for his job at a security company. Earlier this month, Cox sued in Suffolk Superior Court to overturn Sinnott’s decision. That lawsuit is still pending.

Police had found Lebedevitch unsuitable, a legal determination fordenying the license, citing a 2023 police report from his then-wife claiming he threatened to kill himself during an argument. State law gives gun licensing authority to local police leaders.

Lebedevitch disputed the threat of suicide in a letter to the department, writing that the situation had been a “misunderstanding.” He filed a legal petition in Municipal Court, which landed before Sinnott. The judge initially ruled in favor of the Police Department but reversed his decision the next day, ordering the department to issue the license, according to court filings.

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Federal Appeals Court Upholds DC Magazine Ban

Gun owners in the nation’s capital will continue to face ammunition magazine capacity limits, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A divided three-judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision upholding DC’s ban on the possession and sale of what it called “extra-large capacity magazines” (ELCMs). The panel ruled the city’s ten-round limit for magazines fit within the nation’s historical tradition of regulating “particularly dangerous weapons” and those “capable of unprecedented lethality,” even though there weren’t similar bans when the Second Amendment was ratified.

“Because ELCMs implicate unprecedented societal concerns and dramatic technological changes, the lack of a ‘precise match’ does not preclude finding at this preliminary juncture an historical tradition ‘analogous enough to pass constitutional muster,’” the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion in Hanson v. District of Columbia. “Therefore, we hold Hanson is not sufficiently likely to succeed on the merits of his claim to warrant the entry of a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the magazine cap.”

The ruling deals a significant blow to gun-rights advocates in their decades-long quest to undo DC’s restrictive gun laws. It comes as appeals courts across the country have routinely upheld similar bans in recent years despite the Supreme Court raising the bar modern gun laws have to clear to pass muster in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

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FPC Files New Lawsuit Challenging Texas Gun Carry Bans

FORT WORTH, TX (October 29, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a new Second Amendment lawsuit challenging laws prohibiting individuals from carrying firearms at certain locations in the State of Texas. The complaint for Ziegenfuss v. McCraw can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/ziegenfuss.

Through the case, Plaintiffs seek to end enforcement of Texas laws that restrict firearm carry in three locations: (1) in any business where alcohol comprises 51% or more of sales (even if the individual is not consuming alcohol), (2) racetracks, and (3) sporting events. These locations “are not so-called ‘sensitive places’ where Texas can disarm people such as Plaintiffs; indeed, the challenged locations cannot be analogized to the very few—and very different—locations where bearing arms was prohibited under constitutionally relevant American history (at and around the time of the Founding),” Plaintiffs say in their Complaint.

“FPC already struck down Texas’s ban on firearm carry for adults under the age of 21. We now set our sights on ending enforcement of these locational bans so that all peaceable adults may carry firearms in public places without fear of criminal prosecution. This case is one of dozens we are litigating to help us achieve our strategic objectives and eliminate unconstitutional and immoral carry restrictions throughout the United States,” explained FPC President Brandon Combs. ……………

FPC Pushes Forward In Post Office Gun Ban Challenge

The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has filed a motion for summary judgment in its case pending before a U.S. District Court in Texas challenging the Post Office gun ban.

The lawsuit FPC v. Garland challenges federal gun control laws prohibiting firearm possession, storage and carry at United States Post Offices and related properties, including post office parking lots. The plaintiffs are two law-abiding citizens licensed to carry in Texas and two non-profit membership associations—FPC and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).

Brandon Combs, FPC president, said the lawsuit is one in a long line of challenges designed to restore Second Amendment rights.

“Your right to carry weapons for armed self-defense does not end at the Post Office,” Combs said in a release announcing the action. “We look forward to eliminating this immoral ban and further restoring the People’s right and ability to protect themselves in public.”
In its motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs argue that the post office gun ban fails both of the standards set by the Supreme Court in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
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More Support For Challenges To New Massachusetts Gun Law.

We’ve reported recently how Massachusetts’ sweeping new anti-gun law, launched early by an emergency preamble attached to it by Gov. Maura Healey, is facing a lot of pushback from pro-freedom groups.

Not only have two lawsuits already been filed to challenge the law in court, but an initiative petition to get a question on the 2026 state ballot to repeal the law already has more than the 90,000 signatures needed to put the matter to the vote.

Just two weeks after the measure was signed into law the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) ponied up $100,000 to help fund the court challenge by the Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL). Now, according to a report at masslive.com, others within the firearms industry are joining the efforts to repeal the law or have it declared unconstitutional in court.

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Well, that didn’t take them long, did it?
And the Supreme Court again displays its cowardice concerning the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Second Circuit’s Second Opinion on NY Carry Laws Same As the First

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its second opinion in the multiple challenges to New York’s post-Bruen carry restrictions, but the court ended up making no changes to its initial ruling that was issued almost a year ago.

Instead of granting cert to Antonyuk v. James and hearing the appeal themselves, the justices on the Supreme Court granted cert but vacated the Second Circuit’s first ruling and remanded the case back to the appellate court after SCOTUS released its decision in Rahimi back in June. If the justices were hoping that Rahimi would guide the Second Circuit in a different direction they, like Second Amendment advocates, must be disappointed by today’s ruling.

Essentially, the only portions of New York’s post-Bruen laws the Second Circuit takes issue with are the requirement that concealed carry applicants disclose their social media accounts to licensing authorities and the state’s “vampire rule”, which prohibits concealed carry on all private property in the state unless signage specifically allowing concealed carry is conspicuously posted.

Virtually all of the other “sensitive places” defined by the deceptively named Concealed Carry Improvement Act were upheld by the Second Circuit on Thursday, including houses of worship, public parks and zoos, public transportation, establishments where alcohol is served, theaters, conferences, business centers, and “gatherings of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble.”

As Chuck Michel said, the entire decision is more than 200 pages long, so while you can read it in its entirety here, we’ll be focusing on just a couple of aspects of today’s decision in this post.

Just like the Second Circuit’s original ruling in Antonyuk, the panel makes a few staggering leaps of faith that aren’t supported by what the Supreme Court has said about the right to keep and bear arms. The Court has held, for instance, that modern gun control statutes must fit within the national tradition of gun ownership, and doubted “that just three colonial regulations could suffice” to prove a national tradition of restricting concealed carry to those that have demonstrated a justifiable need.

But the Second Circuit says that even if there are no “distinctly similar historical regulation[s]” to point to in defense of a current gun law, that may not matter.

Legislatures past and present have not generally legislated to their constitutional limits. Reasoning from historical silence is thus risky; it is not necessarily the case that, if no positive legislation from a particular time or place is in the record, it must be because the legislators then or there deemed such a regulation inconsistent with the right to bear arms.

No, but it definitely proves that those legislators didn’t create certain laws restricting the rights of lawful gun owners in response to concerns about violent crime or public safety, and that is telling… or at least it should be. The Supreme Court’s “text, history, and tradition” test is relatively straightforward, but it’s been squarely rejected by the Second Circuit in favor of a more “nuanced” approach that, conveniently enough, allowed the panel to conclude that even where there are no historical analogues in place, modern restrictions on the right to carry are permissible.

The Second Circuit also continues to place a lot of reliance on gun laws that were in place around 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, not just 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. In theory, that makes some sense, given that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant in part to prevent states from intruding on those freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But in the aftermath of the Civil War, many states, particularly in the former Confederacy, instituted laws that were designed to stop freedmen from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. In some case those laws were facially about depriving former slaves and freedmen from possessing or carrying a gun, but others were couched in racially-neutral terms but were enforced primarily or solely against groups.

The Second Circuit’s decision upholding most of New York’s newest restrictions on the right to carry relies largely on rewriting the Bruen test and an over-dependence on a handful of mid-19th century statutes. Again, even the absence of any historical analogues is no barrier for the Second Circuit, which is utterly ridiculous.

Antonyuk and the other related cases have yet to go to trial on the merits. So far, all of the legal wrangling has been about preliminary injunctions issued by the district courts, and the Second Circuit has now remanded these cases back to the lowest level of the federal judiciary to start the process all over again. Given the hostility the Second Circuit has historically displayed towards the Second Amendment (it originally upheld New York’s “may issue” law, for instance), today’s decision isn’t exactly surprising. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating for those New Yorkers who’ve seen their right to carry become even more limited in scope and practice in the two years since the Supreme Court declared that right is just as fundamentally important as the right to keep a gun in the home.

TPTB have always been scared to the point they wet themselves that the peons possess the means to eliminate them from the equation.
It became even more scarier when reliable weaponry that can either smite from a distance, or be easily carried and concealed, was developed.
We’re going to see if this still holds basically true, or if our Supreme Justices can override the goobermint’s  fear that those in power can be help to ultimate consequences.

Perhaps the Most Concerning Comment on Vanderstock

The ATF’s rules on so-called ghost guns don’t actually stop bad guys from making their own guns. Still, those rules exist.

At least, they exist until after the Supreme Court rules on Vanderstock v. Garland.

As we’ve noted previously, though, the odds don’t look good for pro-gun folks. It seems the Court had at least some interest in keeping the rules in place, which is troubling because it seems pretty clear to me that the ATF overstepped.

However, there was one comment that bothered me more than just about anything else I saw come out of the arguments.

“Drilling a hole or two, I would think, doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends… My understanding is that it’s not terribly difficult for someone to do this,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

While it’s easy to ridicule the Chief Justice for this misguided statement, it’s important to consider his sources for the hyperbole, the ATF and the Biden administration.

“Drilling a hole or two” is a demonstrably dishonest take on the process, and I would have particularly enjoyed seeing a kit laid out in front of the Justices for a hands-on show of how “not terribly difficult” it is.

This would have been good for a few laughs.

Representing manufacturers and groups opposing the rule, Peter Patterson pointed out that building the kits is far more complicated than the administration has suggested, however, Patterson wisely remained grounded in his argument, staying with the facts and nature of the litigation, which had nothing to do with how easy or difficult a kit is to build, and everything to do with the ATF overstepping its authority.

Since the conclusion of the day’s oral arguments, the mainstream media has touted the Supreme Court’s disposition during the hearing as signaling a tendency towards the ATF and Biden administration’s arguments regarding lack of manufacturing difficulty and the potential for prohibited individuals to purchase kits and build them at home for criminal intent.

I will point out, however unnecessarily, that violent crime has been around long before 80% receiver kits, and violent criminals have never had an issue arming themselves, sometimes aided by our own government. Just ask Barack Obama and Eric Holder about Operation Fast and Furious.

All of that is absolutely true, of course. It’s a good deal more complicated than just drilling a couple of holes and calling it good, which is why the ATF’s argument regarding how “readily” it can be turned into a firearm is wrong and should be overturned.

But I’m bothered by Roberts’s statement about how it does give “the same sort of reward” that one might get from working on their car.

I wasn’t aware that was the legal threshold for our rights, whether or not a judge finds it satisfying.

Especially when I don’t find working on my car particularly rewarding. If I’m working on my car, it’s because something isn’t right and I can’t afford to take it to a mechanic. Since that’s what my son does for a living now, that’s rare, but that’s how it’s been in the past. For me, it was a task that needed to be accomplished, not something I found enjoyment in.

That’s kind of how hobbies work, though. Some people are really into DIY projects like renovating their bathroom. Others do it because they need the bathroom fixed and can’t afford to hire someone. The first group is the amateurs in the original sense of the word–those who do something for the love of it–while the others aren’t necessarily finding any sense of reward, necessarily.

Some people get a charge out of collecting stamps while others only buy them now to pay bills that don’t have an online presence for whatever reason.

Yet Roberts’s comment, while possibly meaningless, suggests that the justice might well consider whether they see this as a real hobby or not, and if they don’t because they, personally, don’t see anything fun in making one’s own firearms, we have a big problem.

Supreme Court Orders Fresh Look at Young-Adult Gun Restrictions

The US Supreme Court sidestepped a brewing gun-safety issue for now, telling a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that 18-to-20-year-olds have a broad constitutional right to carry a firearm.
In a two-sentence order Tuesday, the justices opted not to take up an appeal by Pennsylvania officials, instead ordering a fresh look at the issue at the lower court level. The reconsideration order cited the high court’s ruling in June upholding a federal gun ban for people under domestic-violence orders.
Pennsylvania is one of 32 states, along with the federal government, that establish 21 as the minimum age for some gun rights. The case before the high court involved a Pennsylvania law that prohibits people age 18-to-20 from openly carrying firearms during a declared state of emergency.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the law, saying in a 2-1 decision the state hadn’t shown the type of historic pedigree required under an earlier Supreme Court ruling.
The law is being challenged by two gun-rights groups and three people who were under age 21 when the suit was filed in 2020. They urged the Supreme Court to reject Pennsylvania’s appeal without ordering reconsideration, saying lower courts are generally in agreement that states can’t put special restrictions on 18-to-20-year-olds.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry argued that the 3rd Circuit imposed a much stricter historical test for gun laws than the Supreme Court said in the domestic-violence case was required.
The Supreme Court has steered clear of new Second Amendment disputes since its June 21 ruling. Lower courts now are grappling with bans on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, laws prohibiting gun possession by convicted felons and restrictions on where firearms can be brought.
The Pennsylvania case is Paris v. Lara, 24-93.

Maryland Group Asks Supreme Court To Explore State’s Handgun Licensing Requirements

Fresh off the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License requirement is constitutional, plaintiffs in the case are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue.

On September 27, plaintiffs in the case Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore filed a petition with the Supreme Court in hopes the onerous law won’t meet muster before that body.

“Just two years ago, this Court rejected the interest-balancing approach adopted by nearly every lower court, and emphatically held that the Second Amendment ‘demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history,’” the petition states. “But certain lower courts—determined to avoid applying Bruen’s holding—are disregarding this Court’s precedents and straining the constitutional text to fit desired policy ends. That is exactly what the en banc 4th Circuit did in this case to uphold Maryland’s ahistorical and burdensome two-step licensing and registration scheme for acquisition and possession of a handgun for self-defense.”

In fact, the process in question is quite complicated. Before possessing any handgun, Maryland requires citizens to obtain a Handgun Qualification License, which isn’t an easy task. To qualify, citizens must be fingerprinted, attend a half-day training course, live fire a handgun and pass a background check—all of which takes significant time, effort and money. Once they receive their license, there are still hurdles to overcome, as another Maryland law requires a background check and seven-day wait before taking possession of a purchased handgun.

In late 2023 a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the HQL requirement unconstitutional. But on August 23, an en banc panel of the 4th Circuit issued its decision upholding the Handgun Qualification License law.

“Compliance with the HQL Requirement places significant burdens on possession and acquisition of a handgun unknown at the Founding and is an outlier even in modern times,” the plaintiffs’ petition states. “Failure to comply may result in fines, imprisonment and the permanent loss of firearm rights.”

The petition further states: “The HQL Requirement is an unconstitutional outlier that the Founders never would have tolerated. Petitioners have shown that Maryland’s novel and extreme acquisition-and-possession licensing regime burdens protected conduct. And Maryland has not met its burden to prove that the HQL Requirement—step one of its two-step licensing scheme—is consistent with historical tradition.

In the end, Maryland Shall Issue is asking the Supreme Court to consider the case using its own two-step process handed down in the Bruen case in 2022.

“This Court should grant certiorari to prevent lower courts from reading exception-upon-exception into Bruen’s standard—before that standard exists no more,” the petition concludes. “The constitution ‘demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history,’ not tests rooted in dicta and whatever constructions of text best fit lower courts’ desired policy ends. This Court should once again say so.”

FPC WIN: Federal Judge Blocks New York Carry Ban

BUFFALO, N.Y. (October 10, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that the United States District Court for the Western District of New York has granted partial summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in FPC’s Christian v. James lawsuit, permanently enjoining the state’s law banning guns on all publicly-open private property without express consent of the owner, and denied the state’s request for a stay of that decision. The opinion can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/boron.

“This is yet another important victory for Second Amendment rights and another major loss for New York, authoritarian governments, and radical anti-rights organizations like Everytown and Giffords. We will continue to fight forward as we work to restore the full scope of the right to keep and bear arms throughout the United States. Hopefully Kathy Hochul is ready to write another check for legal fees,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

Just yesterday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that, after the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, the State “doubled down” on its anti-rights agenda. In a statement yesterday, she said that “[the State] came up with legislation. And we have a prohibition on concealed carry weapons in sensitive places. I personally think every place is sensitive[.]” However, today’s decision again shows that Governor Hochul couldn’t be more wrong.

“Regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. New York fails that test here,” the Court said in its opinion today. “Indeed, property owners have the right to exclude. But the state may not unilaterally exercise that right and, thereby, interfere with the long-established Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense on private property open to the public.”

Missing From Both Final Judgment Proposals

Both the NRA and the New York Attorney General’s Office submitted their proposed terms for the final judgment in People of New York v. National Rifle Association of America et al on October 4th. Having read both proposals, neither propose reforms intended to keep the rank and file NRA member informed.

Item 9 in the NYAG’s proposed final judgment says the NRA will set up a secure online portal that will “enable digital dissemination of Board, committee, and corporate documents to Board members, and shall enable convenient encrypted communications with Board members.”

Likewise, the NRA’s proposal for a final judgment states, “The Secretary’s Office shall use best efforts to implement, by January 2025, a secure portal that will enable digital dissemination of Board, committee, and corporate documents to Board members, and shall enable convenient encrypted communication with Board members.”

Nowhere in either document is any mention of providing information on a timely basis to the members of the NRA. Whether this is an oversight or intentional, I don’t know.

At the very least, here is what I would propose and what should be included in the final judgment. If you have other items that you would suggest be publicly available, make note of it in the comments.

  • Current bylaws must be published on the NRA website and available to all members. Do you know [how] hard it is to get an up-to-date copy of the bylaws otherwise?
  • A minimum 5 years worth of Form 990 and CHAR500 posted on the NRA’s public website. Many other non-profits make these available on their websites.
  • Board meeting agenda and minutes posted on the public website including for past meetings of the board. If small towns can do it, so can the NRA.

If those in charge are so worried about the gun prohibitionists or reporters from The Trace having access to this information, make it so it can be accessed only by NRA members. This is what they do with regard to candidate ratings by the NRA-PVF.

The time for keeping the membership in the dark is over. If the Board and the executives are serious about a NRA 2.0, this is one change they could easily make.

Expert Panel Analysis of Supreme Court Arguments in Garland v. VanDerStok.

As promised, SNW commentator and legal wiz LKB convened an all-star expert panel last night. The topic was yesterday’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court in the matter of Garland v. VanDerStock. That’s the case challenging the ATF’s unilateral redefinition of what constitutes a firearm under the narrowly-worded language of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Joining LKB were Independent Institute fellow Steven Halbrook, California Rifle & Pistol Association President Chuck Michel and NRA-ILA Director of Constitutional Studies Joseph Greenlee. These are three legal minds who have been working in the pro-2A space for decades and whose views on the matter at hand before the Court actually mean something.

This video will not only give you 33 well worthwhile minutes of analysis of the VanDerStok arguments, but the participants also look into their crystal balls to anticipate what other significant Second Amendment cases are headed the Supreme Court’s way in the near future. Enjoy.

Opening Arguments Begin in ‘Ghost Gun’ Challenge

While so-called ghost guns get a lot of hype in the media, the reality is that they account for only a tiny fraction of those firearms used in illegal acts. However, because they’ve grown in supposed popularity–probably because of media hysterics cluing bad guys in that these are a thing–they’re the worst thing ever.

When the Biden administration took steps to try to regulate these firearms, the usual suspects in the media and anti-gun activism celebrated it.

However, such a decree was never going to go unchallenged. Today, opening arguments begin in that case. (Arguments begin at 11:00 AM Eastern; you can watch them here.)

Among those party to the challenge is the Second Amendment Foundation, which sent a press release about today’s opening statements.

On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) challenge to ATF’s regulation expanding what constitutes a “firearm.”

Arguments will begin at 11 a.m. EST and will be broadcast live here.

SAF is joined in the case by Defense Distributed and Not an LLC (doing business as JSD Supply). SAF and its partners are represented by attorneys Charles R. Flores and Josh Blackman of Houston, and SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut.

In April 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) published its Final Rule amending the regulatory definition of the term “firearm” to encompass precursor parts that, with enough additional manufacturing operations, would become functional firearms frames and receivers, but in their current state were non-functional objects.

In seeking to regulate these “non-firearm objects” the ATF’s Final Rule directly contradicted Congress’ definition of “firearm” set forth in the Gun Control Act of 1968. The ATF’s re-definition of “firearm” in the Final Rule establishes a practical ban on the private manufacture of firearms – a constitutionally protected tradition.

In December 2022, SAF filed to intervene in an existing lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas known as VanDerStok v. Garland. The case challenges the lawfulness of ATF’s regulatory re-definition of a “firearm” under the Administrative Procedures Act. SAF scored a major victory in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated significant portions of the Rule. The Biden Department of Justice now seeks to resurrect the rule before the Supreme Court.

For more information about the case, visit saf.org. To listen to the arguments live, click here or follow SAF’s X page for live updates.

The key takeaway is that the argument will be that the ATF exceeded it’s regulatory authority by trying to redefine what is and isn’t a firearm. This is what the ATF did with bump stocks when they opted to redefine them as machine guns. The Supreme Court ruled they had no such authority, so it’s unlikely this will be any different.

That’s bad news for the anti-gun side because the reason Biden went the executive order route and had the ATF act unilaterally was because there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that Congress was going to pass any bill trying to accomplish what the ATF tried.

Yet that’s not a valid reason to try and go around Congress like this and redefine things differently than Congress did.

Had there never been a law that specifically defined a firearm, they might could have gotten away with it. One could argue that the lack of definition would put the onus for defining what is and isn’t a gun on the ATF. The problem is that they did define it. The ATF has to work within that definition, not make up their own because they really don’t like that people do things they don’t approve of.

The Vanderstock case is likely to be another smackdown of the ATF’s overreach, much like what we saw in Cargill.