Category: Gun Schtuff

Charter Arms® Introduces the New Walker Revolver Series

Charter Arms, manufacturers of affordable, 100% American-made revolvers for more than 60 years, is proud to announce the introduction of the new Walker Series of revolvers.

The Walker is an ultra-compact, rimfire revolver designed for concealed carry. It is available with either a .22 LR or .22 WMR chambering; both have eight-round capacities.

“We couldn’t be happier to offer this .22 caliber revolver series,” said Charter Arms owner, President and CEO Nick Ecker. “Customers have praised its concealability, accuracy, and design. This new series offers the ultimate in dependable performance.”

The new .22 Walker Series from Charter Arms delivers lightweight confidence in a sleek, modern concealed-carry platform built for everyday reliability. Designed for shooters who value simplicity, comfort, and dependable performance, the Walker combines an ultra-compact profile with eight-shot capacity in either .22 LR or .22 WMR.

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Breaking: Third Circuit Says Ban on ‘Assault Weapons’ and ‘Large Capacity’ Magazines Is Unconstitutional

In a long-awaited opinion, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has released its en banc decision in a trio of cases challenging New Jersey’s ban on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines, holding that the ban violates the Second Amendment’s protections for the right to keep and bear arms.

Besides the majority opinion, there are five opinions concurring either in whole or in part, along with three dissenting opinions, so Second Amendment attorneys and amateur law nerds like myself will have a lot of reading to do this weekend. Here’s the most important part of the majority opinion as an appetizer.

Applying the framework announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, we agree with the District Court that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment. However, because the record supports the same result for all semi-automatic rifles—not only Colt AR-15s—we will MODIFY the District Court’s order so that it deems the Assault Firearm Provisions unconstitutional with respect to the full class of semi-automatic rifles. We will AFFIRM that part of the order as modified.

The LCM Provisions also violate the Second Amendment, so we will REVERSE the District Court’s order with respect to those. Because the LCM Provisions violate the Second Amendment, we need not address the Takings Clause challenge.

While other circuit courts have upheld “assault weapon” bans by claiming they’re “dangerous and unusual” (or “unusually dangerous”), are not commonly-used for self-defense, and so close to machine guns that they’re not even protected by the Second Amendment, the Third Circuit rejected each and every one of those claims.

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Even The Trace Admits We’re Seeing More Guns and Less Crime

The gun control movement is based on a simple premise: more guns lead to more crime, and the only way to truly make the United States safer is to reduce the number of firearms in circulation.

When the modern gun control lobby got started in the 1960s, that idea seemed somewhat logical. Violent crime kept going up, and every year more and more guns were added to the mix. In 1991, though, violent crime peaked and then started its decade-long decline, but we continued purchasing millions of firearms each year.

From the early 1990s to 2020, violent crime and homicides fell by more than 50 percent, and after a brief spike during the COVID pandemic they are once again plummeting, this time to lows not seen since at least the 1960s, and probably not for a century or more. The number of privately-owned firearms, meanwhile, has grown to more than 400 million according to most estimates.

Even Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun “news” site The Trace can’t ignore the fact that while gun sales are rising, crime is dropping.

Gun violence is down, significantly, as gun sales are ticking up for the first time in years.
… Shooting deaths and injuries remain at historic lows in the United States, continuing the trend seen in Q1 and in recent years.

Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows 6,458 shooting deaths, and 11,781 shooting injuries in the first six months of the year. Both represent the lowest number since 2015.

The per-capita figure of 1.9 shooting deaths per 100,000 Americans is also the lowest in that span.

Still, a few states have seen increases in shooting deaths, including New Hampshire, Connecticut, Iowa, and Massachusetts. These are smaller population states, so a few incidents can have a big impact; a June mass shooting in Iowa helps explain that state’s increase this year.

Two of those states also have incredibly restrictive gun laws, which is yet another bit of evidence that gun control doesn’t stop violent criminals.

While The Trace admits that “gun violence” is down and gun sales are up, it does try to minimize the increase in gun purchases.

An estimated 7.3 million firearms have been sold in the United States — about 4.5 million handguns and another 2.8 million long guns. That would be enough to arm every single resident of Tennessee.
The numbers represent a 2.7 percent increase in gun sales through six months compared to 2025. This marks the first time in six years that we’ve seen an increase in sales.

While the uptick is notable, the raw total is still lower than any year from 2020 to 2024.

A handful of states are posting huge increases compared to the first six months of last year. These include three states where legislation to restrict gun buying advanced or took effect:

  • Virginia, where a suite of gun safety laws, including a currently paused ban on assault-style weapons, were signed by Governor Abigail Spanberger. The state’s gun sales soared 73 percent this year. The state’s 117,802 sales in June 2026 were the highest of any state, despite Virginia ranking 12th in population.
  • Connecticut, where dealers say a proposed “Glock ban” propelled an increase of 25 percent.
  • Rhode Island, where a ban on assault-style weapons took effect on July 1, 2026. In the first six months of the year, gun sales climbed 86 percent higher than in 2025.

Yes, when Democrats try to ban guns, it leads to a lot of people purchasing them. Go figure.

While this is the first time in six years that gun sales are up year-to-year, it’s not like sales have been non-existent. In the first six months of 2025, for instance, The Trace says there were 7,093,785 gun purchases. Compare that to the 4,539,309 purchases in the first half of 2010, and it’s easy to see that even with numbers off their peak in 2020, the new “normal” is well above what it was just a few years ago.

This year The Trace estimates 7,287,997 firearms have been sold since January. That’s roughly the same number (7,487,384) that were sold in the first six months of 2016. The big difference is that in 2016, that figure was a 16 percent increase in sales compared to the year before, while this year’s increase is a more modest 3 percent. Again, the floor is higher than it was just a decade ago.

If the “more guns equals more crime” theory were correct, then the United States should be seeing record high levels of “gun violence.” Instead, we’re living in what is likely the safest moment in the past 100 years, if not the entirety of U.S. history. With tens of millions of Americans keeping and bearing arms to protect themselves and others, it’s clear that the Second Amendment isn’t at odds with public safety, but is an integral component in keeping the peace.

What You Haven’t Heard About Suppressors, and What You Really Haven’t Heard About Them

The end of the tax stamp on suppressors wasn’t as good as we wanted, but it was a big step forward. Suppressors, often called “silencers,” aren’t the devices of spy movie infamy. They don’t deaden the sound until you can’t even hear it above a whisper, but they do work. They’re better thought of as safety devices, since they reduce the noise down enough that you probably won’t have as much hearing loss.

And with the Big Beautiful Bill, we don’t have to pay an extra $200 to Uncle Sam if we want one.

Not to be deterred, the regular suspects claimed that suddenly, bad people would use suppressors left and right, and no one would know because every inner-city gang-banger is really James Bond.

The end of the tax stamp has, predictably, created increased demand.

America’s gun buyers are quietly making big noise when it comes to their shooting preferences. They are buying items regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA) in huge numbers. That includes suppressors, short-barrel rifles (SBRs) and short-barrel shotguns (SBSs).

These figures aren’t in the hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands. The number is creeping up toward 1 million for this year alone, according to data provided to NSSF from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). And there are still seven months of purchasing data to collect this year.

That data shows over 845,000 suppressor applications were submitted and 768,000 were approved from January through May this year. Those totals include both Form 1 applications to manufacture suppressors and Form 4 applications to possess a suppressor either as an individual or in a trust with several parties.

In fact, NSSF reported a 177 percent increase in NFA checks in June 2026 over the previous year. That number jumped to 166,677 last month compared to 60,147 last June.

That’s a lot of suppressors.

But do you know what you haven’t heard? The thing that would be in tons of news reports if it were to happen, but hasn’t?

Why we’re not seeing tons of criminals using suppressors.

Understand that they can still be stolen, still be straw-purchased, or still be manufactured by an individual, so why aren’t they everywhere like we were told they would be? Why aren’t the bad guys using them to shoot up neighborhoods and perhaps avoid systems like ShotSpotter?

Because criminals have little use for such things, that’s why.

A suppressor is a fairly long device, on average, that you put on the end of a firearm. It makes it harder to conceal, and they don’t work as they do in the movies. There’s a reason Luigi Mangione (alleged) had to rack the slide of his gun with each shot. He didn’t know there was a separate device he needed if he wanted his “ghost gun” to cycle.

Even with a different style or model of gun, though, we’re simply not seeing suppressors all over the criminal arrest stories that populate our news feeds.

Companies are selling hundreds of thousands of them this year, possibly millions, and the bad guys aren’t using them. All the doomsaying didn’t pan out. Yet again.

In fact, this is becoming something of a habit for them. Unfortunately, the mainstream media won’t mention it.

If You Haven’t Heard, Suppressor Sales are Booming

By Salam Fatohi

America’s gun buyers are quietly making big noise when it comes to their shooting preferences. They are buying items regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA) in huge numbers. That includes suppressors, short-barrel rifles (SBRs) and short-barrel shotguns (SBSs).

These figures aren’t in the hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands. The number is creeping up toward 1 million for this year alone, according to data provided to NSSF from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). And there are still seven months of purchasing data to collect this year.

That data shows over 845,000 suppressor applications were submitted and 768,000 were approved from January through May this year. Those totals include both Form 1 applications to manufacture suppressors and Form 4 applications to possess a suppressor either as an individual or in a trust with several parties.

In fact, NSSF reported a 177 percent increase in NFA checks in June 2026 over the previous year. That number jumped to 166,677 last month compared to 60,147 last June.

Table: Top-5 States for NFA Checks in June 2026

The Reasons

NSSF noted in January that 2026 could be the “Year of the Suppressor.” That prediction is turning out to be spot-on accurate. There are a couple reasons driving these figures.

Undoubtedly the One Big, Beautiful Bill, signed into law in the summer of 2025, turned an increasing interest in suppressors by gun owners into an all-out frenzy. A provision in that law, by deeming the required tax stamp as paid, in effect reduced the tax to $0 from $200.

Without the $200 tax added to the cost of each suppressor, buyers are finding it an easier investment to make. Turns out, when government gets out of the way of exercising rights, law-abiding citizens will want to exercise those rights even more.

Another reason for the dramatic rise in suppressor applications is that the ATF’s NFA Division is approving them in a matter of days, not months. NSSF worked diligently starting back in 2013 to ensure that ATF’s NFA Division had the budgetary resources needed to institute electronic form processing, or eForms.

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NICS: Over 1.1 Million Guns Sold in June, NFA Saw 177 Percent Jump

In the lead-up to America’s 250th, the Second Amendment was well exercised, according to the latest data for last month’s gun sales.

According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, 1,886,539 background checks were processed in June 2026. That was a 1.2 percent decrease from the FBI NICS figure of 1,909,294 in June 2025.

However, that figure covers several types of checks, not just those done for gun sales.

The firearms industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, distills the raw NICS numbers to remove gun permit checks and rechecks to yield the true number of checks done for over-the-counter sales. The adjusted figure for June 2026 stands at 1,123,006, a downright decent 11.7 percent increase compared to the June 2025 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,004,986.

Two big causes for the increase in those numbers were pending “assault weapon” bans in Rhode Island and Virginia that were set to take effect in July.

“Virginia saw a 241 percent increase over the same month last year, with 123,699 background checks for the purchase of a firearm,” Mark Oliva, public affairs officer with the NSSF, told Guns.com. “Likewise, Rhode Island had a 201 percent increase over June 2025 with 7,815 background checks completed.”

NFA transfers way, way up

In an update of what is shaping up to be the story of the year when it comes to firearms industry growth, the number of NFA items transferred nearly tripled when compared to last year, with June 2026’s figure of 166,677 transfers being a remarkable 177.1 percent jump compared to June 2025’s much more pedestrian 60,147.

This is no doubt due to the recent zeroing out of the circa 1934 taxes on the making and transfer of suppressors and short-barreled firearms.

Arizona’s Democrat Governor Signs Range Protection Bill Into Law

Milton Friedman once said that he didn’t believe that the solution to all our political problems is to simply to elect the right people. Instead, he claimed “the important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”

For Arizona gun owners, Gov. Katie Hobbs is hardly the right person for the job. She has used her veto power to block numerous pro-2A reforms during her time in office, including campus carry legislation and a measure blocking the use of industry-specific Merchant Category Codes for gun stores this year.

So it’s downright shocking that Hobbs has now signed HB 2763 into law. The bill, authored by State Rep.Quang Nguyen, puts some added protections in place for state-owned shooting ranges like the Ben Avery facility in Phoenix. Under the bill, the range could not be closed or shut down unless such a move receives the approval of the Arizona legislature, not just the the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, which oversees the range’s day-to-day operations.

In a press release, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms chairman Alan Gottlieb praised Nguyen for his work in protecting the world-class facility.

“I can say without fear of contradiction that protecting the Ben Avery shooting range and similar facilities around the Grand Canyon State is of paramount importance to Arizona gun owners,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Future generations of Arizona hunters, competitors and recreational shooters will benefit from this bill’s passage.

“The Citizens Committee takes this opportunity to congratulate Rep. Nguyen for his tireless efforts to guide HB 2763 through the legislature and finally to the governor’s desk,” he added. “We’re disappointed that not a single Democrat lawmaker in either the House or Senate voted in support of this legislation, while we are proud of Rep. Nguyen and his Republican colleagues, led by House Speaker Steve Montenegro, who passed this important measure despite that partisan opposition.

“It should be noted that Rep. Nguyen has appeared at the Gun Rights Policy Conference, which is co-sponsored by the Citizens Committee, and I am personally grateful for his dedication to Arizona gun owners,” Gottlieb observed. “I have come to know him as a lawmaker who can be counted on to defend the Second Amendment and the rights protected by Article 2, Section 26 of the Arizona constitution, adopted way back in 1912 when Arizona achieved statehood. He can rightfully be proud of this achievement.”

It’s astounding to me that Nguyen’s bill couldn’t get a single Democrat to vote in support. After all, you don’t normally see lawmakers turn down the opportunity to exercise power.

It’s even more amazing that Hobbs signed HB 2763 given its lack of support among Democrats in the legislature.

With a six-seat majority in the state House and a four-seat majority in the state Senate, Republicans are now in a position to thwart any effort by AZ Game and Fish Commission leaders to shutter the shooting complex, at least in the short term. It’s still up to gun owners in Arizona, however, to ensure that the legislature remains as supportive of the Second Amendment as it is right now, and to replace Hobbs this November with a governor who will sign every single pro-2A measure that gets to her desk instead of selectively doing the right thing when it suits her political agenda.

Two Federal Courts, Two Weeks Apart, Split on Whether Silencers Are Protected Arms

Key Takeaways

  • The Fifth Circuit ruled that silencers qualify as ‘arms’ protected by the Second Amendment, while the Ninth Circuit disagreed.
  • This split creates a significant circuit disagreement, potentially beneficial for suppressor owners.
  • The Fifth Circuit emphasized that if a device aids self-defense, it qualifies as an arm, while the Ninth Circuit viewed silencers as optional accessories.
  • Both cases upheld convictions due to non-ideal test circumstances, illustrating the complexities of the registration process.
  • The split may encourage the Supreme Court to address the definition of suppressors and their status under the Second Amendment.

NEW ORLEANS, LA — Two federal appeals courts just looked at the same question weeks apart and gave opposite answers. The question was simple. Is a silencer an “arm” the Second Amendment protects?

On June 18, the Fifth Circuit said yes. On June 3, the Ninth Circuit said no. That disagreement is now a real circuit split, and it may be the best thing to happen to suppressor owners in years.

I covered the Ninth Circuit loss earlier this month in United States v. DeBorba. Now the Fifth Circuit has answered back.

Start with the win. In United States v. Comeaux, a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel ruled that silencers are protected “Arms.” Brennan James Comeaux had been convicted of possessing an unregistered silencer under the National Firearms Act after deputies searched his home and he admitted making the devices. He challenged the charge on Second Amendment grounds.

Earlier rulings had ducked the core question, assuming silencers might be arms without deciding it. Judge Jerry E. Smith decided it. “They are,” he wrote.

His reasoning tracks the Constitution. Silencers cut noise and recoil, reduce muzzle blast, and improve accuracy and follow-up shots. Those functions make a gun safer and more effective for lawful self-defense. Because a silencer facilitates armed self-defense, it falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment. The government’s argument that a silencer is not necessary to fire a gun did not move the court. Under Bruen, an arm does not have to be necessary. It only has to facilitate self-defense.

Now compare that to the Ninth Circuit. In DeBorba, the same kind of NFA charge produced the opposite holding. That panel called silencers “optional accessories,” lumped them in with slings and scopes, and ruled they are not arms because a gun fires without one. Same statute, same Supreme Court precedent, completely different result.

This is the heart of the split. The Fifth Circuit asks whether a device facilitates self-defense. The Ninth Circuit asks whether a device is strictly necessary to make a gun go bang. One test protects the modern tools gun owners actually use. The other lets a court carve away any feature it decides is optional, and there is no obvious stopping point once scopes and sights are on the table.

Here is the frustrating part the two cases share. Both men still lost, and both courts leaned on the same crutch to get there.

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BREAKING: 5th Circuit Rules Suppressors Protected by Second Amendment

LOUISIANA — On Thursday, June 18, 2026, the 5th Circuit for the Western District of Louisiana ruled suppressors are bearable arms protected by the Second Amendment. This historic ruling means no state in the Fifth Circuit can ban suppressors, and we’re one step closer to the Supreme Court reaching the same conclusion.

The court ruling states, “Peterson left open the question whether silencers are Second Amendment ‘Arms.’. 161 F.4th at 339. They are. Under the Second Amendment, “Arms” comprises “weapons of offence,” “armour of defence,” and “anything that a man wears for his defence, . . . takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 581 (citation modified). To “bear arms,” in sum, means to “wear, bear, or carry . . . for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in case of conflict with another person.” Id. at 584 (ellipses in original). Silencers fit that definition.”

Ruling

We are neither surprised, not amused.

Ninth Circuit Rules Suppressors Are Not Second Amendment Arms

The Ninth Circuit just handed gun control lawyers another gift, and it came from exactly the kind of case Second Amendment advocates should dread.

In United States v. João Ricardo DeBorba, the court upheld a stack of federal gun convictions against a man who was unlawfully in the United States, had claimed U.S. citizenship on firearm-related paperwork, was subject to domestic violence no-contact orders, and was caught with firearms, ammunition, and an unregistered suppressor.

Bad cases still make law, and this one may do real damage. The most dangerous part of the ruling is not simply that DeBorba lost. Given the facts, that outcome was hardly surprising. The problem is that the Ninth Circuit went out of its way to say that suppressors, also called silencers, are not “arms” protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment.

The court treated suppressors as optional firearm accessories and said they are not covered because they are not necessary to the ordinary operation of a firearm. In other words, because a gun can technically fire without a suppressor, the court says a suppressor falls outside the Second Amendment.

A suppressor is not some decorative range toy. It protects hearing, reduces blast, improves communication, helps training, and makes shooting safer for the shooter and those nearby. Hunters use them. Instructors use them. Competitive shooters use them. Ordinary Americans use them. In much of the civilized world, suppressors are treated as basic safety equipment, not criminal contraband.

The Second Amendment does not protect only a stripped-down firearm in its most primitive form. It protects the right to keep and bear arms in a way that is useful, effective, and practical. Optics help a shooter hit what he is aiming at. Magazines feed the firearm. Lights help identify a threat. Suppressors help protect hearing and allow safer training and defensive use.

Constitutional attorney and AmmoLand contributor Mark W. Smith of The Four Boxes Diner hammered that point in his video breakdown of the decision. Smith argued that the court ignored the broader meaning of “arms” under Bruen, where an arm includes an instrument that facilitates armed self-defense. As Smith put it, the key is not whether an item is absolutely necessary, but whether it helps facilitate the protected right.

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The Push by Democrats to Ban One of the Commonly Owned Handguns in the US

Gun control advocates are trying a new tactic. Instead of trying to ban all handguns, some Democrat states are trying to ban one of the most commonly owned handguns – Glocks, which they claim can be easily converted into machine guns.

This week, Maryland’s Democrat Governor Wes Moore and Connecticut’s Democrat Governor Ned Lamont joined California by signing into law a ban on the manufacture, sale, purchase, and transfer of guns with a cruciform trigger bar. A cruciform trigger bar is a vital internal component of semi-automatic pistols—most notably Glock and Glock-style firearms. Named after its cross-like shape, it connects the trigger to the firing mechanism and plays a crucial role in the firearm’s safety and discharge sequence.

Legislatures in Illinois and New York are among the states actively considering bills to ban these firearms.

Lawsuits by the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation were immediately filed against Maryland’s new law. In landmark rulings starting with the District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court established that the Second Amendment protects “bearable arms” that are typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. The Court specifically contrasted these with “dangerous and unusual” weapons, stating that outright bans on common-use firearms (such as handguns) are unconstitutional.

New Jersey is now in a discovery process to subpoena Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) across the state for records involving Glock pistol sales to New Jersey residents.

Under a 1986 federal law, it is already illegal for ordinary civilians to manufacture or convert a firearm into a machine gun. Twenty-six states have similar laws. There is no evidence that law- abiding gun owners are converting their handguns, and even the advocates for these laws focus on only the threat from criminal gangs. Indeed, all 43 murders in the 20 U.S. attacks involving “Glock switches” that the Crime Prevention Research Center—which I head—has identified since the beginning of 2021 occurred during gang fights.

Over 65 percent of police departments in the U.S. issue or authorize Glock handguns for officers. In 2025, Glock had three of the six most popular semi-automatic handguns sold in the United States, with Sig having two of the top six.

These states argue that Glock knowingly designed and marketed pistols that criminals can easily convert into illegal machine guns using so-called “Glock switches.” They contend that Glock has known about the problem for years, ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement, and still refused to redesign its pistols to make those conversions more difficult.

Glock rejects the claim that its pistols are uniquely or unusually easy to convert. The company argues that its semiautomatic operating system does not differ fundamentally from those used in many other modern semiautomatic pistols. Glock pistols use a fairly conventional short- recoil, locked-breech design common throughout the handgun industry. Glock also maintains that criminals—not the manufacturer—bear responsibility for illegally modifying firearms with already-prohibited conversion devices.

Moreover, a Glock switch creates a firing mechanism fundamentally different from that of a true, fully automatic machine gun. A military-style machine gun uses an integrated fire-control system specifically engineered for automatic fire. By contrast, a Glock switch disrupts the pistol’s existing trigger-bar and reset mechanism. The device forces the trigger bar out of engagement and causes the pistol’s short-recoil action to cycle uncontrollably. Once the trigger is pulled, the firing continues until the gun exhausts its ammunition.

That crude method creates serious reliability and safety problems. Because the switch bypasses the pistol’s normal timing and reset functions, the firearm can discharge before the slide and chamber fully close and lock. As a result, the modification creates a real risk of catastrophic malfunction, including damage to the firearm and potentially serious injury to the shooter.

Common damage includes a destroyed or blown-open magazine, cracked or split receiver or upper, damaged or missing bolt, firing pin, extractor, ejector, operating springs, and stock.

Flying brass shards or case fragments can slice skin (hands, arms, face, cheek) or embed in tissue. Real incidents include a shooter’s thumb being sliced open “like a box cutter” with powder burns, or brass embedding in a shoulder, causing bleeding. Fragments can strike the face or eyes.

But others besides the shooter can also be harmed. “The problem about that is when you pull the trigger, you can’t stop it, the gun, the bullets are going to go and what we’re seeing is young people and adults can’t control their gun. … ” warned Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott. “You may hit a lot of innocent people, you may even hit people that’s on your team because you can’t control that gun.”

These laws don’t target criminals who are already breaking federal and state laws by illegally owning and using guns, let alone using illegal conversion devices; the laws are targeting millions of law-abiding Americans who own one of the country’s most common handguns. If courts allow states to ban Glocks because criminals can illegally modify them, no semiautomatic firearm will be safe from the same argument. The real solution is to prosecute the gangs and criminals using Glock switches—not to outlaw firearms that police and citizens have relied on safely for decades.

Trump DOJ: ‘Large Capacity Magazines’ Are ‘Actually Standard Issue Magazines’

Assistant AG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon noted “large capacity magazines” are “standard issue magazines” during an appearance Tuesday on NEWSMAX’s Carl Higbie Frontline.

She made this point while explaining why the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Denver’s “assault weapons” ban and Colorado’s ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds.

Breitbart News noted that the DOJ filed its suit against Denver on May 5, 2026, and then filed a suit against Colorado’s magazine ban the following day, May 6, 2026.

Dhillon told Higbie, “In the case of Denver, they have this fake term called ‘assault weapons’ and they use that to slant the public against [the] most commonly owned rifle in the United States…the AR-15.”

She continued, “The Supreme Court has made clear that commonly owned weapons that are used by law-abiding citizens for legal purposes are presumptively legal under the Second Amendment.”

 

Is ATF’s ‘Sporting Purposes’ Test A Dead Infringement Walking?

One of the oldest regulations that has impacted the ability of law-abiding gun owners to purchase firearms of their choice could be off the books soon.

During an April 29 press conference announcing that three major regulations imposed by the Biden administration were slated to be axed, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the Justice Department was also reviewing the “sporting purposes” test regulations initially implemented by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under the Gun Control Act of 1968. For about 20 years, the regulation was primarily used to restrict handgun imports through the so-called “factoring criteria” outlined on Form 4590 before it was used to target modern semiautomatic rifles that anti-Second Amendment groups labeled as “assault weapons” following a 1989 mass shooting in Stockton, California.

“ATF is studying right now to determine which rifles are generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes,” Blanche said during the press conference. “That’s going to be an ongoing effort over the next several months and we’re going to see that through.”

In 1989, the ATF ultimately blocked the importation of semiautomatic rifles that bore a superficial resemblance to military-issue assault rifles like the AK-47, FN FAL, Heckler and Koch G3 and the Steyr AUG. Nine years later, in 1998, the agency tightened the ban to include rifles capable of accepting standard magazines used in the military-issue rifles and their semi-automatic-only clones.

Anti-Second Amendment agitators and organizations often use the term “assault weapons” in order to gain support for banning semi-automatic firearms with features that give them a cosmetic similarity to firearms capable of fully-automatic operation. Fully-automatic firearms are already heavily regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934.

However, that test may not be around for long in light of the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence. In 2008, 40 years after the “sporting purposes” test was used to restrict firearms imports, the high court issued its ruling in Heller v. District of Columbia, in which it declared that self-defense is a lawful purpose for owning a firearm.

“The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,” former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion. “The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.”

The Supreme Court has since struck down other laws on Second Amendment grounds in McDonald v. Chicago and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Constitutional attorney Stephen Halbrook, one of the foremost Second Amendment scholars, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that those rulings could be a death knell for the “sporting purposes” test, which was used to ban the importation of modern semiautomatic rifles in the late 1980s and 1990s.

“Limitation of the import of firearms to those the government decides are particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes violates the Second Amendment,” Halbrook said. “In 1989 and again in 1998, the government arbitrarily decided that firearms previously considered sporting were no longer sporting.”

Halbrook also outlined how the ban could be taken down via litigation.

“A licensed importer would apply to ATF to import several specific semiauto rifles and include documents in support demonstrating that they are (per Heller) in common use for lawful purposes, including self-defense,” Halbrook told the DCNF. “After the permit is denied, the importer and persons wishing to purchase the rifles would be plaintiffs in a civil suit claiming denial of Second Amendment rights.”

ATF and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment from the DCNF.

Court Rules 2nd Amendment Covers Firearms Parts, Good News for Those Who Build Guns

What used to be a fringe hobby in the firearms world, building or customizing your own guns, is increasingly popular.

So, Wyomingites welcome a ruling by the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that the Second Amendment could apply to the buying, selling and possession of firearms parts without serial numbers.

AR-15 style rifles in particular can be built or customized to owners’ liking, using parts and accessories that can be purchased over-the-counter or ordered online.

“It’s like Barbie dolls for men. It’s all about accessorizing,” firearms enthusiast Nic George of Sheridan told Cowboy State Daily.

Court Rules On Colorado Case

At issue is whether the purchase, exchange and possession of firearms parts without serial numbers fall solely under state commercial regulations, or has Second Amendment implications.

The 10th Circuit Court on April 23 ruled the latter, Casper Attorney Ryan Semerad told Cowboy State Daily.

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Ruger Moves Corporate HQ from CT to Gun-Friendly North Carolina

Reports indicate that Ruger has shifted its headquarters from the state where it was founded to one more closely aligned with the Second Amendment.

Famously founded in 1949 in a small red barn in Southport, Connecticut, by William B. Ruger and Alexander McCormick Sturm, the now publicly traded firearms giant has moved its headquarters to Mayodan, North Carolina. The move, which was official in January, was confirmed by the Hartford Business Journal this week.

Ruger has long had a footprint in the Tar Heel State, with Bill Ruger attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in the 1930s before he went to work for the U.S. arsenal at Springfield Armory in World War II. The company announced its 191,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant at Mayodan in 2013. Since then, Ruger has added a 224,000 sq. ft. distribution center next to the plant, making Mayodan the largest of its operational hubs. When the company acquired Marlin Firearms in 2020, it moved the assets and assembly line from Huntsville, Alabama, to Mayodan.

Other Ruger plants include Newport, New Hampshire; Prescott, Arizona; Earth City, Missouri; and Hebron, Kentucky.

When it comes to gun rights, North Carolina doesn’t have permitless carry – although it has been approved in past legislative sessions – but the state does have a robust “shall-issue” concealed carry scheme with over 900,000 permits in circulation in 2025. Importantly, North Carolina does not have mandatory gun lock laws, a ban on “assault weapons,” or “red flag” gun seizure laws, all of which Connecticut residents suffer.

The Connecticut legislature is nearing a ban on Glock-style firearms this year, which would include the new and popular Ruger RXM. Connecticut has a state ban on binary triggers and bump stocks.

Further, Connecticut has a gun industry liability law that is somewhat at odds with the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, allowing controversial “predicate exception” lawsuits against gun industry members when it comes to the sale or marketing of firearms.

In terms of NFA items such as suppressors, machine guns, and short-barreled firearms, North Carolina had more than 252,000 registered in 2024, one of the highest totals in the country and nearly three times the number in Connecticut (93,297).

Although North Carolina has had a Democratic governor since 2017, he has been balanced by a majority-Republican legislature that has no sign of turning blue in the near future. Of North Carolina’s 14 members of Congress, 10 are from the GOP, as are both of its current U.S. Senators, Tom Tillis and Ted Budd. By comparison, all of Connecticut’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington are Dems, including some very rabid anti-gun champions such as Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.

Ruger isn’t the only gun company to leave Connecticut in recent years for more 2A climes, as Stag Arms moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, while PTR Industries shifted to South Carolina. Mossberg, whose headquarters are in North Haven, Connecticut, makes most of its guns at a facility in Eagle Pass, Texas.

New Jersey may have slipped up while defending its ammo ban

Attorneys for the state of New Jersey may have made a significant error while trying to fend off a Second Amendment challenge to the state’s ban on civilian possession of hollow-point ammunition in most circumstances.

The state prohibited civilians from carrying the rounds, which are almost universally used by law enforcement, in public as part of a 1978 overhaul of its criminal code, the only state to maintain such a restriction. In a lawsuit filed in February 2025 by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and other pro-Second Amendment organizations on behalf of Heidi Bergmann-Schoch in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the groups sought to have that prohibition thrown out as a violation of the Second Amendment.

“New Jersey must show a broad and enduring historical tradition, circa 1791, denying Americans’ right to carry a firearm, loaded with ammunition used by all other Americans in other states, outside the home for self-defense,” the initial complaint said. “Because New Jersey cannot make such a showing, the challenged restrictions violate the Second Amendment.”

“By invoking the international law of war and the practices of the U.S. military, Defendants hoist themselves with their own petard,” a reply brief filed Thursday adds. “Defendants’ sources prove that HPBs do not cause ‘unnecessary suffering,’ nor are they restricted for use in warfare. Rather, HPBs were originally developed for hunting, and are widely used by military and police units, and tens of millions of American citizens – nationwide.”

Hollow-point ammunition has been widely used by law enforcement and civilians for personal protection and other lawful purposes for decades. In a 1994 video interview, Massad Ayoob, a police officer who was an expert witness in the use of lethal force in self-defense, explained why hollow-point rounds were preferred for personal protection.

“I think the history both of military battle and police gunfight shows us that hard ball round that is, jacketed round nose, for jacketed round nose round, the nine-millimeter is justly infamous as an impotent man stopper and the .45 [ACP] is justly famous as, eh, being a pretty good man stopper,” Ayoob said in the interview, going on to note that both rounds tended to “perforate” – that is to exit the body of the target and potentially harm bystanders.

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Are Submachine Guns Really Becoming a Thing of the Past?
Well, when you can get an AR in 5.56 NATO that’s not much larger than a Subgun in 9mm, or even .45 ACP…

The sad death of the sub-machine gun

These iconic, sometimes crude, weapons are increasingly rare on today’s battlefields

There’s a tendency when looking back at the weapons we first carried into battle to remember them with a certain affection. Mine was a sub-machine gun: compact, purposeful and, at the time, entirely suited to the environment in which I expected to fight – in a tank.

With its stubby barrel, distinctive curved magazine and folding stock, my little Sterling was perfect for the confined, unforgiving interior of an armoured vehicle. Folded down, it could be stowed almost anywhere – behind charge bins, tucked into corners, ready when needed, invisible when not. It was, in every sense, a practical tank soldier’s tool.

In those days, the logic behind the sub-machine gun was sound. Close quarters demanded speed, volume of fire and manoeuvrability. If you were forced to dismount under fire, or if the enemy got too close to your vehicle, you needed something you could use instantly. The SMG did exactly that. It wasn’t elegant, but it didn’t need to be. It was brutally effective within its limits.

In the hands of resistance fighters during the dark years of the Second World War, weapons such as the Sten gun became instruments of defiance. Crude and often hastily manufactured, yet devastatingly effective in ambush and close-quarter engagements, they allowed irregular forces to strike with speed and then vanish into the shadows. There is little chivalry in that kind of warfare, but there is resolve; and the sub-machine gun, in that context, became almost symbolic of that resolve.

Unsurprising then, that it also became associated with organised crime. Tommy gun-wielding 1920s gangsters found much to admire in its qualities: concealability, controllable automatic fire, and an unmistakable capacity for intimidation. It is a reminder, if one were needed, that tools of war are morally neutral; their character is entirely defined by those who wield them.

Yet if there is a moment when the sub-machine gun achieved something approaching professional reverence, it was during the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London. When the SAS executed their assault – swift, decisive, and meticulously controlled – they did so armed with the MP5, a weapon that had, by then, refined the sub-machine gun concept to its zenith. What unfolded over those brief, violent minutes was not chaos, but choreography: precise entries, disciplined fire and an almost clinical application of force.


SAS troopers carry MP5 sub-machine guns as they enter the Iranian Embassy to end a six day siege in Central London, 1980 Credit: PA

But modern soldiers are no longer facing lightly equipped adversaries. The widespread adoption of advanced body armour, incorporating hardened ballistic plates, has fundamentally altered the dynamics of small-arms engagements. Pistol-calibre rounds, the lifeblood of the SMG, simply lack the velocity and energy required to defeat that protection reliably. In operational terms, that’s critical. A weapon that cannot neutralise a threat when it must is not just limited, it’s potentially dangerous to the man carrying it.

Range, too, has become a defining factor. Contemporary engagements rarely conform to the tight, urban or trench-bound distances of the early 20th century, despite recent reminders from conflicts such as those in Ukraine that close combat has not disappeared. Even there, however, the anticipated resurgence of the sub-machine gun has not materialised in any meaningful way. Soldiers require flexibility, the ability to engage at 50 metres or 300 metres without changing weapon systems. The SMG, by design, cannot offer that.

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