Matt Van Swol at it again:
WE CAN LAUNCH 4 HUMAN BEINGS OFF INTO THE EMPTY VOID OF SPACE TO TRAVEL A QUARTER-MILLION MILES TO SHOOT PHOTOS OF THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON…
…BUT WE CANNOT GET 60 PEOPLE IN BUILDING IN DC TO PASS A BILL THAT SAYS YOU SHOULD PROVE YOU’RE A CITIZEN TO VOTE.
I figured the demoncrap would
Gov. Beshear vetoes bill seeking to lower age for concealed carry permit
FRANKFORT, Ky. —
A bill that would have lowered the age to obtain a concealed carry permit in Kentucky has been vetoed by Gov. Andy Beshear.
Beshear announced Thursday he vetoed House Bill 312.
The bill sought to lower the age to get a concealed carry permit from 21 to 18.
He vetoed it alongside House Bill 78, which sought to “establish liability protections for manufacturers and sellers of firearms against specified legal actions arising from criminal or unlawful use of firearms or ammunition.”
“Three years ago, a senseless act of gun violence took the life of my friend Tommy and four others. Tonight, at an event honoring Tommy and his impact, I vetoed House Bills 78 and 312,” Beshear wrote in a post on X. “While I believe in the second amendment, these pieces of legislation would allow minors under the age of 21 to carry concealed deadly weapons and protect firearm manufacturers and sellers from liability for gun violence. We must take steps to protect our people and allow them to seek justice for deadly acts like those families have suffered from. Vetoing these bills was the right thing to do.”
While Beshear vetoed the two bills, lawmakers can override them once they reconvene on April 14-15.
Of course the current governor of Kentucky is a demoncrap, so we’ll see if he vetoes it.
HB 312 allowing adults under 21 to bear arms sent to governor
FRANKFORT – Members of the General Assembly voted to approve HB 312. This bill, sponsored by State Representative Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge, is a straightforward but important statutory update that would allow eligible, law-abiding Kentucky adults between the ages of 18 and 20 to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
“This measure recognizes that many responsible young adults already legally vote, sign contracts, join the military, serve in combat, start a family, own a business, and work in law enforcement fields, yet under current law, these adults are prohibited from carrying a firearm concealed for self-defense,” Maddox said. “This creates a dangerous inconsistency. If we recognize their adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it in every other area, we can’t deny them the ability to protect themselves and their loved ones.”
HB 312 would allow law-abiding Kentuckians age 18 to 20 years-of-age to obtain a provisional concealed carry license, which has the same requirements as Kentucky’s standard concealed carry license: background check, training, and proficiency in handling and operating a firearm.
“This bill strikes the right balance between individual liberty and personal responsibility by ensuring that young adults who choose to carry a firearm do so through a clear, lawful process,” Maddox said. “The Second Amendment is clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Adults 20 and under are very much part of the people. State law should recognize those rights equally.”
The measure would align Kentucky with 25 other states that recognize that law-abiding citizens age 18 to 20 have a constitutional right to carry concealed for self-defense.
“I believe in constitutional carry for all law-abiding American adults. This bill is a good faith step forward that meets in the middle and gives young adults a lawful path to exercise their rights,” said State Senator Aaron Reed, R-Shelbyville, who carried the bill in the Senate. “This matters because every adult deserves a right to defend themselves, especially our daughters, who today are often left without that clear protection.”
Virginia Illustrates Insidious Anti-Gun Threat
I’ve joked before that Virginia’s politics swing back and forth like an unlatched screen door in a hurricane. From red to blue to red to blue, all so fast it makes your head spin.
But last year’s elections opened the door for a lot of troubling things in Virginia, up to and including their redistricting plan that seeks to essentially wipe out Republican representation from the state, and with it, support for gun rights. Sure, there’s one district, but only because there was no way to gerrymander the state badly enough to make it solid blue.
However, Virginia reveals an insidious threat because the state is too purple to suddenly swing this far left.
Progressive groups are behind a wave of tougher restrictions on firearms, wielding a quiet power that Second Amendment proponents worry could unravel gun rights in friendly territory.
Earlier this month, Virginia lawmakers sent a spate of gun bills tightening firearms restrictions to Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s (D-VA) desk. It’s a development fueled by Moms Demand Action, and one that one of the country’s most prominent pro-gun rights organizations fears foreshadows things to come in other purple states.
“Virginia is a purple state, and so having this sweeping, massive gun control package in the state that’s got a lot of gun owners, to see that happen and happen so rapidly should really be alarming to everybody in this country,” National Rifle Association’s Director of Public Affairs, Justin Davis, told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s really just a blueprint of what’s to come in this country. This is a trial balloon for the midterm elections,” he said. “They’re seeing what they can pass in a purple state? What is the backlash from that? And how do people react?”…
Davis said many such state races can be “so easily” flipped with small “injections“ of cash. Due to progressive activism, every state is “ripe for flipping at any time,” he said.
“To think that the stuff they’re pushing here is happening in Virginia should wake up every single purple state in the country, any place that is, it was in the realm of what a ‘moderate state’ is that there’s a very well-trained, very concerted effort to get progressives elected positions,” Davis said. “There are people who literally look at these races, race by race, and say, ‘How do we make sure that we can flip this for a broader scale, to flip this state to pass these same leftist laws?’”
Groups like Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety are specifically named for injecting a significant amount of cash into the race, and the truth of the matter is that these groups will run ads that feature policies other than gun control, usually pretty progressive ones.
So what happens is that for a few million dollars, they can push a candidate who might not appear all that bad in the grand scheme of things–remember, Spanberger tried to position herself as a moderate, and a lot of people listened–only to take office and start trying to run the table with things like gun control.
Virginia is a purple state, but the current agenda in Richmond looks like something you’d expect in California.
No, it doesn’t help that Virginia governors can only serve a single term at a time, thus meaning they never have to worry about re-election. That means they can trot out their agenda on day one, and other than the midterms, there’s nothing stopping them from going as far left or right as they’d like. In this case, it means trotting out the most ridiculous anti-gun agenda you’re ever going to see in any part of the South.
This is something we need to be on guard against and work to counter if we don’t want to see our rights destroyed at the state level.
If you want to crystalize the problems Democrats are having with young White men, consider, that, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah McBride is the only White Christian Democrat man under 40 in Congress. pic.twitter.com/Z2ViPHh3Aa
— Jeremy Carl (@realJeremyCarl) March 23, 2026
How SBRs and SBSs Got Trapped in the NFA’s 1934 Gun Control Scheme
The story of how short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and short-barreled shotguns (SBSs) ended up regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 is one of the clearest examples of unnecessary federal overreach, bureaucratic accident, and enduring infringement on Second Amendment rights. What began as a panicked response to 1930s gangster violence morphed into a permanent regulatory trap that punishes law-abiding Americans for owning common, useful firearms, configurations that have legitimate sporting, defensive, and historical purposes, while doing virtually nothing to stop actual crime.
In the early 1930s, America was gripped by sensational headlines about organized crime: the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Bonnie and Clyde’s exploits, and Al Capone’s Thompson submachine guns. Politicians and the media hyped “gangster weapons,” with sawed-off shotguns singled out as tools of the underworld. Attorney General Homer Cummings and the Justice Department pushed for federal action, but they knew an outright ban on firearms would likely violate the Second Amendment. Instead, they cleverly used Congress’s taxing power to create a de facto prohibition through heavy fees, registration, and paperwork.
The initial bill, H.R. 9066, was far broader than the bill that passed. It targeted machine guns, silencers, short-barreled shotguns and rifles (under 18 inches), handguns, pistols, and revolvers.
The $200 transfer tax (equivalent to roughly $4,800–$5,000 today) was designed to be prohibitive, pricing ordinary citizens out while supposedly tracking criminals. To close an obvious loophole, drafters added short-barreled rifles and shotguns: if handguns were taxed and registered, a criminal (or citizen) could simply buy a cheap rifle or shotgun and saw it down to handgun-like concealability, bypassing the rules entirely.
GOA:
WV: Setting the Record Straight on SB 1071
In recent days, West Virginia Senate President Randy Smith released a public statement regarding SB 1071, the Public Defense and Provisioning Act. His comments have created confusion about the bill’s drafting, legality, and level of expert review.
It is essential that West Virginians have the full and accurate factual record. Many of the claims made about SB 1071 do not reflect the truth, and the following information provides a clear, fact-driven response based on verifiable legal authorities and documented expert analysis.
The fight for modern firearms equality began in early February. West Virginia made national history when it became the first state in America to introduce legislation authorizing the lawful sale of post-1986 machine guns under the federal carve-out in 18 U.S.C.922(o)(2)(A).
SB 1071 immediately ignited excitement among legislators, industry leaders, and grassroots supporters. Other states quickly took notice—several have already copied West Virginia’s language, and more are preparing to introduce their own versions.
A flash poll conducted by Gun Owners of America showed overwhelming enthusiasm among West Virginians, with 94 percent saying their out-of-state family and friends would be more likely to move to West Virginia if this bill became law. The momentum was real, and the nation was watching.
SB 1071 was introduced by Senator Chris Rose, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the committee advanced the bill with overwhelming support. But immediately after that vote, the bill seemed to vanish.
Chairman Tom Willis, who had reported the bill out of Judiciary, was himself confused about why it had not moved to the Finance Committee as expected. This unusual stall prompted West Virginians across the state to begin calling their Senators, demanding Sen. Chris Rose (left), sponsor of SB 1071, stands with Senate President Randy Smith.
answers about what had happened to a bill that had just passed committee with overwhelming support.
In response to the growing public concern, Senate President Randy Smith publicly stated that he personally made the decision to halt SB 1071, clarifying that the choice did not come from Chairman Willis or the Judiciary Committee. This admission dramatically shifted the understanding of events. What many initially believed to be procedural delay within Judiciary now appeared to be a direct intervention from Senate leadership.
Additionally, several advocates and legal experts have raised serious concerns that President Smith may have been relying on information provided by an outside individual who strongly opposed SB 1071 and may have misrepresented key legal facts about the bill.
According to these observers, this misinformation appears to have played a significant role in shaping the Senate President’s decision—ultimately stopping a bill that had strong public support, clear legislative interest, and validation from some of the most respected constitutional attorneys in the country.
This context is essential for understanding how SB 1071 was derailed and why an accurate factual record matters as West Virginians evaluate what happened and determine the path forward.
ATLANTA, GA – The Georgia Senate has passed legislation that would strengthen legal protections for people who use force in defense of themselves or others.
Senate Bill 572 passed the Georgia Senate on March 6 by a vote of 30 to 23. The measure has now moved to the Georgia House of Representatives. It received its first and second readings on March 9 and March 10 and is currently pending before the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.
The bill was sponsored by Senators Brian Strickland, Jason Anavitarte, Randy Robertson, Steven McNeel, Bo Hatchett, and Blake Tillery. The legislation proposes several changes to Georgia law related to justification defenses, immunity from prosecution, and civil liability following a defensive use of force.
Below is a breakdown of the major provisions included in the bill.
It’s easy to tell when a politician favors state power over the rights of the people
Wyoming Governor Vetoes Second Amendment Protection Act
For the second year in a row, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has vetoed legislation aimed at preventing law enforcement from enforcing federal gun laws. Gordon’s veto was hardly unexpected, given that last week he called the proposed amendments to the state’s Second Amendment Protection Act an “embarrassment” and described it as fundraising disguised as legislation.
Gordon, who vetoed a similar bill last year, cast it as an affront to local law enforcement during the radio show.
“So, when you have 23 sheriffs come in and say, ‘This Second Amendment protection act does nothing more than what we already have in law, except it imposes penalties on our local law enforcement — and criminal charges, potentially.’ That is devastating,” Gordon said.
He continued: “It’s a bill that’s brought from out-of-state interests. It’s a fundraising thing. And I’m sick of Wyoming people being used as, you know, some treasure trough, some well of funding.”
Gordon’s veto drew condemnation from groups like Firearms Policy Coalition, which had some choice words for the governor in response to his post on X about rejecting the legislation.
Gordon may enjoy the taste of shoe leather, but it’s also worth noting that just like last year, this session’s SAPA bill was heavily pushed by Wyoming Gun Owners, one of multiple groups run by the Dorr brothers, who bill their groups as “no compromise” organizations but have been accused of primarily using the Second Amendment as a grift by politicians and other 2A activists (Incidentally, the Dorrs also set up a 501(c)3 called Six Brothers Disaster Relief, Inc. that had its non-profit status revoked by the IRS in 2022 after failing to file its Form 990 disclosures three years in a row).
While Gordon may be right about Wyoming Gun Owners’ real mission, though, this years SAPA bill did get majority support in both chambers… including buy in from the handful of Democrats in the legislature,
Trump Says He Won’t Sign Any New Legislation Until the SAVE Act Is Passed
President Donald Trump has signaled that the SAVE America Act is now the single greatest legislative priority ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. He announced Sunday morning on Truth Social that he would not be signing any other bills until the Senate forces the election integrity bill through the gridlock of the silent filibuster.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that he is completely fine with shutting the Senate down, and that Democrats pass the bill to secure American elections under end circumstances. Polling numbers have shown that Democrats are wildly opposed to the will of even their own voters, as a new poll has shown that half of Democrat voters support voter ID measures. The poll showed that nearly 70 percent of independents want these common sense measures as well.
The bill is such a high priority for Republicans that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton indicated that he would be willing to suspend his campaign against Sen. John Cornyn if GOP leadership would end the silent filibuster to pass the SAVE Act.
Virginia House Passes Amended Version of Senate’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban
Virginia Democrats continue to advance a number of gun control bills, with the House of Delegates approving an amended version of the Senate’s ban on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines on Wednesday.
The major change to the legislation is the new definition of “large capacity” magazines, which is now arbitrarily set at 15 rounds instead of 10. The House version of the gun and magazine ban was also modified in a Senate committee on Wednesday, and it looks to me like the two bills are now compatible with each other, which would avoid the need for a conference committee to negotiate on the final language for the bills once they’ve been approved by both chambers.
The Senate’s vote on HB 217 could come as early as today, and Gov. Abigail Spanberger could conceivably sign the bill into law next week. Interestingly, Spanberger has yet to sign any of the gun control bills that have passed out of the General Assembly, including a gun storage mandate and an expansion of the state’s “red flag” law.
With the legislature set to adjourn on March 14, my guess is that Spanberger will wait until the Democrats entire anti-2A package is ready for her to sign, and then she’ll make a big press event complete with representatives from all the major gun control organizations. So what else is likely to pass between now and next Saturday?
Based on the Virginia Citizens Defense League’s legislation tracker, I think we can expect the following infringements to be enacted into law:
– legislation allowing gun makers, distributors, and sellers to be sued for the actions of criminals under a public nuisance standard and for violating a vague “code of conduct” imposed on the industry.
– a ban on the possession and manufacture of unserialized firearms
– a $500 penalty and the towing of any vehicle where a firearm is left visible inside
– an end to Virginia’s universal reciprocity for concealed carry licenses and a much more restrictive standard put in place by the anti-gun Attorney General
– the creation of the Virginia Center for Firearm Violence Intervention and Prevention, which will serve as a job placement program for the gun control lobby as well as creating and pushing junk research aimed at promoting gun control efforts.
– turning all state-owned or leased buildings into “gun-free zones”
– a firearm “give back” program allowing people to turn their firearms over to the state police
– a ban on openly carrying most long guns in places open to the public
– creating a new “gun free zone” starting 100 feet outside of any polling place or outside a building where a local electoral board is meeting
– new requirements for mandated concealed carry training courses, including instructor certification by the Department of Criminal Justice Services
Some items, like a proposed “permit-to-purchase,” an 11% excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition, and a $500 tax on the sale of suppressors, have been pushed back until 2027, but Democrats haven’t entirely given up on those ideas.
Earlier today I noted the effect that these gun control bills are having on Virginia gun sales, but they’re also having an impact on local politics. On Wednesday the Virginia Citizens Defense League provided an update on the resurgence of the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement in the Commonwealth, and reported there are now 48 localities and sheriffs that have reaffirmed their stances. I’m happy to say that includes my home county. The full list can be found here, and VCDL has also provided links to comments made by some sheriffs, like this from Campbell County Sheriff Whit Clark.
Considering the proposed Virginia Firearms legislation, the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office reaffirms its unwavering support for the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office will not infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to legally possess obtained firearms, magazines, ammunition, or related equipment.
It is the heritage of citizens of Campbell County to bear arms for hunting and sport and to have for their protection for the use for self-defense. The residents of Campbell County are responsible gun owners who value safety, liberty and the rule of law.
As your Sheriff, I remain committed to ensuring public safety while steadfastly defending your constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Our office will continue to serve this community with integrity, respect and dedication.
I’d like to see every sheriff in the Commonwealth go on the record as Clark has, and I encourage Virginia gun owners to reach out to their county supervisors and sheriffs and encourage them to take a public stand in support of our Second Amendment rights and against the flagrant attack on those rights by the Democrat majority in Richmond. We aren’t going to be able to defeat many of these infringements at the statehouse, but we can and will fight them in court… and we can also press our local law enforcement to exercise their discretion not to enforce any laws that trample on our civil liberties.
Senate Republicans Shoot Down Iran War Powers Resolution
Senate Republicans successfully defeated a vote Wednesday on the Iran War Powers resolution, which would require President Donald Trump to make his case to Congress before taking additional military actions against Iran.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine forced the vote on the war powers resolution, which comes after the Senate voted down a similar effort when the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear sites last June.
The vote comes as the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran over the weekend, killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has retaliated by launching missiles at Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
The motion to advance the resolution out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee failed by a vote of 47-53, according to The Hill.
UPDATE: Backdoor Politics at play? West Virginia Senator Tom Willis just PULLED SB1071, the machinegun bill, from consideration. Call him NOW at (304) 357-7867 and urge
him to force a recorded vote on SB 1071 TODAY!
Please share this post so others can see and act. #westvirginia… pic.twitter.com/YHhygfxcvh— Guns&Gadgets (@Guns_Gadgets) February 27, 2026
Kentucky HB 749 Follows West Virginia in Expanding Citizens’ Access to Modern Machine Guns
In a decisive move that reaffirms Kentucky’s proud heritage as a constitutional carry state and a bulwark for unalienable rights, Rep. TJ Roberts (R-Burlington) introduced House Bill 749 on February 25, 2026. This landmark legislation establishes an Office of Public Defense within the Kentucky State Police, tasked with acquiring and transferring modern, select-fire machine guns directly to law-abiding citizens. HB 749 is nothing short of revolutionary: it weaponizes a clear federal exemption to dismantle the artificial, unconstitutional barriers erected by the 1986 Hughes Amendment, restoring to Kentuckians the very arms the Founding Fathers intended for a well-regulated militia and the security of a free state.
Rep. Roberts, a steadfast defender of the Second Amendment who just days ago voted against HB 299, the GOP-backed bill criminalizing Glock switches, has long argued that law-abiding citizens deserve parity with the very tools carried by law enforcement and the military. “Federal law explicitly allows states to sell machine guns to their citizens,” Roberts declared upon filing the measure. His bill does exactly that, sidestepping the Hughes Amendment’s post-1986 registration ban through 18 U.S.C. § 922(o)(2)(A), which carves out transfers “to or by” a state or under its authority. No more overpaying for pre-1986 “transferables” that now fetch $25,000 to $60,000 on the collector market.
Kentucky residents who pass a standard background check may soon be able to purchase true military-pattern full-auto firearms at reasonable prices, AR-15/M16 platforms, squad automatic weapons (SAW), submachine guns, and the arms “in common use” for militia purposes.
Firearm industry ‘responsible controls’ legislation is existential threat to gun owners
Anti-gun activists think they have figured out a way around the Second Amendment, democratic accountability, and the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to impose a limitless raft of gun control on the American people.
The strategy is to enact what civilian disarmament advocates term “firearm industry responsibility” laws in anti-gun states. These laws impose a duty on members of the firearms industry to institute “reasonable controls” over the sale and distribution of their products, on top of the mountains of explicit state and federal statutes and regulations they are tasked to comply with, lest they face ruinous civil liability.
The term “reasonable controls” is vague and ill-defined, resulting in the decidedly unreasonable circumstance where gun industry members can’t know how to comply with the law. These statutes empower anti-gun government officials to abuse the vague language in a manner that imposes ever-expanding restrictions on the industry and its customers, limited only by the officials’ imagination. Moreover, this legislation impacts not just firearms dealers, manufacturers, and distributors as they would be understood under federal law, but includes any business involved in the stream of commerce for ammunition or any other firearm-related products.
The goal is to use the threat of devastating civil liability to force the firearms industry to restrict the rights of themselves and their customers by instituting gun controls that were not enacted (and often rejected) through the democratic process and may be found unconstitutional if imposed directly by government. The entire enterprise is a grotesque and cynical evasion of democratic accountability and constitutional review.
Thus far, 10 states have enacted versions of this legislation, with extremist gun control advocates in Virginia also seeking to enact a variant (HB21) at present.
Democrats’ gun grab collapses as major anti-2A bills go down in flames
In the final stretch of New Mexico’s legislative session, two sweeping gun control measures championed by progressive Democrats have effectively collapsed — a major victory for New Mexicans’ Second Amendment rights.
Senate Bill 17, the so-called “Stop Illegal Gun Trade and Extremely Dangerous Weapons Act,” was rolled indefinitely in the House Judiciary Committee, halting what critics described as one of the most aggressive gun control packages ever introduced in New Mexico. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 261, which sought to dramatically expand so-called “gun-free zones” around polling places and ballot drop boxes, failed to advance out of the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee after Ranking Member Rep. John Block forcefully exposed what he called “massive holes” in the legislation.
According to reporting from the Santa Fe New Mexican, the bill’s sponsors admitted the bill’s effective death, with state Sen. Debbie O’Malley telling the outlet, “There’s not enough time to hear it again.”
Missouri Senator Introduces Second Amendment Financial Privacy Measure
A measure introduced in the Missouri state Senate on February 9 is designed to protect the privacy of lawful gun owners and gun purchasers in the Show Me State.
Senate Bill 216, the “Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act,” was introduced by Republican state Sen. Jill Carter and presented in the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee. The measure would prohibit government entities from keeping a list, record or registry of privately-owned firearms.
Records may be maintained during a criminal investigation and prosecution of gun ownership. It also bans credit card networks from using a merchant category code (MCC) to differentiate firearm sales from other transactions.
At issue is a relatively new MCC for gun purchases adopted by the International Organization for Standardization in early 2023. MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize transactions. Prior to the creation of the specific gun code, firearms retailers were classified under the MCC as sporting goods stores or miscellaneous retail.
When the new code is used, credit card companies and other payment processors can tell that the purchases were firearms, creating a de facto gun registry. The U.S. Senate is currently considering a measure that would ban use of the gun-specific MCC nationwide.
BLUF
Draconian restrictions on the right to armed self-defense in public don’t make peaceable and law-abiding citizens safer. They just render them far less capable of defending themselves and others.
Look at the Defensive Gun Uses that Hawaii Wants to Criminalize.
Late last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, a case challenging a newly imposed Hawaii law that presumptively bans concealed carry permit holders from any private property open to the public (like gas stations and shopping malls) unless they first get express permission from the owner. Combined with other restrictions, the law has the practical effect of making lawful public carry virtually impossible in Hawaii.
Fortunately, the nation’s highest court appears likely to strike down the new restriction. But there’s still so much work left for the court to do when it comes to protecting the right to keep and bear arms—including, specifically, against infringements by the Hawaiian government. Even without the express permission requirement hanging over their heads, Hawaiian concealed carry permit holders will still be prohibited from exercising their rights in an absurdly long list of “sensitive places.”
These include, among other locations:
Any bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, regardless of whether the permit holder imbibes;
Any “stadium, movie theater, or concert hall”;
Any place at which any sporting event of any level of competition is being held;
Any beach, playground, or park, including “any state park, state monument, county park, tennis court, golf course, swimming pool, or other recreation area or facility under control, maintenance, and management of the State or a county”;
Any parking area adjacent to the prohibited locations above.
Constitutionally, it’s abhorrent. As a matter of public policy, it’s laughable – and dangerous.
Personally, I’d rather such laws didn’t get enacted rather than live through the years it takes for a case to get through the court system
OSD 364: Gun control is quietly having a moment
Huh, normally we like retro vibes.
A few months ago, in “OSD 352: ‘Gun rights are winning and nobody has realized it’, 2025 edition”, we checked in on state-level gun control laws:
Delaware passed an assault weapons ban in 2022 and Illinois and Washington passed one in 2023. Colorado is going to have a permit-to-purchase regime for “assault weapons” in 2026. Those were major setbacks. Previously, we had often cited the pleasing fact that all seven states with AWBs had originally passed them between 1989 and 1994. The idea was that AWBs weren’t a trend, they were a relic from a moral panic. That is no longer entirely true.
This hasn’t been a big topic because it happened on state by state, but it is a sea change. From 1994 to 2022, no state changed its mind in favor of AWBs. But that equilibrium — seven states with AWBs and 43 without — no longer holds. In addition to the states above, Virginia and New Mexico look to be on their way to bans of their own in 2026.
It’s a mirror image of the concealed carry revolution. That also happened state by state, and most of the country was shall-issue before most people even knew that was a trend. The same could happen with AWBs. What will decide that is whether guns continue to build cultural momentum and whether the courts get involved.
On that latter point, a New Mexico ban might have a silver lining. It’s in jurisdiction of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike the circuit courts covering, say, California or New York or Massachusetts, the Tenth Circuit might strike down an AWB. That could generate a circuit split, since other circuit courts to look at the issue have upheld AWBs. And a circuit split makes it likelier for the Supreme Court to accept an AWB case. Justice Kavanaugh has already basically announced that the Court is looking to take such a case in the next 1-2 years.
There’s a “you know you’re over the target when you’re taking flak” aspect to expansions of individual rights. As the rights gain momentum, they provoke a backlash of crackdowns from governments that are hostile to them. So the moment of most contentious backlash is the moment right before you win. But a right has to survive long enough to break through to that point. Keep at it.
Political grandstanding has always been fraught with the danger that the politician and his staff are just stupid enough to make a public fool of the politician. And sometimes this stupidity should hurt.
DOJ Officials Claim Thomas Massie Just Made an Unbelievable Error
Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna may have gotten themselves into hot water after falsely accusing four men of being tied to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein in front of Congress.
Ro Khanna read the names of six people on the House floor and described them as “wealthy, powerful men” involved in Epstein’s crimes.
It turns out that 4 of them were just random people selected for an FBI photo lineup and had no connection to Epstein’s crimes. https://t.co/upSpLpYR96 pic.twitter.com/bbANktq9zZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 13, 2026
The pair claimed that four names, which the Department of Justice redacted in the release of the files, were “powerful men” engaged in connected to Epstein, but those men were simply randomly selected for a police line up and had zero real connection to the case.
Massive and Khanna claim that the fault in the false accusations lies with Department of Justice officials, stating that the DOJ “illegally redacted names without explanation and then refused to give context for the names once they redacted.”
“And you see no reason why those men’s names are redacted in these files?”
“No, unless they were in some random lineup, but this requires the DOJ to respond to it.”
I’m posting this transcript from Monday for the finger pointers at DOJ (and their paid bot swarm) who are trying… pic.twitter.com/nEN4UDomSK
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 14, 2026
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon say that the pair jumped onto social media and in front of Congress to wave the men in front of the country rather than reach out to the DOJ for clarification beforehand.
The two have faced calls online to resign for airing the names of innocent men, with some saying that they have no interest in the victims and are only pursuing the matter for attention.
