Category: RKBA

FPC Pushing 15 NFA Mandate States to Suspend Enforcement, Repeal Their Now Antiquated Laws.

If you were doing other things — working, playing, turning money into noise at the range — you may have missed the news that ATF made yesterday [OCT 9TH ed.] afternoon. After two months of trying to figure out the new lay of the land in the wake of the Jensen ruling regarding suppressors (and SBRs, SBSs and AOWs), ATF released new guidance as to how they’ll enforce the National Firearms Act going forward.

The Jensen ruling (and DOJ’s decision not to appeal it) has created a complex patchwork of makers, dealers and gun owners who were and weren’t covered by the ruling’s injunction. If you bought a can made by SilencerCo or B&T, no Form 4 needed any more. If you wanted to buy suppressor made by someone else, you could…if you’re a GOA or FPC member. Or you could buy one from Palmetto State Armory or Silencer Shop, both of which were named plaintiffs in the case.

You can probably see the issue from both a compliance and an enforcement perspective. What we had was a fraught, confusing situation for FFLs and individuals who wanted to take advantage of the ruling, but didn’t want to inadvertently wind up a test case in federal court.

So yesterday, ATF released new guidance on how they will be enforcing the NFA under Jensen. And they’ve done it in the most expansive way we could have hoped for. In effect, ATF has applied the ruling to everyone, nationwide.

If you’re a law-abiding person who can own a firearm, you can saunter into your local gun store, pick up a silencer or a short-barrel rifle (or both!), fill out a 4473, pass your background check and walk right out with it. Easy-peasy.

UNLESS, of course, you live in one of 15 states (see the list below) which have laws on the books that require NFA registration of any can, SBR, SBS or AOW you buy or make. You’ll still have to go through the NFA song and dance with all of the paperwork, fingerprints, and a wait time for ATF processing.

The new guidance has taken those people into account, however, and the agency will continue to process Form 1’s and Form 4’s for the people in those states who want to buy the covered products.

In the mean time, the Firearms Policy Coalition has wasted no time going to work to try to convince those 15 states to get their acts together and suspend their enforcement of their NFA mandate laws and start the process of repealing them.

This, from FPC . . .

Following the historic end to the NFA’s unconstitutional federal registration scheme for untaxed firearms and suppressors, Firearms Policy Coalition announced today that lawyers for the organization sent letters to the attorneys general of 15 states that still tie the legality of silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, or other covered arms to compliance with the federal National Firearms Act registration process. FPC is asking those states to immediately stop enforcement while lawmakers repeal the laws for good.

The effort follows FPC’s major victory in Silencer Shop/Jensen v. ATF, where the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the federal government could no longer use Congress’s taxing power to sustain the NFA’s making, registration, and transfer requirements for firearms Congress made subject to a $0 tax. The court enjoined enforcement of the challenged provisions as to the plaintiffs and others covered by its judgment.

The basic problem was fatal to the government’s regime: Congress eliminated the tax, and with it the constitutional basis the government had relied on for the machinery built to collect that tax.

That should have been the end of it. But in 15 states, it wasn’t. Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin still have laws that tie the legality of some NFA-classified arms to compliance with federal registration requirements.

For people covered by the Silencer Shop/Jensen injunction or otherwise able to act without federal enforcement under ATF’s new policies, those laws can still require compliance with a federal process the court has enjoined, leaving them unable to fully benefit from the federal victory without risking violation of state law.

“The states that require compliance with this unconstitutional and now-defunct federal scheme should immediately end enforcement and repeal their laws as soon as possible,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “We certainly hope they will put liberty and their citizens first, and we stand ready and willing to partner with them to protect the rights of their citizens. But no matter what, one way or another, FPC and our Grassroots Army will Fight Forward until people can exercise their rights without fear of arrest or prosecution, full stop.”

FPC’s proposal gives the states a direct path forward: make an immediate commitment to non-enforcement so people are protected now, then work through the legislative process toward full repeal of state laws separately regulating these categories of arms.

For this critically-important effort, FPC retained Holtzman Vogel partner David P. Johnson to lead the attorney-general outreach. Johnson, who focuses on state attorney general matters and litigation, was previously the Policy Director and General Counsel to the Republican Attorneys General Association and worked closely with Republican attorneys general and their offices to advance policy priorities.

“This effort to secure an immediate commitment to non-enforcement is a common-sense way to protect people while these laws work through the legislative process toward what should be their full repeal. We truly hope this reasonable request will be met with consideration for the People and the rights at stake so that we will not need to litigate. As long as these states are taking meaningful steps to address this issue, we will gladly work with them as partners to address these legal issues. But our responsibility is to protect the People and their rights, and we will do what is necessary to fulfill it,” said attorney and FPC Action Foundation President Cody J. Wisniewski.

The Federal Fight Is Not Over

Also today, following the federal injunction, ATF announced an important nationwide change in its enforcement position. As a matter of enforcement discretion, ATF will no longer enforce many of the NFA’s making, registration, transfer, possession, and related restrictions for short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and other covered $0-tax arms—even against people who are not covered by the Silencer Shop/Jensen injunction. In its guidance, ATF also expressly acknowledged the state-law problem, noting that state laws may continue to require federal compliance or registration even where federal enforcement has ceased.

Notably, ATF’s nationwide policy rests on executive enforcement discretion. ATF itself warns that enforcement could resume if circumstances change—including if the Department rescinds the policy, the injunction is overturned or dissolved, or Congress imposes a new tax. Its guidance further states that federal law does not automatically grandfather unregistered arms if enforcement later resumes.

That is why FPC is not leaving the People’s liberty dependent on the discretion of a future administration. Instead, FPC is continuing multiple federal efforts—including Brown v. ATF, which FPC is a party to, and the FPC-backed Roberts v. ATF—to secure durable, nationwide relief from the NFA’s remaining unconstitutional restrictions. Brown and Roberts challenge the NFA under both Congress’s enumerated powers and the Second Amendment.

One Fight. Three Fronts.

FPC’s strategy is straightforward: end the federal regime, eliminate state laws that depend on it, and directly attack state bans on constitutionally protected arms wherever they exist.

At the federal level, FPC is pressing forward toward durable nationwide relief.

At the state level, today’s 15-state initiative attacks laws that still tether the People to the federal NFA registration system.

And where states independently ban the arms themselves, FPC is attacking those prohibitions head-on.

That includes cases like FPC v. Davenport, FPC’s challenge to New Jersey’s ban on short-barreled rifles. The case builds on FPC’s en banc Third Circuit victory in Cheeseman v. Davenport, where the court held New Jersey’s semiautomatic-rifle ban unconstitutional—a decision FPC says also materially strengthens its SBR challenge.

FPC’s Viramontes v. Cook County case is now before the United States Supreme Court, where FPC is challenging a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Oral argument in the landmark Second Amendment “hardware” case is set for December 2, 2026.

“Jensen is not a one-off lawsuit—it is one part of a broader strategic plan,” Combs said. “That plan has already killed federal NFA registration for these untaxed arms. We are fighting to make that victory permanent and nationwide, and now we are working to eliminate the state laws that try to keep those restrictions alive. At the same time, our arms-ban cases are attacking the bans themselves. FPC and our Grassroots Army will Fight Forward until all of these unconstitutional and immoral restrictions are eliminated throughout the United States.”

FPC thanks its Grassroots Army members and supporters for making this important work possible. Individuals who want to join FPC and support its lawsuits and other programs to restore liberty can join the FPC Grassroots Army at JoinFPC.org.

[Representative text of the letter sent by Holtzman Vogel attorneys David Johnson and Daniel Bruce is below:]

Dear [Attorney General]:

We write on behalf of our client, Firearms Policy Coalition (“FPC”), regarding recent federal court developments with significant and immediate implications for firearms law in your State. In Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, No. 6:26-CV-056 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2026) (consolidated with the FPC-backed Jensen v. ATF, No. 6:26-CV-227), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that various provisions of the National Firearms Act (“NFA”) are unconstitutional because they no longer comport with Congress’s taxing power. This decision has created an urgent legal question for law-abiding firearms owners, firearms manufacturers, and law enforcement officials and legal officers in states, including yours, with laws that condition the legality of certain firearms on compliance with the NFA: Must state residents still comply with unconstitutional, enjoined federal regulations to exercise their right to keep and bear the arms under state law? In order to protect your citizens’ rights, we respectfully request your Office’s attention and offer FPC’s partnership in crafting a prompt resolution.

Background

The NFA, enacted in 1934, imposed a tax on the transfer and making of certain regulated firearms—including silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons.” To facilitate collection of this tax, Congress erected a regulatory framework requiring registration in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, submission of applications with fingerprints and photographs, local law enforcement notification, and prior ATF approval. See 26 U.S.C. §§ 5812(a)–(b), 5822, 5841(a)–(c), (e), 5842(b), 5861(b)–(f), (i); 27 C.F.R. §§ 479.62(a)–(d), 479.84(a)–(d).

On July 4, 2025, Congress enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. 119-21, 139 Stat. 72 (2025), which, effective January 1, 2026, reduced the federal transfer and making taxes to $0 for silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons.”  Critically, Congress left the NFA’s entire regulatory apparatus—registration, application, approval, and recordkeeping—fully intact despite eliminating the revenue.

On August 5, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the challenged NFA regulatory provisions are unconstitutional. Because a $0 tax raises no revenue—the “essential feature of any tax”––the regulatory provisions can no longer be sustained under Congress’s taxing power, the sole constitutional basis on which the NFA was enacted. The court entered a party-specific injunction barring the ATF and DOJ from enforcing the challenged provisions (26 U.S.C. §§ 5812(a)–(b), 5822, 5841(a)–(c), (e), 5842(b), 5861(b)–(f), (i); 27 C.F.R. §§ 479.62(a)–(d), 479.84(a)–(d)) against untaxed firearms held by the plaintiffs. Additional challenges are progressing in other circuits. See, e.g., the FPC-backed cases of Brown v. ATF, No. 4:25-CV-1162 (E.D. Mo.) and Roberts v. ATF, No. 2:24-CV-091 (E.D. Ky.).

The Problem

This creates a problem for many states, such as yours, that have enacted firearms statutes that condition the lawful possession, transfer, and/or making of NFA-regulated items on compliance with the federal NFA registration requirements. These provisions make it lawful for a person to possess NFA-regulated items only if that person has complied with the NFA’s registration, application, and approval requirements.

The Silencer Shop Foundation/Jensen decision has fundamentally disrupted this framework. The federal government is prohibited from enforcing the NFA’s registration, application, and approval requirements as to the covered plaintiffs. And the court held that those provisions are facially unconstitutional. Yet your State’s law still requires compliance with those facially unconstitutional federal procedures as a prerequisite to lawful possession under State law.

The Department of Justice recently notified Congress that it does not intend to appeal the decision. Letter from D. John Sauer, Solicitor General, to Sen. Charles Grassley, Chairman, Sen. J. Comm. (Sept. 24, 2026), Silencer Shop Foundation, No. 6:26-CV-056 (ECF No. 145-1). And the trend of litigation nationally suggests other challenges, see Brown, No. 4:25-CV-1162; Roberts, No. 2:24-CV-091, will reach the same or a substantially similar result. Accordingly, this issue is likely to persist until state legislatures act.

The result is an untenable legal limbo. Through no fault of their own, law-abiding citizens face state criminal exposure for possessing items they have a constitutionally protected right to possess and that the federal government is barred from regulating under the current statutory framework. Such uncertainty will chill law-abiding citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms. And worse, it will also inevitably lead to confusion for state and local law enforcement officials who must determine whether to enforce state laws that incorporate unconstitutional federal registration, application, and approval requirements. This would not only put peaceable people at risk, but it would also inevitably lead to the expense of litigating challenges to your State’s laws in civil and criminal cases. Thus, FPC encourages your Office to take action now to begin addressing this critical issue.

Proposed Solutions

FPC respectfully proposes the following two urgent, prioritized solutions to protect citizens’ constitutionally protected rights, liberty, and property:

    1. Immediate Non-Enforcement Guidance. We request that your Office immediately cease enforcement of applicable State laws and issue a formal statement, opinion, or memorandum to State and local law enforcement and prosecutors directing them to not enforce your State’s NFA-tethered provisions for possession, making, or transfer of untaxed NFA items—silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons”—without federal registration and approval under the unconstitutional provisions. Such guidance would safeguard citizens’ constitutionally protected rights, provide clarity for law enforcement, avoid the expenditure of State resources on prosecutions premised on State laws tied to unconstitutional federal requirements, reduce your State’s legal exposure, and serve as a prudent interim measure while the State legislature acts. 
    2. Permanent Legislative Fix. We further urge your Office to develop an appropriate legislative proposal and work with your State’s Legislature to permanently untether lawful acquisition, possession, use, and disposition of affected arms from the unconstitutional, enjoined federal registration requirements. A full repeal of such State requirements is encouraged to show your State’s commitment to its citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.

* * *

FPC and its counsel stand ready to serve as resources and partners to your Office to address this issue, including analyzing the impact of the unconstitutionality of the NFA’s provisions on your State’s firearms law and providing model statutory language for permanent legislative solutions. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to your response and to working together in service of the people of your State.

Respectfully,

/s/

David Johnson 

/s/

Daniel Bruce 

Everytown Pumps Another $10 Million of Michael Bloomberg’s Cash Into the 2026 Midterms.

The midterm elections are just a little more than three weeks away and major gun control groups are backing up the Brink’s truck to dump sizeable sums into political races to buy more influence and put anti-Second Amendment politicians into office.

With the balance of power in Washington, D.C., teetering on a pinhead, any dollars going to candidates for U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate races are going to have an impact on what the policy landscape looks like in the coming new congressional term. Gun control activists are going all in.

“For nearly two years, a MAGA House has rubber-stamped the Trump administration as it tore up federal gun safety laws, and flipping these eight seats is how we put a stop to it,” said Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt, in a statement announcing his group’s recent investment. Everytown, of course, is the gun control activist group founded and funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who himself is no stranger to spending 3- or 4-comma amounts to buy more gun control.

Everytown’s Newest Windfall

Axios reported that Everytown has made a significant investment in several congressional races to buoy gun control-supporting candidates and to flip seats from Republican to Democrat. The current U.S. House of Representatives Republican margin only sits at four seats, 218-214. That means flipping even three of the eight seats targeted by the Everytown cash dump would flip control of the House.

The Everytown spending splurge totals at least $10 million and every single one of the eight candidates included in the strategy is a former Moms Demand Action volunteer with a known track record of supporting those groups’ strict gun control demands.

The $10 million total in new Everytown campaign spending matches a $10 million “seed” donation plan that the gun control group GIFFORDS announced less than one month ago. GIFFORDS’ spending included U.S. Senate races in Michigan and U.S. House races in Virginia and New Jersey. This new spending by Everytown is a much larger expanded map.

According to Axios, the Everytown $10 million will be split between JoAnna Mendoza of Arizona, Pia Dandiya of Florida, Christina Bohannan, Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James of Iowa, Christina Hines and state Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan and Paige Cognetti of Pennsylvania.

U.S. House Democrats’ main super PAC, the House Majority PAC, praised the Everytown announcement, which would help Democrats take the majority in next year’s new Congress and make House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) the new Speaker of the House. Mike Smith, who leads House Majority PAC, stated, “Every seat on this map is a chance to put a check on a Trump administration and a MAGA House that have spent two years putting the gun lobby ahead of American families.”

If You Thought $10 Million Was A Lot

As if there were any way to do so, Second Amendment supporters cannot forget the impact billionaire gun control and defund the police funder George Soros and his son Alex are having on the political landscape. Their collective bank accounts are seemingly bottomless and they are making it known, too, in the final weeks before Election Day.

NSSF has reported time and time again on the political bankrolling the elder Soros has done, how his son, Alex, has continued that effort and on the terrible consequences innocent Americans feel as a result of the politicians who have received their support.

If you thought the new Everytown spending would raise eyebrows, you better be sitting for the Soros news. According to Fortune, George Soros, his son and the family organizations are all dumping a whopping $102 million into Democracy PAC, a Soros organization super PAC that backs candidates who support more gun control, soft-on-criminal prosecutors and defund the police advocates in communities all across the country.

“About half that sum [$102 million] came from Geosor Corp, a private investment company owned by Soros. The other half came from the Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit that’s part of Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which supports progressive organizations and whose board is chaired by his son, Alex Soros,” Fortune reported.

This election cycle is notable as it’s the first full cycle after the elder Soros transferred control of his political spending to the younger Soros. Alex, unsurprisingly, backed Kamala Harris in 2024 and urged Democrats to unite behind her.

Altogether, these are just simply massive totals for gun control candidates to receive in the final stretch of the midterm elections.

Protect the Backstop

Voting-aged Americans who support their Second Amendment rights to purchase and possess firearms need to get and stay active ahead of Election Day. NSSF’s Protect Liberty Political Action Committee is doing all it can to boost federal candidates who will preserve and protect liberty, freedom and the Constitutional rights of all Americans, especially the Second Amendment.

Protect Liberty PAC is an independent-expenditure-only political committee and can accept unlimited personal and corporate contributions from companies in or outside of the industry, so long as they do not have federal contracts. Protect Liberty PAC will also expressly advocate for the election or defeat of specific candidates and that advocacy will be completely independent of any candidate or political party.

If you are able to donate to Protect Liberty PAC to boost pro-Second Amendment, pro-firearm industry candidates, please click here to join the fight. Every single donation will matter and will have a positive impact to protect your rights.

Voters shouldn’t risk their rights; they should #GUNVOTE to ensure the right people are there to act to protect their Second Amendment rights.

AI Surveillance Can Already Build a Gun List and We Need to Stop It

I teach women to shoot. That means I spend a lot of time at ranges. When I pull into a parking lot to train, I expect cameras on the building. I do not expect networked artificial intelligence aimed at the driveway, reading every plate that comes and goes. But that is what happened at Eagle Sports Range in Cudahy, Wisconsin.

A woman filmed several Flock Safety cameras pointed inward at the entrance, not at the street, so they could capture every vehicle entering the lot. The video went viral. The range’s general manager, Saad Jaber, said in an interview that the cameras were installed back in 2023 after break-ins at other Milwaukee area ranges. The intent was security. By February, the range asked Flock to take them down over privacy concerns. Flock cited a contract and Jaber said he had not realized they were locked in. After the video spread, the range pulled the cameras itself. “To heck with this contract, we’ll deal with that later on,” he said. Then the line that should stick: “We own our privacy, but when that privacy gets infringed, then what are we doing? What kind of nation are we going to become?”

The situation at the range today has changed. Ordinary closed-circuit cameras remained and controlled by the business remain. Honestly, no one can fault the range. Basic CCTV is not the same thing as an AI system. These systems that can log license plate numbers, make, model, color, and bumper stickers, then feed them into a searchable network law enforcement can query across jurisdictions. Flock boasts of its system developing a “vehicle fingerprint” and their system works. The scratch you got when your garbage can hit your truck; the funny sticker that your daughter gave you for Father’s Day, or even the license plate frame that came from the dealership become unique identifiers.

Now, incorporate a searchable database where users can ask directed questions “for investigative purposes” and there you have a weapon. Ironically, the system marketed on safety has the potential for the exact opposite. At this point, you have all likely seen the headlines about police officers abusing access to these databases to track, surveil, harass and even stalk spouses and ex-partners. For example, an officer in the same area as the Eagle Sports Range in Milwaukee was charged after searching a romantic partner’s plate 124 times and another person’s plate 55 times without authorization. Scary huh? What is more alarming is the potential for governments to do the same thing.

We have seen how successful the laws preventing any “national firearms registry” have been. Even the director of the ATF has admitted that enough data already exists to serve as a de facto registry (even if they paid to have it non-searchable). With the use of integrated AI systems, bureaucrats no longer need to rely on Form 4473s digitally cataloged since the civilian version of circumventing laws under the guise of public safety. Select cameras installed at dedicated range entrances and it becomes safe to assume that the only people being logged are people who shoot. Now prompt the system to list which license plates, or individually identifiable faces/bodies have been to that range or gun store, and you have a practical list of gun owners. Get access to financial purchase records and instantly, you’ve got a detailed list of many gun owners and the capability to even predict individual weapon proficiency and capabilities.

When people start to notice the potential for exploitation, things change. Recently Flock Safety announced modifications: a shorter default retention window, case codes, audit tools, and limits on what outside agencies can search for. Sounds better, right? Those are product features from a private company. They are not a legal limit on what an AI surveillance network can become once the data exists. Senate hearings have already looked at the scale of these systems and the weakness of relying on vendors and agencies to police themselves.

This is the part gun owners should not treat as someone else’s problem. Artificial intelligence does not have to ban guns to undermine the Second Amendment. It only must make lawful training and lawful purchases continuously visible. Frequency of range visits becomes a data point. A sticker becomes a classifier. A private camera installed for theft prevention becomes an input into a system that can be queried, shared, and misused. People notice. Some train less. Some avoid the range. That is a chilling effect produced by software, not by a statute.

Gun owners are an early, obvious target because the locations are discreet and the activity is politically sensitive. They will not be the last. The same architecture can sort church parking lots, political rallies, medical clinics, or any other place a government later decides is worth watching. Once the capability is cheap and networked, the restraint is political, not technical. That is why a diplomatic accord between the U.S. and China is the right move, not a ban on innovation and not a race to deploy first.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and the USSR did not trust each other. They still negotiated pauses and limits on the most dangerous systems while verification rules were written. The Limited Test Ban Treaty and the early strategic arms talks were not acts of friendship. They were acknowledgments that unconstrained development of powerful technology, in the hands of rival states, was more dangerous than a negotiated slowdown. AI surveillance is in that category, and we should be doing the same.

License-plate readers are an early, narrow application. The underlying capability is pattern recognition at scale, tied to identity, movement, and behavior, deployable by governments and by companies that partner with them. China is already building domestic systems with far fewer restraints. The U.S. is scattering commercial AI cameras across roads, parking lots, and private businesses, then discovering the contracts and the sharing rules after the poles are up. A race to see who can surveil faster does not protect American rights. It normalizes the tools both governments will use.

A diplomatic accord akin to an arms treaty would not freeze every useful application of machine learning. Ideally, it would pause further development and deployment of high-risk AI surveillance and identification systems, by both Washington, D.C. and Beijing, long enough to write enforceable safeguards. Short retention that cannot be waived in a sales contract. Warrants for queries that are not tied to a specific crime. Hard limits on nationwide and cross-border sharing. Independent audits. A bright line against using these systems to build lists of people engaged in lawful activity, including firearm ownership and training. Verification matters here the way it mattered with missiles. A pause without inspection is a press release.

Businesses like Eagle Sports Range should not be left to discover, after installation, that a “security” product is feeding a network they do not control. Customers should not have to learn about it from a viral video. Policymakers should not wait for the next misuse case to decide that artificial intelligence aimed at lawful Americans needs rules written before the next expansion, not after.

Eagle Sports Range chose its customers over a contract. The larger choice is the same. Security technology can keep improving. It should not be allowed to quietly assemble records of who exercises a constitutional right while Washington, D.C. and Beijing sprint to see who can do it more efficiently.

A temporary, verified halt is how serious countries slow “progress” to allow for putting guardrails on a technology that is already veering off the highway. If you cherish your personal privacy, to include your right to keep and bear arms, you need to be involved at the local, state, and federal levels in defending your rights and freedoms; not just from the threats posed by dumb gun laws, but from the dangers posed by unchecked artificial intelligence and mass surveillance.

BREAKING: Huge News for Gun Owners As DOJ and ATF Release Guidance and FAQ for NFA Items

The Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have released the long-awaited guidance for gun owners and firearm industry members in response to the federal injunction on NFA registration requirements for suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and “Any Other Weapons.” While the scope of the injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix applies only to the plaintiffs (along with their members and customers) in the Jensen and Silencer Shop cases, the guidance released by the ATF on Friday applies “to everyone, and not only to those covered by the injunction.”

A FAQ released by the DOJ and ATF explicitly lays out the changes that are now in effect.

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FPC Wants Court to Allow Nonresident Carry in Colorado

Colorado is a prime example of what happens when you let too many Californians move into a state. They take over and start wanting the same terrible laws they left California over. If only there was some way to stop them.

One issue in Colorado that predates the current sorry state of affairs is that if you’re a nonresident, you can’t carry a firearm at all unless your state recognizes Colorado’s permits. Luckily, open carry is still legal…unless you’re in Denver.

That’s why Denver is being sued, and why the Firearms Policy Coalition has made an important ask of the court.

From a press release:

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Hoffman v. City and County of Denver, asking the federal court to immediately block enforcement of the Colorado and Denver gun carry ban regime as to Plaintiff Gene Hoffman and similarly situated peaceable nonresidents, and require Colorado to allow them to obtain carry licenses on the same terms as Colorado residents.

The State of Colorado generally requires a permit to carry a concealed handgun but refuses to issue those permits to nonresidents. Instead, the State recognizes permits from another state only when that state recognizes Colorado permits.

Denver separately bans open carry, so peaceable people from outside those states can be left with no lawful way to carry a handgun at all while in Denver. And because federal law generally prohibits firearm possession within 1,000 feet of a school unless the person has a license issued by the state where the school is located, Colorado’s refusal to issue permits to nonresidents creates a massive labyrinth of prohibited areas throughout the State where affected travelers can be effectively disarmed—or risk federal prosecution and imprisonment simply for carrying a firearm.

Colorado law also reserves certain carry privileges in public university and government-building parking areas for permit holders.

“Colorado and Denver cannot turn their borders into a police-state checkpoint where peaceable people are forced to surrender their rights.

The right to bear arms throughout the United States belongs to the People—not only Colorado residents. Colorado and Denver have created an insane regime that completely disarms peaceable Americans simply because they live somewhere else, and we’re asking the court to put an end to it now.

FPC and our Grassroots Army will continue to Fight Forward and eliminate all of these unconstitutional and immoral residency-based bans,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

FPC’s motion argues that the case should be straightforward under the Supreme Court’s binding precedents—the Second Amendment protects the People’s right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, and that protection does not disappear when someone crosses a state line.

As the filing explains, “the Second Amendment, like every guarantee in the Bill of Rights, ‘has the same meaning in all parts of the United States.’”

The historical record makes Colorado’s position even worse. Far from supporting residency-based disarmament, early American laws often gave travelers more protection to carry arms, not less.

The motion identifies colonial laws requiring people traveling away from home to carry arms and later laws expressly exempting travelers from carry restrictions.

The motion also argues that Colorado’s discrimination against nonresidents violates the Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects Americans from being denied fundamental privileges simply because they come from another state.

I mean, they ain’t wrong.

About any of it.

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From her quoted statements, she wants to make it less dangerous for her gangs.

Minnesota: Somali Democrat Mayor Pushes Gun Ban as Fix for Somali Gang Crime

St. Louis Park Mayor Nadia Mohamed (D), the first Somali-American elected mayor in Minnesota, suggests the solution to Somali gang gun violence is to ban firearms.

A clip of Mohamed expressing her support for a gun ban has made the rounds on social media.

Bearing Arms quoted part of her comments wherein she dismissed criticism of the Somali gangs as “rhetoric” that is “irresponsible” and turned to gun control as a solution:

A crime is a crime is a crime is a crime. But what the rhetoric you are pushing, at best is irresponsible, at worst is dangerous. So you may be wondering, hey Mayor, how can we solve for this then? How can we have conversations that are effective, that can actually get something done? And the answer is easy.

Ban guns.

On October 4, 2026, Breitbart News pointed to reports indicating alleged Somali gang-related gunfire broke out at Eden Prairie High School in a Minneapolis suburb Friday around 9:00 p.m.

A news release from the Eden Prairie Police Department said two Somali males were injured during the shooting, one of whom was 17 and the second of whom was 18. The injuries they sustained were not life-threatening.

Anti-Gun Orgs Urge Clergy to Use Red Flag Laws to Grab Their Congregants’ Guns.

It’s often been said that gun control is really about people control. Understanding this, the megalomania that anti-gun advocates exhibit in their never-ending pursuit to control others displays a zealotry often associated with religious fundamentalism. It should come as little surprise, then, that gun control orgs are now trying to enlist clergy in their fight against natural rights, by encouraging religious leaders to promote and utilize red flag gun confiscation orders.

In September, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions published a tract titled “Extreme Risk Protection Orders: A Clergy Resource Guide” (extreme risk protection orders are the gun control advocates’ preferred term for red flag gun confiscation orders). The document was authored alongside groups including Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, Faith Leaders for Ending Gun Violence, and Jewish Women International.

Another author was the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness, which the document described as “the public policy information and advocacy office for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” The “progressive” PCUSA currently hosts the guide on its website. Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, who has put his version of religion at the forefront of his campaign, trained at a PCUSA seminary.

Astute gun rights supporters will know that the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health bears the name of billionaire gun control financier Michael Bloomberg. For his part, Bloomberg appears to believe he can dictate terms to the divine.

In a 2014 interview with the New York Times announcing the creation and financing of anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety, Bloomberg expressed confidence that his efforts to direct the lives of other people would earn him his eternal reward. The piece noted,

Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, [Bloomberg] said with a grin: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

⇑ [what utter hubris. I think he’s going to be surprised.] ⇑

The guide seeks to inject gun control directly into the clergy-congregant relationship. The document encourages faith leaders to leverage the trust their congregants place in them, noting, “faith leaders are often trusted confidants. You may be among the first to hear when someone is experiencing crisis…”

Of course, the danger that a pastor may work to have the government strip a person of a fundamental right based on a private conversation will prompt some congregants to forego potentially beneficial pastoral services entirely.

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Yanis: Preserve, Pass On Legacy of Second Amendment

“Remember what brought you to where you are. Remember why you love doing what you’re doing and keep it going.”

That was the message from Jared Yanis, host of the YouTube channel Guns & Gadgets, who addressed the Gun Rights Policy Conference, challenging the audience to not only teach the next generation how to shoot, but why Americans have the special right to keep and bear arms.

“We have some incredible firearms instructors in this country,” Yanis observed. “We have competitive shooting, hunting, concealed carry classes, millions and millions of parents are teaching their kids, sons and daughters, about firearms safety. We have a pretty good chance of them being taught the right way.

“What worries me is much bigger,” he admitted. “Will the next generation understand WHY they have the right to do this? That’s a much bigger question, because there are two different things:

“Knowing how to operate a firearm is a skill,” he explained. “But understanding why the American citizen has the right to keep and bear arms is true education. If we lose that education, we will eventually lose that right.”

Yanis was not so much “preaching to the choir,” he was challenging every grassroots activist in the room to go beyond passing along a tradition, and carry on the process to a next level.

“We need to ask ourselves a difficult question: What exactly are we trying to preserve,” he posited. “Are we trying to preserve gun ownership? I’m not. Are we trying to preserve the principle that makes gun ownership a right in the first place? That’s what I’m about, because they’re not the same thing.”

He acknowledged that people in other countries own firearms, but under far different circumstances. It might involve licensing, government approval, registration and other restrictions.

“America was built around something fundamentally different,” he said. “The government doesn’t give you any of our rights. They’re just stewards of our rights. The Constitution doesn’t give us the right. The Bill of Rights doesn’t give us the right. We had those rights before anyone put quill to parchment.

“Now, the Second Amendment recognizes a pre-existing right that belongs to us, the people and it tells government ‘You shall not infringe,’” he stressed. “That distinction is everything. I don’t think we’re teaching it that way nearly enough.”

One problem with the current battle to protect Second Amendment rights is that people have become focused on “the controversy of the moment,” Yanis explained. This could involve bans on so-called “assault weapons,” original-capacity magazines, pistol braces or the “zero tolerance” philosophy of the Biden administration, which focused on cancelling federal firearms licenses for literally any infraction.

“Sometimes we become so focused on fighting the latest infringement,” Yanis observed, “that we forget to explain why that fire we’re fighting matters in the first place.”

Yanis focused on semi-auto rifles. He brought up the argument anti-gunners have made, that “nobody needs an AR-15.”

“And you’ll say, ‘Yes I do,’” he noted. “But why? Because it’s my right, or because the Second Amendment says so.

“If our education ends there,” he said, “we have a serious problem in America, because somebody on the other side is going to teach that young person, they’re going to give them an explanation of why they think they shouldn’t have an AR15. They’re going to talk about public safety, crime, mass shootings; all the blue tokens they throw out there to make people feel it in their hearts.”

He then boiled things down for the audience to remember and take home.

“The Founders didn’t include the Second Amendment because they loved guns,” Yanis said. “They included it because they understood power, and that’s the conversation we need to bring back to the forefront.

“The Constitution is fundamentally a document about power,” he continued. “Who has it. Where it comes from, how much the government possesses, how that power is divided and what happens when government exceeds it.

“The Founders had just fought a revolution against the most powerful government that they knew, and the most powerful military on this rock,” Yanis recalled. “And they didn’t emerge from that experience believing that human beings would suddenly stop abusing that authority. In fact, they knew it would happen again. So they built a system based on the opposite assumption, that power must be divided, it must be checked, and certain rights must remain beyond government’s legitimate reach.”

Among these are speech, religion, assembly and the right to keep and bear arms. Yanis explained how the Second Amendment is not just about a right to keep and bear arms. It’s about the entire constitutional philosophy, he said; the relationship between the citizen and the state.

“Once you understand that philosophy,” he stated, “once you get that relationship, once you know what the founders believed when they fought for this, the Second Amendment makes a lot more sense to you.”

He closed by reminding the GRPC audience that passing on the tradition in all the traditional ways is good and proper.

“Taking your kids shooting is fantastic,” Yanis affirmed. “Teaching them firearms safety is essential. Teaching them how to hunt is wonderful. But at some point, maybe on the ride home from those things, turn around and ask them this ‘Do you know why you have this right?’

“Teach them about Lexington and Concord,” he advised. “Teach them what happened on April 19, 1775.

Tell them why ordinary people possess arms and why it matters. Teach them about the Bill of Rights.

Teach them that with rights come responsibilities and that an armed citizen should be safe, but a responsible citizen, an informed citizen and most importantly, a citizen, and not a subject.”

More Than the ‘Assault Weapons’ SCOTUS Case, THIS is What Terrifies the Gun Control Industry Most of All.

“In recent years, women made up almost half of all new gun owners, a striking shift from the historical norm, when women accounted for about 24 percent of gun owners,” Rosanna Smart and Andrew R. Morral of the RAND Corporation recently wrote. “After more than a decade of stable gun ownership, women’s ownership rose starkly between 2018 and 2021, going from 10 percent of adult women owning guns in 2018 to 15 percent in 2021, then up again slightly to 16 percent by 2024.”

They add that the big surge in women’s gun ownership has occurred since 2018 and, almost without exception, is seen across the board without regard to race, age, income, party identification, or education. Men, too, have bought guns amidst record firearms sales boosted by the chaos of 2020, though not to the same transformative extent as women. As broad demand for the means of self-defense has put the lie to the already overstated argument that gun ownership was a passing fixation of rural white men, women have rushed to take advantage of the empowering technology.

“Some of the largest relative increases were among groups of women with historically low rates of gun ownership, such as Hispanic women and those living in the Upper Midwest, who saw ownership rates more than double after 2018,” add the RAND authors.

Smart and Morral draw on data from the General Social Survey (GSS), which is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. The GSS numbers largely square with other sources.

“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,” Georgetown University’s William English wrote last month, of numbers from the National Firearms Survey.

— J.D. Tuccille in Women Are Better Armed Than Ever

This November, Few States Have As Much At Stake in Terms of Gun Rights as Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s unresolved gun control debates return to the spotlight as the November 3rd election creeps closer. As legislative candidates are surveyed on Second Amendment issues, the state’s open race for governor and legislative elections are all drawing attention due to candidates’ competing views on lawfully exercising the Second Amendment, the firearm industry, background checks and firearm possession altogether.

The stakes extend beyond campaign positions. Wisconsin’s next governor and legislature will determine which proposals receive consideration in 2027, with serious implications for gun owners, firearm retailers, manufacturers and shooting ranges.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Democrat Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley are competing to succeed Gov. Tony Evers as the first new governor in the Badger State since 2019. Gov. Evers is not seeking another term.

Different Approaches to Firearm Policy

The candidates bring a stark contrast in different policy records to the governor’s race.

Rep. Tiffany has been a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights and has a long track record to prove it. In fact, not only did NSSF award Rep. Tiffany an A+ grade on the 2026 NSSF Congressional Report Card, but he was also distinguished for going above and beyond and being named to the Dean’s List. He’s supported concealed carry reciprocity and opposed federal legislation expanding background check requirements. His congressional record also includes opposition to legislation pushing states to establish extreme risk protection orders, or so-called “red flag” laws. Conversely, the National Rifle Association has given County Executive Crowley an “F” rating, in part due to his full-throated support for universal background checks that establish a private firearm ownership registry, ERPOs and additional firearm storage requirements.

These opposing views reflect disagreements over the appropriate scope of firearm regulation. Supporters of additional restrictions argue that they can help prevent firearm-related violence. Opponents raise concerns about constitutional protections, due process rights, the deleterious effects additional requirements have on lawful firearm ownership and the fact that these requirements are ineffective in improving public safety because criminals ignore them.

The governor’s authority to sign or veto legislation makes those differences consequential, as Wisconsin’s next administration is set to inherit gun control preferences and questions that remained unresolved during Gov. Evers’ tenure.

Concealed Carry and Background Checks

Wisconsin’s 2025–26 legislative session illustrates the clash between freedom and gun control.

Republican lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 607 and Assembly Bill 609 in October 2025. The companion measures proposed eliminating the general requirement that otherwise eligible individuals obtain a state license before carrying a concealed firearm. The legislation also proposed eliminating some existing restrictions governing firearm possession and carrying in specified locations.

Assembly Bill 609 received a public hearing in January 2026, however, neither measure passed before the session ended on March 23, leaving Wisconsin’s existing concealed carry licensing requirements in effect.

The distinction is significant. Eliminating the licensing requirement would change the legal conditions under which eligible residents may carry concealed firearms and affect the role of the state’s existing licensing and training system.

Gov. Evers has for years advocated for universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders. Those proposals would expand existing requirements for certain firearm transfers and establish a process for courts to confiscate firearms when specified legal standards are met. There are concerns about the accused receiving proper due process rights and to get their firearms returned them quickly, if warranted. These ERPO laws raise separate questions about evidentiary standards, judicial procedures and opportunities to contest restrictions.

Wisconsin, and federal law, already requires background checks for purchases from licensed firearm retailers. But universal background check legislation would extend those requirements to additional private transfers, subject to the exceptions contained in any enacted law. Like usual, supporters of universal background checks and the gun ownership registry they require maintain that these measures could help prevent violence. Critics question their effectiveness and whether the proposed procedures adequately protect constitutional rights. After all, no criminal is submitting to a private background check when he or she illegally steals a gun or buys one on the black market.

The practical effects would depend on the precise legislation adopted. Additional transfer requirements could affect firearm purchasers and retailers, while court-ordered restrictions would establish new responsibilities for courts and law enforcement.

The Firearm Industry Has a Stake

Wisconsin’s gun control debate also reaches the established manufacturing and sporting industry. Henry Repeating Arms announced in 2025 that it would relocate all manufacturing operations from New Jersey to Wisconsin. The announcement underscored the state’s role in the national firearm manufacturing sector.

NSSF’s 2025 economic impact report estimates Wisconsin’s firearm and ammunition industry supported 8,735 jobs and generated more than $2.15 billion in total economic activity. Those figures provide context for proposals affecting lawful firearm commerce, manufacturing and recreational sport shooting. Regulatory changes can carry consequences beyond individual firearm owners, including compliance obligations for businesses and the availability of products and services. As seen often in recent years, firearm industry businesses won’t think twice about relocating away from an unfriendly, confrontational state regulatory environment to sunnier skies in another state that values them and respects the Second Amendment.

Wisconsin’s next legislature will determine which proposals receive hearings, amendments and floor consideration. The next governor will decide whether legislation that reaches his desk becomes law.

Wisconsin’s 2026 elections will not settle every question surrounding gun control or Second Amendment rights. They will determine who holds the authority to address those policy questions when the legislature reconvenes in 2027.

That is the central significance of the Nov. 3 election for Wisconsin’s firearm owners, firearm industry businesses and the hunting and sporting heritage community.

Well, Biden was senile even then, so…..

Joe Biden Said “You Couldn’t Buy a Cannon.” Wrong.

He said the Second Amendment limited the people and the weapons they could own. The text limits the government. A letter of marque took private cannon as given.

On June 23, 2021, in the State Dining Room, he said: “The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.”

That is the claim. The Amendment limited the people. It limited the cannon.

The text does the opposite.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Shall not be infringed is a limit on the government. It is not a menu of who may own what. The Constitution does not grant rights. It does not hand the people a list and cross the cannon off.

What the founding record shows

Jonathan Goldstein, The Militia of the Sea: The Marque and Reprisal Clause as Textual Proof of Private Heavy-Arms Ownership at the Founding (SSRN 7195398, written July 28, 2026; last revised August 13, 2026), reads that claim against the Constitution’s own text.

People could own cannons. That is the point.

Article I, section 8, clause 11 lets Congress “grant letters of marque and reprisal.” A letter of marque authorizes a private citizen to fight in his own ship, with his own cannon. Goldstein: “A license presupposes what it licenses. The Clause takes a privately owned, cannon-armed fleet as given; nothing in the Constitution creates it.” His word “license” means the commission. It is not a carry permit.

Congress issued on the order of 1,700 privateering commissions in the Revolution, voyage by voyage, before the Constitution was ratified. The commission licensed the fight. It did not issue the guns. “The private citizen needed a federal commission to fight. He needed no one’s leave to acquire the guns or to keep them.”

The keep-rule is on the government

Article I, section 10, clause 3 says no state shall, without Congress’s consent, “keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace.”

That keep-rule is on the sovereign. Goldstein: “The Framers made a sovereign ask permission to keep a warship. They made the shipowner ask no one.” And: “Nowhere does the Constitution provide that no person shall keep a ship of war without consent.”

The same Constitution that told a state to ask before it kept a ship of war told the shipowner to ask no one.

Nothing in it says you couldn’t buy a cannon.

DOJ Sues Minnesota Over Gun Permit-to-Purchase Laws and Waiting Periods

On September 24, the Department of Justice took a huge step that could have major repercussions for gun control. The DOJ filed a lawsuit saying Minnesota’s firearm purchase permit and 30-day waiting period are unconstitutional.

Daniel Rosen, the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Minnesota, said:

“We are committed to protecting Minnesotans’ right to purchase firearms and we will not tolerate procedures that are wielded in a way that impairs that right.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said:

“Law-abiding citizens do not need government permission to purchase a firearm, and forcing a citizen who has already passed a background check to wait up to sixty days to obtain a firearm is intolerable under the Constitution.”

The suit is being brought against the state of Minnesota and the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota’s original purchase permit law was enacted in 1977 but has been modified several times, most recently in 2025.

In 2023, the state expanded its waiting period from seven to 30 days, the same as the time limit for local police or the county sheriff to grant or deny a permit.

According to the DOJ, police in both Minneapolis and St. Paul routinely take more than the 30 days the law allowed and that wait times of up to 60 days are not uncommon.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon commented:

“The Supreme Court held that the home is where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. When a person needs to defend their home, they need to defend it now, not thirty to sixty days from now.”

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Grassroots Judicial Report—September 30, 2026

What’s New — United States Supreme Court: Sept. 28 long conference summary; New York: Second Circuit: Defending Education v. Croton-Harmon Union Free School District: Docket No: 24-1900: Although this is not a 2A case, the court held that an organization may sue on behalf of its members under § 1983 when it satisfies the traditional test established in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission.

An important procedural matter for 2A cases: Hawaii: Ninth Circuit: En Banc: Yukutake v. Lopez, No. 1:19-cv-00578-JMS-RT: As of the 6-5 en banc decision, Hawaii may enforce both the 30-day handgun permit-expiration provision and the specified in-person firearm-inspection requirement;

Delaware: Third Circuit: Rigby v. Jennings: Case 1:21-cv-01523-MN: Decision:Filed 09/10/26 Judge Maryellen Noreika. A new Delaware law purports to “fix” this decision.

Week ending September 25

A review of the week’s available federal-court and Supreme Court materials did not reveal a new Supreme Court merits ruling, certiorari grant or denial squarely presenting a Second Amendment question, federal circuit merits opinion, or consequential preliminary-injunction ruling concerning the constitutional validity of a firearms restriction. However an en banc 6-5 ruling in  Yukutake v. Lopez that reversed the district court and the 3-judge panel’s injunction will probably be on its way to SCOTUS seeking certiorari.

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DOJ Broadens Lawsuit, Targets San Jose Insurance Requirement for Gun Owners as Well

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) amended its original complaint against San Jose, California’s concealed carry license fee so as to target the city’s liability insurance requirement for gun owners as well.

Breitbart News reported the DOJ’s initial complaint against San Jose, noting that it centered on the city’s “presumptively unconstitutional” concealed carry license fee of roughly $1,600.00.

But the DOJ has now amended the complaint so as to go after San Jose’s liability insurance requirement for gun owners, too.

The San Jose Police Department noted that the city has a Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance which “requires firearm owners to obtain and maintain liability insurance and pay an annual gun harm reduction fee.”

The DOJ’s amended complaint lists San Jose’s liability insurance requirement and Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance under the heading, “Abusive Fees.”

Author, Self-Described Gun Control Proponent, Says Gun Bans Don’t Work

A British-Canadian journalist and self-described gun control advocate who has authored a new book being released today—The American Way of Killing—told Time magazine in a Sept. 22 interview that he doesn’t think bans on so-called “assault weapons” work, and he also acknowledged the elimination of handguns is not likely possible.

Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer at The New Yorker for the past 30 years, has published eight books relating to the social sciences. He has finally gotten around to discussing gun-related violence in the U.S., but it is not clear that he understands the importance of the Second Amendment, and right-to-bear-arms tenets woven into more than 40 state constitutions.

Asked by Time editor-at-large Belinda Luscombe whether he thinks banning modern semiautomatic rifles—the so-called “assault weapons” now the subject of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court with oral arguments scheduled Dec. 2—his reply was blunt.

“No. Assault-rifle bans of the sort that have been passed and contemplated in the United States are completely pointless,” Gladwell stated. “They’re just a charade, and they are a distraction from the real issues. I think gun control can play an important role in violence prevention. But empty theatrical exercises in removing a class of rifles because they look a certain way do not move the needle.”

Coming from a gun control proponent, that amounts to blasphemy. And while Gladwell sticks to his guns (no pun intended), he admits the elimination of handguns in the U.S. is unlikely.

Aside from Supreme Court rulings that handguns are protected by the Second Amendment—which protects the right to keep and bear arms from government infringement—he just doesn’t believe removing them is possible.

“There’s the obvious political thing that people with guns are the most motivated to fight hardest politically,” he observed. “The Supreme Court currently has been captured by a majority of people who believe very strongly in gun rights. I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of guns there are in America, but there’s a lot. Practically speaking, I don’t know how you get rid of them. No one’s ever answered that. I’m as big an advocate of gun control as anyone else, but I have no clue about how it would work if it was passed. I mean, are you going into people’s homes to remove their guns? Very few gun-control advocates have a good answer to that question.”

Gladwell doesn’t mention the high court rulings which say gun ownership, especially handgun ownership, is protected by the Constitution. But he does point a finger at liberals who are adverse to recognizing that irresponsible people use guns to kill people, and that the gun, itself, doesn’t make that call.

“One of the many annoying things about the gun debate in America is the extent to which liberals roll their eyes at ‘Guns don’t kill people; people do,’” he told Time. “I understand their aversion to it because it was dreamt up by people who wanted to escape any responsibility at all for the presence of guns in America…One of the irresponsible things about progressive views on gun violence is the extent to which they use their legitimate antipathy towards guns as an excuse not to address more fundamental issues about human behavior.”

He also maintains that the so-called “epidemic of gun violence” often claimed by anti-gunners, is “an epidemic we invented.”

He doesn’t think criminal activity in the U.S. is inherent, but a problem “that was brought about by a wide set of very specific choices, misapprehensions, and errors.”

In a proverbial nutshell, Gladwell may have unwittingly indicted the political left. They don’t like guns, but their solutions, such as banning the most popular rifle in America, are non-starters. In reality, they really have no solutions at all that will pass muster under the Second Amendment, which is enjoying something of a revival under the Roberts Supreme Court, and many observers expect that to be strengthened even more when the Court rules on the constitutionality of semi-auto bans sometime in mid-2027.

ATF Says Suppressor and SBR Guidance Could Arrive Within Weeks

During “The Briefing,” an FFL compliance event hosted by FastBound, several high-ranking officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) attended, including ATF Director Robert Cekada, who answered industry questions.

Most attendees wanted guidance on transfers of suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), and any other weapons (AOWs). Director Cekada could not give specifics, but he offered hints about what is coming down the pike.

The biggest question is when the ATF will release the guidance. According to Cekada, the rule is not done, but it is close. He highlighted that the ATF is only one stakeholder involved in the new guidance. The other two are the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the White House. AmmoLand sources believe the White House is delaying the guidance’s release. According to the director, he believes the guidance will be released in the next couple of weeks.

 

The goal of the guidance is to cover as many Americans as possible while protecting the gun owners covered by it from future anti-gun administrations.

The ATF will most likely not expand the injunction to a universal level. The guidance will address several big questions and issues. With more than 2.3 million suppressors sold this year, according to former NFA Chief Steve Albro, the need for guidance is immense.

One issue the guidance will address is the transfer of SBRs and SBSs. Currently, although these items are protected under the Silencer Shop Foundation case, an ATF Form 4 is required to transfer them because of the Gun Control Act (GCA) attorney general notification requirement. The guidance will “fix” that carve-out, which seems to imply that SBRs and SBSs can be transferred on a Form 4473 alone.

Cekada was clear that these items, and long guns in general, are not an issue. At the Briefing, Cekada called out groups whose goal is to demonize these guns.

Another issue the guidance will address is interstate travel with covered NFA items. The regulation will cover those situations. Also, 15 states require buyers of some covered items to comply with federal law. According to Cekada, the guidance may address that issue, although ATF Chief Legal Counsel Robert Lieder clarified that the ATF cannot force these states to take the bureau’s advice.

AmmoLand asked Director Cekada about guidance for industry operations inspectors (IOIs) on how to handle dealers they find transferring suppressors on a Form 4473 during an inspection. Cekada was adamant that a federal firearms licensee (FFL) found to be transferring suppressors on a Form 4473 will not be cited for violations. Former NFA Chief Albro later echoed this, saying the ATF’s policy is to presume all suppressors transferred via a Form 4473 were legally transferred.

One interesting topic that was brought up was forced reset triggers (FRTs). Cekada said some FRTs are true FRTs, but some on the market are machine guns, and he declined to name the specific FRTs the ATF thinks might be machine guns. He said the ATF has to look at how the trigger mechanism works but will go by the statutory definition of a machine gun.

Throughout the meeting, the ATF discussed changes to Form 4473. Those changes are still in progress. Things like the “County” box will be eliminated. According to Lieder, the ATF is making changes to the forms to comply with court rulings such as the Supreme Court’s Hemani case, which invalidated the firearms prohibition on marijuana users. The new Form 4473 will not be out until after the holiday season.

Mr. Lieder also covered the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion letter on sales of handguns and handgun ammunition to 18- to 20-year-olds. Lieder says the ATF is working on its systems to allow those transfers. The ATF was not informed that the letter would be issued.

Although the ATF will allow transferring handguns to these young adults, the ATF is likely to keep the age for transferring machine guns and destructive devices at 21. The ATF will release guidance in the coming weeks, according to Lieder.

The ATF will continue working on NFA rules dealing with suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs. He wanted to make it clear they are not working on these rules despite the injunction. The goal of these rules is to backstop the current injunction in case something changes in the future. It is basically trying to future-proof against a future anti-gun administration. During this discussion, someone asked whether the ATF has plans to make the injunction “fairer” to those not covered. Lieder said their goal is to try to make any guidance as fair as possible without exceeding its power.

Mr. Lieder sees the biggest threats to the Second Amendment as private regulations and lawsuits. He highlighted monopolies and duopolies like common carriers and ride-share companies. He highlighted Waymo calling the police on a rider for having a gun. He also pointed to state lawsuits against firearm manufacturers.

Another hot topic was internet sales. According to Lieder, the industry is split. They are still considering comments from the rulemaking process, but he said those transfers are already legal under the law. The roadblock was ID verification, which is no longer an issue.

Another rule was hinted at but not confirmed: changes to “sporting purposes.” Lieder said they have been researching the law and might be reaching out for comments soon. These statements point to the rulemaking process, although nothing was confirmed.

Overall, the ATF answered many questions throughout the day, though some remain.

Second Shot at the Second Amendment: Could Heller Be Undone by an Errant Qualifier?

Many of us are gearing up with columns previewing the Court’s October term and have highlighted the upcoming arguments over bans on AR-15s and semiautomatic weapons out of the Seventh Circuit in Chicago (Viramontes v. Cook County) and the Second Circuit in New York (Grant v. Higgins).

In a recent column, Professor Rory Little suggests that these cases will strike at what he considers a glaring flaw in the Heller decision that recognized the individual right under the Second Amendment. Professor Little repeats a common claim about Heller that some of us have challenged. I wanted to briefly address that controversy again.The column appeared in Scotusblog, a respected site that offers tracking and commentary on pending Supreme Court cases.  Here is the portion that I wanted to address:

The 2008 Heller decision, which changed precedent to find a Second Amendment right to own handguns for self-defense, was decided 5-4. To me (and others) it is clear that Justice Antonin Scalia had to include various qualifiers in his opinion, or he would have lost one or two of his five votes and Heller would have come out differently.

Part III of the opinion was clearly added to capture, or keep, the narrow but earth-shattering majority, and ought to be viewed as the binding judgement of the court. Specifically, in addition to listing various “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms” left undisturbed, part III said “we also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. … the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’” (quoting United States v.Miller, a 1939 precedent upholding bans on machine guns).

I add emphasis on “at the time,” because the Viramontes briefing all but ignores what the court said was this “important limitation.”

As the solicitor general’s brief notes, “the AR-15 rifle was developed in 1956,” and the first semiautomatic rifle of any kind was sold in 1903. Thus, while they may be the “most commonly owned rifle[] in America” today (albeit by less than 10% of all Americans), semi-automatic rifles were undisputedly not in common use “at the time” the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791.

Indeed, as the SG’s brief also explains, it is the modern technological developments in the AR-15 that makes it popular today. (This is also why they are commonly used in mass-shootings.) Rather, the solicitor general’s Viramontes brief subtly changes the language, saying (on page 21) that the proper Second Amendment test is whether AR-15s “are in common use” today (again, my emphasis).

This radically departs from the doctrinal limits that were essential to cementing the Heller result. In his 2025 dissent from denial of certiorari, Kavanaugh (joined by Justice Samuel Alito) adopted this same semantic transfiguration of Heller (changing “were” to “are”) – an error (or strategy) presaged in Kavanaugh’s 2011 Circuit judge dissent when Heller was remanded in 2011.

Many folks will be listening on Dec. 2 to see whether a majority of justices will agree that Heller did not actually mean what it appeared to say.

As others have noted, this is an old saw repeated by many critics of Heller.

Justice Scalia anticipated this argument in the actual Heller decision. He wrote:

“Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.

We do not interpret constitutional rights that way…Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

As I recently discussed in a column, this issue came up nine years ago when Massachusetts attempted to ban stun guns. The Court issued a per curiam opinion in Caetano v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts that sent back a case to the First Circuit and rejected the logic that they were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment. The Court pointed out that in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), it expressly rejected that argument and held that the Second Amendment “extends . . . to . . . arms . . . that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” It also rejected two other rationales. (Notably, the Court is considering another stun gun case in Calce v. New York after the Second Circuit failed to heed the warning of the Court).

Notably, a new challenge has been filed in Connecticut over a ban of convertible handguns. It is likely to raise many of these same issues. The Firearm Industry Trade Association filed a lawsuit this week that will be before the district court as the Supreme Court hears arguments on the two pending cases.

I obviously disagree with Professor Little and other experts who raise this claim. There are, of course, good-faith arguments against the Heller decision. Some like Professor Little view that decision as “earth-shattering.” I do not. I still believe the Court was correct in viewing this as an individual right. However, I do not believe that this claim of a glaring and hypocritical contradiction between Heller and later cases is fair or supported. There was no sleight of hand in “changing ‘were’ to ‘are.’”

This really does not come down to a change in verbs. While many hope that packing the Supreme Court will result in an immediate reversal of Heller, it is unlikely to turn on the word “were.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”