Category: RKBA
A SCOTUS Petition Argues That the Second Amendment Requires Carry-Permit Reciprocity
Meanwhile, the top court of Massachusetts considers whether the state can deny carry permits to applicants who are deemed “unsuitable.”
Four years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment precludes states from requiring that people demonstrate a “special need” before they are allowed to carry handguns in public for self-defense. But it added that “nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality” of licensing regimes “designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.'”
Two pending cases raise interesting questions about the constraints that Bruen imposes on state carry-permit policies. In Johnson v. Jacobson, a long-haul trucker with carry permits issued by Florida and Georgia is asking the Supreme Court to reject Minnesota’s insistence that he also obtain a license from that state if he wants to bear arms there. And in Pratt v. Westbrook, an unsuccessful carry permit applicant is asking the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to hold that the state’s “suitability” requirement violates the Second Amendment.
Jeffrey Johnson, who is represented by the Liberty Justice Center (LJC), hauls cargo “across the United States and makes regular, annual trips to or through Minnesota,” according to the Supreme Court petition he filed on Tuesday. “Because of the dangers posed to long-haul truck drivers, Johnson always carries a handgun with him for self-defense. But when he travels to Minnesota, state law requires him to unload his weapon and secure it in a container because Minnesota does not grant firearm license reciprocity to fifteen states, including Florida and Georgia.”
That situation, the LJC argues, is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. “Once a person proves he is a law-abiding citizen, he is entitled to carry a gun in public for self-defense,” says LJC Senior Counsel Ryan Morrison. “Constitutional rights, the Second Amendment included, do not require someone to prove their worthiness to exercise their civil liberties over and over again. Forcing someone to carry a Rolodex of firearm licenses to maintain his constitutional rights across the nation reduces the Second Amendment to second-class status and subjects it to an entirely different body of rules than the other rights secured by the Constitution.”
Trump’s Solicitor General Seeks 10 Minutes Before SCOTUS to Argue Against AR-15 Bans
President Donald Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer is asking the Supreme Court of the United States to grant him ten minutes to argue in favor of AR-15 rifles when the Court weighs the constitutionality of “assault weapons” bans.
On June 30, 2026, Breitbart News reported that SCOTUS agreed to hear Grant v. Higgins, a case centering on whether AR-15 ownership is protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. A second case, consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, is Viramontes v. Cook County, and it centers on Cook County’s “assault weapons” ban.
Oral arguments re: AR-15s and AR-15 ownership will take place before SCOTUS on December 2, 2026. The Solicitor General is seeking time before the Court to contend that bans on AR-15s are unconstitional.
FPC LEGAL UPDATE: The federal government has asked the Supreme Court for permission to join the oral arguments in our "assault weapon" lawsuit (in support of us). https://t.co/XgJYe8Y5pv pic.twitter.com/WBFahWPaVt
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 9, 2026
In the motion for time before SCOTUS, Solicitor General Sauer wrote, “These cases present the question whether a categorical ban on the possession of AR-15 semiautomatic rifles infringes the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The United States has filed a brief as amicus curiae supporting petitioners, arguing that such a ban is unconstitutional.”
Pro-Gun Groups File More Amicus Briefs in Viramontes
The cases of Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins are, in essence, one and the same. They challenge assault weapon bans in Illinois and Connecticut, respectively, and they’re perhaps set to be one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of our lifetimes. Yes, bigger than Bruen, Heller, or McDonald.
I don’t say that lightly.
But they matter. They matter so much that pro-gun groups are dropping their amicus briefs. We’ve noted a few already, but I’ve got two more for you today.
First, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
From a statement sent to Bearing Arms:
>“In our brief,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “we take a scholarly journey through the history of arms regulation; not just firearms, but other arms including swords, knives and other lawful arms. Nowhere in history is there any justification for outright bans of any arms, only the regulation of their misuse. As we explain, AR-15-style rifles serve recognized lawful purposes for home and personal defense, hunting, target shooting, organized competition and pest and predator control.”
Studies estimate that firearms labeled “assault weapons” account for well under one percent of violent crimes, the brief says, while such firearms are “commonly possessed safeguards used for lawful purposes—not instruments outside lawful use and not identified with violent criminality.”
“It is gratifying to see that CCRKBA is in very good company with our historical amicus brief,” Gottlieb said. “We are taking sides with 27 state attorneys general, with the U.S. Department of Justice, with law enforcement groups and literally ever other major firearms civil rights organization in the country. We all know what is at stake when the Court hears oral arguments in December, and the Citizens Committee is proud to stand in support of the Constitution and we are confident the Second Amendment will prevail.”
A similar stat about these weapons being used in one percent of crimes was echoed in a statement by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership.
It was followed by this:
“AR15s and other modern sporting rifles are indisputably in common use for all manner of lawful purposes by the American people and, therefore, cannot be banned,” said JPFO Projects Director, James Jones. “Anti-liberty groups who want to abolish the Second Amendment and the right it protects have tried for years to ban one class of firearm after another providing nothing but false rhetoric and misguided emotion as evidence to justify the unjust prohibitions. We’re confident the Supreme Court will see through their schemes and will rely on the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment.”
Jones is 100 percent correct, for the record.
The term “lawful purposes” isn’t limited to self-defense use. It means any lawful purpose, from shooting three-gun competitions to a day at the range to even sitting there and looking at it because it looks dope. Those are all perfectly legal practices, and the AR-15 fits in that niche, too.
Because of that, it cannot be lawfully banned.
Plus, it’s not used in crime that often, and when it is, there’s no evidence that the criminal who used it wouldn’t have just opted for another firearm had the evil “assault weapon” been unavailable.
Gottlieb is also correct in that there is no historical justification for the complete prohibition of a particular type of firearm. It just doesn’t exist, and while the anti-gun zealots will undoubtedly try to manipulate laws about things like Bowie knives to justify the bans, it just shouldn’t fly. They’re different and from a different era.
Viramontes is going to be one of the biggest decisions of our lifetime, whether the anti-gunners like it or not.
Missouri AG Catherine Hanaway Sues ATF over Suppressor Registration
Yet, as the release points out, “Even so, the federal government continues to enforce extensive registration and data‑collection requirements, backed by criminal penalties, that Missouri argues no longer have a valid constitutional justification and conflict with the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”
Hanaway said, “Law and order and the Second Amendment go hand in hand. A government that respects the Constitution has empowered, law‑abiding citizens who can protect themselves and their families. It does not paper over rights with red tape.”
She added, “The ATF’s heavy-handed restrictions on suppressors threaten lawful firearm use and undermine the rights protected by the Second Amendment.”
Hanaway’s case, in which she is joined by plaintiff Dave Marshak, is filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
On August 5, 2026, Breitbart News noted that plaintiffs in the case brought by Silencer Shop, Palmetto State Armory, and others, secured a ruling that the suppressor registration requirements were unconstitutional. The ruling was handed down in the United States District Court Northern District of Texas San Angelo Division.
All eyes are now on the ATF as those licensed for suppressor and short barrel rifle and shotgun sales await implementation guidelines.
Maryland Synagogue Challenges Restrictive Gun Law
Montgomery County officials want to prevent houses of worship from making security decisions.
Houses of worship are often targeted by people with murder on their minds. That’s especially true of synagogues, which were disproportionately attacked even before October 7 and have since been on the receiving end of the “antizionist” reframing of hatred of Jews. But in Montgomery County, Maryland, officials recently renewed efforts to forbid the carrying of firearms within 100 yards of “places of public assembly,” including churches and synagogues. Now, some security volunteers are defying the intrusive law as they await the outcome of courtroom pushback against the restrictions.
Violating the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments
“Today, the Justice Department filed suit against Montgomery County, Maryland (County). The complaint alleges that the County’s newly enacted Bill 23-26 violates the Second Amendment by prohibiting law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms in daily life,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced on August 3. “Bill 23-26 prohibits carrying firearms at thousands of locations, and also creates an arbitrary 100-yard exclusion zone around each location. The law applies even if the person carrying a firearm is duly licensed and has the express consent of the property owner.”
DOJ Files Amicus to Supreme Court on Gun Ban Cases
The Department of Justice has filed a 40-page amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the consolidated cases of Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut), which will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 2 beginning at 10 a.m.
The document, signed by Solicitor General John D. Sauer and Assistant Attorneys General Harmeet Dhillon and Brett A. Schumate, includes some blockbuster observations from an agency that has historically not been supportive of Second Amendment challenges to state and local gun control laws/
“The right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment is among the “fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 778 (2010). Millions of Americans exercise that right by owning an AR-15 rifle, which is ‘the most popular rifle in the country.’ Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 297 (2025). Yet the State of Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, have made the possession of AR-15s a crime.”
That paragraph is immediately followed by this: “AR-15s a crime. Those bans are unconstitutional. A firearms re striction comports with the Second Amendment only if it is ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’ NYSRPA v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 24 (2022). And this country’s regulatory tradition precludes banning arms that are ‘in common use’ among law abiding citizens for lawful purposes. District of Colum bia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 624 (2008). That common use test has deep historical roots in English and American law. This Court has already adopted that test and has repeatedly applied it to evaluate the validity of arms bans. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 47; Heller, 554 U.S. at 627; United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 179 (1939).”
While some in the firearms community have criticized the brief as being weak in comments at Ammoland News, others are cheering the fact that it was filed.
The Supreme Court will hear a pair of challenges to the constitutionality of bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles on Dec. 2. The oral arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County, which has been consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, headline the December argument calendar, which was released on Friday afternoon. Other highlights of the December argument session include cases involving the rights of parents to bring a lawsuit challenging a state law on care for runaway teens and Arizona election laws.
The justices will hear seven separate arguments during the six days of the December argument session, which runs from Monday, Nov. 30, until Wednesday, Dec. 2, and then again from Monday, Dec. 7, until Wednesday, Dec. 9.
Cutberto Viramontes filed the challenge to the ban on semiautomatic rifles in Cook County, Illinois, while gun owners and gun-rights groups challenged a similar law that Connecticut passed in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. In both cases, the lower courts upheld the bans against arguments that they violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms, prompting the challengers to come to the Supreme Court in 2025. After repeatedly considering the cases at their private conferences, the justices finally agreed on June 30 to weigh in.
New amicus brief filed by Second Amendment Law Center, written by Stephen Halbrook.
“The AR-15 falls within the historical tradition of the right to effective arms for defense of self and state and other lawful purposes. The English freeman had a right and duty to be armed.
From colonial times to the Revolution and beyond, effective arms were critical to the Americans. In reaction to arms confiscation by the British, the colonists asserted their right to keep and use their militia arms in defense of liberty.
The Second Amendment was understood to guarantee a robust concept of the “Arms” that the people have a right to keep and bear.”
Third Circuit Upholds Machine Gun Ban, Creates Bruen Loophole for Gun Registration
The Third Circuit ruled that machine guns are protected “Arms,” then upheld the federal ban anyway. Its treatment of suppressor registration may be even more dangerous for gun owners.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed the federal government two victories Monday, upholding Joseph Paul Berger’s convictions for possessing machine guns and unregistered suppressors.
The machine gun ruling in United States v. Berger is bad enough. The court acknowledged that machine guns fall within the Second Amendment’s plain text, only to uphold the federal ban by declaring them unsuitable for lawful civilian use.
The court’s suppressor analysis could reach much further. A two-judge majority held that registration requirements judges consider “minimal” do not infringe the Second Amendment at all. Under that reasoning, the government can escape the historical test required by N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen merely by convincing a court that its registration scheme is not burdensome enough to count.
Dolly Parton Carried a .38, and She Never Apologized for It
Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, and the tributes have poured in for the music, the movies, and the boundless philanthropy. Here’s one more thing worth remembering about the country legend: she was a gun owner who carried for self-defense, said so plainly, and never once seemed embarrassed by it.
The proof is in her own words. In a now-famous 1978 Playboy interview with journalist Lawrence Grobel, Parton described an early trip to New York City — a story any concealed carrier will recognize in their bones.
A Nashville Permit and a New York Night
Parton and her lifelong friend Judy Ogle, green to the big city, found themselves out on the street late at night when a group of men began closing in. “All of a sudden, these men started approachin’ us on the street,” she told Playboy. “They thought we were up for sale.” The men wouldn’t take no for an answer, and one got physical — “really pullin’ at me… just maul me, the whole works,” as she put it. Her friend, doubled over laughing against a wall, was no help at all.
“I Always Carry a Gun”
What those men didn’t know was that Parton was armed. She told Grobel she never traveled without a firearm — and decades later, she still didn’t.
“I always carry a gun,” she said. “A .38 pistol. I have a permit for it in Nashville. I just carry it for protection. I feel safer when I’ve got it. I just don’t like the idea of knowin’ I’m totally helpless.”
That’s the entire case for armed self-defense, delivered in a few sentences by a woman in a towering wig and a wide Southern smile — years before “concealed carry” was a mainstream phrase.
And She Was Ready to Use It
The .38 wasn’t a security blanket. When the man kept grabbing at her, she drew it. “I told the man, ‘If you put your hands on me one more time, I swear to God that I will shoot you,’” she recounted. “And I would have.” She added that she wouldn’t have aimed to kill — she’d have put rounds at his feet instead. The man backed off. The two women made it home. Her friend, by Parton’s account, never did stop laughing.
Carried in Spite of the Law
The quiet defiance in the story is the setting. Parton was carrying her Tennessee-permitted revolver in New York City — a place that, under its old Sullivan Act, treated the right to bear arms as a privilege doled out by bureaucrats. A Nashville permit meant nothing there. She carried anyway, because being helpless in a strange city wasn’t a trade she was willing to make. It would take until 2022 and the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision for the law to catch up to what Dolly Parton already understood on that sidewalk: the right to protect yourself doesn’t stop at a state line.
That refusal to be a victim — matter-of-fact, unashamed, entirely her own — was of a piece with everything else about her. There will never be another like her. Rest in peace, Miss Parton.
Well, they ain’t Santa Claus; But
A 2A Lawyer Says the ATF’s Anti-Gun Wing Is Keeping a List
The registration-free suppressor you carry out of the shop today could become a federal headache the day the political winds in Washington shift. Here’s the actual exposure — and the three things that might blunt a “revenge tour.”
Nobody selling you a suppressor right now wants to dwell on the downside. The tax stamp is gone, a Texas court has the ATF on its heels, and in a growing list of states you can walk out with a can after nothing more than a Form 4473 and a NICS check. It feels like the war is over.
In a recent video — “Lawyer Warns: ATF Is Going Full Revenge Mode?” — he relayed what he says he’s hearing in off-the-record conversations with people who have contacts inside ATF and DOJ: the ideological, anti-gun faction within those agencies is privately promising a reckoning. Not today. Later — the next time their side is back in power. And the target, he says, is precisely the paper trail being generated right now by every registration-free suppressor transfer.
He’s transparent that he’s relaying what he’s being told, not reporting a confirmed plan, and he allows that it may amount to nothing. But strip away the “revenge tour” branding and the underlying legal exposure he’s describing is real, specific, and worth understanding before you assume the fight is won.
Gun Control – Dismantled
Ownership is demographically diverse:
45.7% of validated gun owners are female, 25.6% do not identify as White (alone), and the gap in ownership rates between White Americans (34.6%) and Black Americans (33.0%) has narrowed to less than two percentage points.
The survey finds that 37.6% of gun owners have used a firearm to defend themselves, their property, a family member, or a member of their household, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 2.2 million incidents per year.
In most defensive incidents no shot was fired (76.3%), about half (50.8%) involved more than one assailant, and in 70.6% of incidents respondents report that the defensive use was successful, such that no crime remained to be reported to the police.
8.4% of defensive incidents were directed against animal threats rather than criminal threats.
Separate from these self-defense incidents, 34.7% of gun owners reported that the mere presence of a gun has deterred criminal conduct.
A majority of gun owners (70.0%) indicate that there are some circumstances in which they carry a handgun for self-defense.
We estimate that approximately 33.6 million gun owners (39.3% of those aged 21 and over) are “public carriers” who are permitted to carry and carry at least sometimes.
The average gun owner owns about 5.2 firearms, and handguns are the most common type of firearm owned (91.6% of owners).
50.5% of gun owners – approximately 44.5 million adults – report that they currently own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds (approximately 539 million such magazines in total), and 88.0% of these owners cite a defensive purpose for owning them.
25.0% of gun owners currently own an AR-15 type rifle, 12.9% currently own other similarly styled semi-automatic rifles, and 30.0% – approximately 26.4 million adults – currently own at least one firearm in one of these two categories, with approximately 40 million AR-15 type rifles and 20 million other similarly styled rifles owned in total.
Overall, Americans own approximately 461 million firearms, consisting of approximately 208 million handguns, 154 million rifles, and 99 million shotguns.
MASSIVE WIN: The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico has granted summary judgment holding the state's 7-day waiting period law for firearm purchases unconstitutional!
The NRA brought forward the case with @MSLF, in partnership with @NSSF. pic.twitter.com/hv4uSORDZf
— NRA (@NRA) August 28, 2026
Cuccinelli to Argue Militia Clause Protects AR-15s in Supreme Court Brief
“Former Virginia AG [and former Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security] Ken Cuccinelli is drafting an amicus brief for a coalition of groups and key individuals in the Viramontes semi-automatic gun ban case that is coming in front of the United States Supreme Court,” Second Amendment advocate and NRA “reform director” Dennis Fusaro informed a close circle of fellow activists by email Saturday.
Fusaro, probably most known to AmmoLand readers through his involvement in attempting to persuade an unheeding Association to commit needed resources to a “get out the vote” effort in Virginia’s 2025 election, is soliciting funds to finance the legal work.
Cuccinelli’s novel approach was documented in his challenge to Virginia’s semi-auto/magazine ban asking for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief because the “ban provisions of the Act violate the militia clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia.” (While acknowledging that Plaintiffs will suffer “irreparable harm if the Ban becomes effective and is later determined to be unconstitutional,” Spotsylvania Circuit Court Judge William E. Glover subsequently allowed the ban to stand, citing “the potential of harm to the Commonwealth.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238 (7th Circuit), consolidated with Grant v. Higgins (2nd Circuit), presents an opportunity to do more than win the immediate fight over AR-15-platform rifles,” Cuccinelli argues, recapping proposed language discussed in an Aug. 9 Zoom meeting.
“The Court has never squarely explained how the Second Amendment’s Militia Clause informs the meaning of the operative right ‘to keep and bear Arms.’ United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), plainly connected the Amendment to the militia and to the constitutional importance of arms having a relationship to militia purposes.”
That’s a point some of us have been trying to urge the gun groups filing 2A cases to include.
“Ignoring Core Purpose Makes 2nd Amendment More Vulnerable to Infringements: The Militia Aspect,” Part 1 and Part 2, I wrote for Firearms News in 2020. Forgetting the fighting tyranny part serves no one’s interests but would-be tyrants.
“That is the focus I would bring to an amicus brief: establishing a constitutional principle that not only prevents ‘military’ characteristics from becoming a constitutional liability, but makes them an affirmative basis for protection,” Cuccinelli asserts. “The more effective an arm is for the purposes for which a militia would require arms, the harder it should be to argue that its effectiveness somehow removes it from constitutional protection.”
Establishing this with SCOTUS “could therefore reach substantially further than the particular rifles before the Court,” he adds.
Fusaro is urging gun owners who realize the value of what this means to join and support this effort with contributions sent to RightsWatch.org.
Exposing the Gun Control Industry’s Financiers: The Joyce Foundation.
NSSF launched a new campaign this year called Gun Rights Insights. The goal is to drag the big money donors that fuel the gun control campaign into the sunlight. No more hiding behind veils and in corporate boardroom ivory towers.
Gun Rights Insights pulls back the curtain to show that the gun control agenda is nothing more than an astroturf agenda living off the funding and the backing of a few billionaires and progressive activist foundations flooding the field with waves of cash, up to $400 million annually.
With this money, they buy influence, media airtime and followers who buy into the false narrative that surrendering God-given rights will make America safer while they surround themselves with armed security in gated compounds.
Gun Rights Insights previously exposed antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Hollywood A-list celebrities.
Allow Gun Rights Insights to introduce…The Joyce Foundation.
Who They Are
The Joyce Foundation, based in Chicago, was founded by Beatrice Joyce Kean in 1948, the heiress of an Iowa lumber executive. They now pitch the foundation as a “private, nonpartisan philanthropy that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.”
Founder Kean passed away in 1972, leaving 90 percent of her estate — or $120 million — to the foundation, according to InfluenceWatch, a watchdog group run by the Capital Research Center. Soon after, The Joyce Foundation shifted focus to include government policies. Notably, they target gun control with a board comprised of anti-gun activists.
Chief of among those steering The Joyce Foundation’s work was President Barack Obama, who was on the foundation’s board of directors from 1994–2002, before he entered public life. President Obama espoused strict gun control, calling for a ban on modern sporting rifles, America’s most-popular selling centerfire rifle. He also demanded a national firearm registry through a universal background check scheme.
Valerie Jarrett was a former senior advisor to President Obama and is currently the CEO of the Obama Foundation. She’s a former board member of The Joyce Foundation.
Today, other members of his White House still serve on The Joyce Foundation’s board. Margot Rogers, was the Chief of Staff to the Obama administration’s U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Today, Rogers is The Joyce Foundation’s Chair of the Board. The Vice Chair of the Board is filled by Tracey Maeres, who was on President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Cecilia Munoz served eight years in the Obama administration, including five years leading the White House Domestic Policy Council. Today, Munoz is a board member for the Joyce Foundation.
Grassroots Legislative Report—August 24, 2026
By Tanya Metaksa
What’s New— State Legislatures: California: for the final week of the session with six bills yet to be passed;; Politics: Remaining Primary Elections Calendar: End of August primary elections with listing of endorsed candidates. More primary elections to be held in September
State Legislatures: Still in session:
States running through to Dec. 31: Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio. Pennsylvania session runs through Nov. 30.
California: The legislature has been working through many bills including onerous gun bills. As we enter the final legislative week there are still bills waiting to be considered on both the floor of the Senate and the House. In the Senate
- AB1753 – “Clarifies” Gun Violence Restraining Order rules by including ammunition in the same process used to seize firearms. In practice, it further bolsters red flag laws that have already taken away rights from lawful gun owners while avoiding basic due process.
- AB1974 – California is still trying to confiscate firearms they hold for temporary safekeeping. This bill makes it even more difficult to get any back
- AB2047 – Limits the sale of 3D printers unless they include “firearm blueprint detection algorithms.” This broad restriction on legal technology raises serious concerns about free speech, innovation, and the rights of everyday Californians— including countless STEM teachers and tech professionals who depend on these tools. But the legislators don’t care about the Bill of Rights violations when they concern gun owners.
In the Assembly:
- SB948 significantly expands California’s Firearm Safety Certificate requirements by mandating a minimum four-hour class with live-fire and official instruction starting in 2028. Crime involving guns isn’t caused by a lack of rules, but this bill adds more time and expense for law-abiding gun owners while doing nothing to stop criminals.
- SB1220 creates a new misdemeanor crime that bans guns and results in a 10-year firearm ban for anyone convicted of dealing with a gun that has altered identifying marks or a removed serial number. California already classifies this behavior as a misdemeanor; this bill just adds another way to lose your constitutional rights over a growing list of lesser offenses.
- AB1743 after passing the Senate, requires a concurrence vote in the Assembly. This bill seeks to expand the access to firearms’ owners’ information. A concern since personal gun owner information was widely leaked in 2022.
Post Offices are no longer off-limits to gun carrying customers
The Office of Legal Counsel’s Aug. 12, 2026 opinion
The Office of Legal Counsel’s Aug. 12 opinion concludes that 18 U.S.C. § 930(a) does not criminalize an otherwise law-abiding person’s carrying of a constitutionally protected firearm for self-defense into a post office that is generally open to the public. OLC grounds that conclusion principally in § 930(d)(3), which exempts the “lawful carrying” of firearms in a federal facility “incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.”
Holding
OLC reads self-defense as a paradigmatic “lawful purpose.” Accordingly, a person may come within the statutory exception when:
- The person may lawfully possess and carry the firearm under applicable federal and state law.
- The person has a lawful reason to enter the particular post office—for example, it is open to the public.
- The firearm is carried for a lawful purpose, such as self-defense.
The opinion rejects DOJ’s earlier, narrower litigation position that the “other lawful purposes” exception should be limited to purposes related to the facility itself, such as hunting-related activity. OLC says the statute requires a lawful purpose for both entering the facility and carrying the firearm, but does not require those two purposes to be related.
Statutory analysis
Section 930(a), enacted in 1988, generally makes knowing firearm possession in a “Federal facility” a misdemeanor, with enhanced felony consequences if the weapon is used in a crime. A post office falls within the statute’s definition because it is a federal building or leased space in which federal employees regularly work.
But § 930(d)(3) expressly excludes “the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.” OLC gives the exception a broad, ordinary-language reading:
- “Lawful carrying” excludes prohibited persons and those violating valid state carry laws.
- “Other lawful purposes” includes self-defense, which is central to the Second Amendment under District of Columbia v. Heller.
- The inclusion of hunting does not confine the exception to hunting-like or facility-specific activities; hunting and self-defense are commonly paired in federal firearms statutes and constitutional doctrine.
OLC also notes that its conclusion does not cover weapons independently forbidden by law, nor does it give carte blanche to carry at postal facilities that are not generally open to the public, such as facilities on military bases or beyond airport security.
Constitutional rationale
Although OLC says it need not formally decide § 930(a)’s constitutionality, it invokes constitutional avoidance: interpreting the exception broadly avoids serious Second Amendment questions. In OLC’s view, a general ban on carrying ordinary firearms for self-defense in public-facing post offices would presumptively burden conduct protected by the Second Amendment under Bruen and Wolford.
The opinion finds substantial historical difficulty with treating ordinary post offices as “sensitive places” analogous to legislatures, polling places, or courthouses:
- The postal system has existed since the Founding, and mail-related violence was a recognized problem.
- Yet early Congresses responded by punishing mail robbery and attacks on mail carriers, not by barring firearms in post offices.
- Federal restrictions on firearms in federal buildings appeared only in 1964, and post-office-specific regulations appeared in 1972.
- OLC concludes that the apparent absence of a founding-era or nineteenth-century analogue casts serious doubt on a categorical prohibition in public post offices.
Practical significance
The opinion is an authoritative Executive Branch interpretation for DOJ, not a Supreme Court ruling or a direct invalidation of the Postal Service’s existing firearms regulation, 39 C.F.R. § 232.1(l). Its practical position is that § 930(a) should not be used to prosecute a qualified, law-abiding person merely for carrying a constitutionally protected firearm for self-defense into a post office held open to the public. The opinion is expressly limited to that setting and does not resolve the legality of firearm restrictions at other federal facilities.
August 31 Primary Elections Calendar:
Oklahoma primary runoffs and a South Carolina Republican special-primary runoff
OKLAHOMA PRIMARY RUNOFF
GOVERNOR: Both candidates: Republican Mike Massei and Republican Gentner Drummon were given “A” by the NRA Political Victory Fund.
State Senate: District 18: Jack Stewart; District 34: Dana Prieto
State House: District 18: David Smith
SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY RUNOFF
Although the NRA-PVF has given both Senator Darline Graham (who was appointed Senator by President Donald J. Trump upon the death of her brother Lindsay Graham) and Ralph Norman who is running against her an A rating, on August 21 President Trump held a rally in South Carolina for Darline Graham.
Gun rights lawsuit aims at Colorado’s state & local carry restrictions.
DENVER–Colorado is facing yet another lawsuit over statewide and local gun rights restrictions, this one challenging the state’s concealed carry permitting and the City of Denver’s open-carry ban.
The latest lawsuit, brought by the National Rifle Association and two out-of-state gun owners, argues that the state and city’s carry laws “together leave otherwise qualified nonresidents who travel to Denver with no lawful means to carry a handgun there for self-defense.”
The complaint marks the latest in a line of recent legal challenges, brought by both gun rights groups and the Trump administration, targeting restrictive gun laws in Colorado.
The DOJ’s Surprising Response to two Machine Gun Cert Petitions
The United States typically does one of two things in response to a cert petition. It either files a short response in opposition that is either boilerplate, or it does not file a response. The end result is the same, the cert petition is denied.
In the case of Isaiah Jaqjan Fisher, Petitioner v. United States1 a justice (probably Justice Thomas) requested a response. The Question Presented to the Justices to decide is “Whether the federal statute that prohibits the possession of machineguns, 26 U.S.C. 584, violates the Second Amendment.”
Instead of the government’s typical boilerplate response saying that the petition should be denied, the government’s response was, in relevant part:
“Petitioner contends…that the federal statute prohibiting the possession of a machinegun, 18 U.S.C. 922(o), violates the Second Amendment. He requests…that this Court hold his petition for a writ of certiorari pending the resolution of Viramontes v. Cook County, cert. granted, No. 25-238 (June 30, 2026), and Grant v. Higgins, cert. granted, No. 25-566 (June 30, 2026), which present the question whether bans on the possession of AR-15 rifles violate the Second Amendment. The government agrees that Viramontes and Grant could affect the proper disposition of this case and that the petition should accordingly be held pending the resolution of those cases.”
The other machine gun case is Jamaion Wilson, Petitioner v. United States.2 The two Questions Presented are:
“First, whether the Fifth Circuit’s continued reliance on Hollis v. Lynch, 827 F.3d 436 (5th Cir. 2016) and refusal to require the government to prove a historical tradition of firearm regulation under this Court’s Second Amendment framework conflicts with N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)?
Second, should the Court hold this petition pending the outcome of Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238 (U.S. Jun. 30, 2026), and Grant v. Higgins, No. 25-566 (U.S. Jun. 30, 2026), given lower courts’ determinations that for Second Amendment purposes, AR-15’s are indistinguishable from M16 machineguns?”
The government did not respond to the first question and waived any further response to the cert petition unless the Court requests a response.
To the best of my knowledge, the government has never before requested that a machine gun cert petition be held.
I have no doubt that the Supreme Court does not want to decide the questions presented. However, given that the government has asked the Court to hold the cases, they will be held. And once we have a decision in the two “assault rifle” ban cases next year, the Court will GVR the petitions, which is to say they will Grant the petitions, Vacate the decisions of the lower courts, and Remand them back to the lower courts for a do-over consistent with its decision in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgens.
Given that Fisher is out of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Wilson is out of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Fourth Circuit will do what it always does (reaffirm its prior decision) and the Fifth Circuit will conduct a good-faith rehearing of its prior decision.
Both petitions have been distributed to the Long Conference on September 28, 2026. A decision in Viramontes and Grant will likely be published in June of 2027.