Category: RKBA

Second Amendment Roundup: Bruen’s Citations on Sensitive Places
Enhanced government security is required when a location is made a gun free zone.

Stephen Halbrook

The Second Amendment creates the default rule that, absent a narrow exception, keeping and bearing arms is a right that may not be infringed.  The ongoing debate on the nature of the “sensitive places” where firearms may be prohibited boils down to whether, if individuals may have no arms for self-defense, the government must provide comprehensive or enhanced security.  If not, the disarmed place is just the perfect location for criminals to attack victims.

The Supreme Court has not decided a case on “sensitive places,” but has referred to their existence, most recently in Bruen.  There, the Court set forth the following two-step rule: “[W]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.  To justify its regulation, … the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”  A modern restriction must be shown to be analogous to laws (either statutes or the common law) that were considered permissible at the Founding.

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Florida… Where Non-Dangerous Felons Really Can Recover Their Gun Rights.

Christopher Morgan was convicted in Pennsylvania in 2007 after he was caught carrying a firearm without a state license. Fifteen years later, he was stopped by a Florida officer, whom he told of a pistol in the center console of his car. Morgan was charged in Florida with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He has no other criminal history.

Before his trial in Florida, Morgan’s defense team made a motion that the state firearm law, 790.23, is “unconstitutional both facially and as applied to him.” However, the trial court denied his motion. Morgan then pleaded no contest to the felon in possession Florida charges but appealed his conviction. He was sentenced to two days in jail and court costs.

Last week, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a response to Morgan’s appeal, which said that his conviction for possessing a firearm by a felon violates the Second Amendment.

AG Uthmeier actually agreed with Morgan’s legal team.

“On studied reflection, the Attorney General has concluded that the conviction does indeed infringe Morgan’s right, as a nondangerous felon, to keep and bear arms,” Uthmeier wrote. “The state must therefore confess error and urge this Court to reverse.”

In the court document, Uthmeier spells out that he is Florida’s “Chief Legal Officer,” and that he swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

“It is thus the Attorney General’s duty to admit when he believes the State has obtained a conviction in violation of the Constitution,” he wrote.

If the court permits him to file a brief for this case, Uthmeier’s team wrote, he will “discuss the lack of historical evidence supporting the dispossession of all felons as distinct from the strong historical evidence supporting the dispossession of dangerous felons.”

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Democrats’ gun grab collapses as major anti-2A bills go down in flames

In the final stretch of New Mexico’s legislative session, two sweeping gun control measures championed by progressive Democrats have effectively collapsed — a major victory for New Mexicans’ Second Amendment rights.

Senate Bill 17, the so-called “Stop Illegal Gun Trade and Extremely Dangerous Weapons Act,” was rolled indefinitely in the House Judiciary Committee, halting what critics described as one of the most aggressive gun control packages ever introduced in New Mexico. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 261, which sought to dramatically expand so-called “gun-free zones” around polling places and ballot drop boxes, failed to advance out of the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee after Ranking Member Rep. John Block forcefully exposed what he called “massive holes” in the legislation.

According to reporting from the Santa Fe New Mexican, the bill’s sponsors admitted the bill’s effective death, with state Sen. Debbie  O’Malley telling the outlet, “There’s not enough time to hear it again.”

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Missouri Senator Introduces Second Amendment Financial Privacy Measure

A measure introduced in the Missouri state Senate on February 9 is designed to protect the privacy of lawful gun owners and gun purchasers in the Show Me State.

Senate Bill 216, the “Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act,” was introduced by Republican state Sen. Jill Carter and presented in the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee. The measure would prohibit government entities from keeping a list, record or registry of privately-owned firearms.

Records may be maintained during a criminal investigation and prosecution of gun ownership. It also bans credit card networks from using a merchant category code (MCC) to differentiate firearm sales from other transactions.

At issue is a relatively new MCC for gun purchases adopted by the International Organization for Standardization in early 2023. MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize transactions. Prior to the creation of the specific gun code, firearms retailers were classified under the MCC as sporting goods stores or miscellaneous retail.

When the new code is used, credit card companies and other payment processors can tell that the purchases were firearms, creating a de facto gun registry. The U.S. Senate is currently considering a measure that would ban use of the gun-specific MCC nationwide.

BLUF
Draconian restrictions on the right to armed self-defense in public don’t make peaceable and law-abiding citizens safer. They just render them far less capable of defending themselves and others.

Look at the Defensive Gun Uses that Hawaii Wants to Criminalize.

Late last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, a case challenging a newly imposed Hawaii law that presumptively bans concealed carry permit holders from any private property open to the public (like gas stations and shopping malls) unless they first get express permission from the owner. Combined with other restrictions, the law has the practical effect of making lawful public carry virtually impossible in Hawaii.

Fortunately, the nation’s highest court appears likely to strike down the new restriction. But there’s still so much work left for the court to do when it comes to protecting the right to keep and bear arms—including, specifically, against infringements by the Hawaiian government. Even without the express permission requirement hanging over their heads, Hawaiian concealed carry permit holders will still be prohibited from exercising their rights in an absurdly long list of “sensitive places.”

These include, among other locations:

  • Any bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, regardless of whether the permit holder imbibes;

  • Any “stadium, movie theater, or concert hall”;

  • Any place at which any sporting event of any level of competition is being held;

  • Any beach, playground, or park, including “any state park, state monument, county park, tennis court, golf course, swimming pool, or other recreation area or facility under control, maintenance, and management of the State or a county”;

  • Any parking area adjacent to the prohibited locations above.

Constitutionally, it’s abhorrent. As a matter of public policy, it’s laughable – and dangerous.

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VA undoes decades-old wrong and protects Veterans’ Second Amendment rights
February 17, 2026

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a major new step to protect Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. Effective immediately, VA will not report Veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” only because they need help from a fiduciary in managing their VA benefits.

This corrects a three-decade-old wrong that deprived many thousands of Veterans in VA’s Fiduciary Program of their constitutional right to own a firearm without a legal basis.

After a thorough review, VA recognized that many Veterans had been deprived of their Second Amendment rights without hearings or adequate determinations that they posed a sufficient risk of danger to themselves or others. In consultation with the Department of Justice, VA has determined this practice violates both the Gun Control Act and Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. According to federal law, a decision by a judicial or quasi-judicial body is needed before someone can be reported to NICS.

A determination by the VA that a fiduciary is needed to help manage a Veteran’s VA benefits falls far short of this legal standard.

In addition to immediately stopping the reporting of VA Fiduciary Program participants to NICS, the department is working with the FBI to remove all past VA reporting from NICS, so no Veterans are unfairly deprived of their Second Amendment rights based solely on participation in VA’s Fiduciary Program.

“Many Americans struggle with managing their finances, and Veterans’ Second Amendment rights shouldn’t be stripped just because they need help in this area. But for too long, Veterans who needed the services of a VA fiduciary were deprived of their right to bear arms,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins. “Under the leadership of President Trump, we’re correcting this injustice and ensuring Veterans get the same due-process and constitutional rights as all Americans.”

The Department of Justice supports this action.

“It is both unlawful and unacceptable for Veterans who serve our country to have their constitutional rights threatened,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “It has been my pleasure to partner with Secretary Collins on this project, and I am directing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to review its regulations and propose changes that will prevent current and future violations of our Veterans’ Second Amendment rights.”

The Elephant in Gladwell’s Room
Forthcoming book on gun violence by Malcolm Gladwell

A book club member tipped me off to a forthcoming book on gun violence by Malcolm Gladwell, The American Way of Killing (h/t JP). The book drops September 29, 2026. I think it deserves our attention and it is a likely Fall 2026 Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club selection.

Here’s why I’m genuinely interested: Gladwell has a rare ability to shape how millions of Americans think about complex social issues. Love or hate his counterintuitive approach, his work moves conversations in ways academic publications rarely do. A Gladwell book on gun violence may define how a broad public audience understands the issue for years to come.

I’m particularly hopeful because the book builds on his Revisionist History podcast episodes about guns, which I found genuinely curious about the issue’s complexities. Those episodes didn’t rely on easy answers or inflammatory rhetoric. They asked interesting questions and looked in unexpected places for answers. That approach, applied to a book-length treatment, could be valuable.

According to the online press release,

In The American Way of Killing (out September 29, 2026) Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the award-winning podcast Revisionist History, gets to the heart of America’s gun violence crisis: Where did America’s violence problem come from? And, why has it proven so difficult to address?

This promises to be classic Gladwell and, as such, could be genuinely important work.

Of course, as a scholar whose research focuses on gun culture rather than gun violence, I’m curious to see how Gladwell bridges these often-separate conversations. Of course, some questions remain about how this conversation will unfold.

There are some red flag warnings here — we are talking about discussions of American gun violence, after all. I certainly can’t criticize a book I haven’t read, but here the framing of the book raises a couple of questions for me.

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Personally, I’d rather such laws didn’t get enacted rather than live through the years it takes for a case to get through the court system

OSD 364: Gun control is quietly having a moment
Huh, normally we like retro vibes.

A few months ago, in “OSD 352: ‘Gun rights are winning and nobody has realized it’, 2025 edition”, we checked in on state-level gun control laws:

Delaware passed an assault weapons ban in 2022 and Illinois and Washington passed one in 2023. Colorado is going to have a permit-to-purchase regime for “assault weapons” in 2026. Those were major setbacks. Previously, we had often cited the pleasing fact that all seven states with AWBs had originally passed them between 1989 and 1994. The idea was that AWBs weren’t a trend, they were a relic from a moral panic. That is no longer entirely true.

This hasn’t been a big topic because it happened on state by state, but it is a sea change. From 1994 to 2022, no state changed its mind in favor of AWBs. But that equilibrium — seven states with AWBs and 43 without — no longer holds. In addition to the states above, Virginia and New Mexico look to be on their way to bans of their own in 2026.

It’s a mirror image of the concealed carry revolution. That also happened state by state, and most of the country was shall-issue before most people even knew that was a trend. The same could happen with AWBs. What will decide that is whether guns continue to build cultural momentum and whether the courts get involved.

On that latter point, a New Mexico ban might have a silver lining. It’s in jurisdiction of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike the circuit courts covering, say, California or New York or Massachusetts, the Tenth Circuit might strike down an AWB. That could generate a circuit split, since other circuit courts to look at the issue have upheld AWBs. And a circuit split makes it likelier for the Supreme Court to accept an AWB case. Justice Kavanaugh has already basically announced that the Court is looking to take such a case in the next 1-2 years.

There’s a “you know you’re over the target when you’re taking flak” aspect to expansions of individual rights. As the rights gain momentum, they provoke a backlash of crackdowns from governments that are hostile to them. So the moment of most contentious backlash is the moment right before you win. But a right has to survive long enough to break through to that point. Keep at it.

The ATF Created a Backdoor Gun Registry. Lawmakers Want an Explanation.
Federal law bans the creation of a gun registry, but regulators made one anyway.

It has been illegal since 1986 for the federal government to establish a national firearms registry. As you might expect of the sort of people who gravitate to government employment, the bureaucrats at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), enabled by Biden-era policy changes, have taken that as a challenge. Now, members of Congress want answers from the federal gun cops about a vast gun registry database that could threaten the liberty and privacy of firearms owners. They have been stonewalled so far.

Lawmakers Question an Illegal Gun Registry

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ATF Backtracks On Permit Denials After Backlash From Pro-Second Amendment Group

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) backtracked Tuesday after Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted screenshots on X of the denial of an application for items covered by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

The reconciliation bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in July 2025 contained provisions that reduced the taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and guns described as “any other weapon” to $0. According to screenshots posted on X by GOA from legal documents filed Monday, a member of the gun-rights group requested tax stamps for a suppressor and a short-barreled Winchester 1300 shotgun, leading ATF to respond on the social media site.  (RELATED: Chris Murphy Wants To Jack Up Taxes On Certain Accessories And Guns Sky High)

“On January 28, 2026, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (‘ATF’) ‘disapproved’ two Form 1 Applications to Make and Register NFA Firearms related to making a suppressor and a short-barreled rifle that had been submitted by a member of Plaintiff Gun Owners of America,” GOA said in its Monday filing. “As Plaintiffs explain in the attached notice of supplemental authority, ATF’s disapproval of these Form 1s demonstrates that the National Firearms Act is not a ‘shall-issue’ scheme as Defendants argue. And it shows that ATF determined that the exercise of Second Amendment rights an illegitimate reason to acquire a firearm.”

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Virginia Gun Owners Defeat $500 Suppressor Tax

Virginia Gun Owners Defeat $500 Suppressor Tax

The announcement that suppressors in the Commonwealth of Virginia will not be taxed is being considered a victory by many. The proposed suppressor tax has been removed, at least for now. It would seem Abigail Spanberger and her gang of anti-gun tyrants are getting the pushback they deserve. The Virginia gun grabbers might be starting to realize that taking advantage of the citizens they represent is not good optics for reelection, and gun owners across the Country are demanding Democrats obey and uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Especially the 2nd Amendment.

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Bondi dodges the question. And from her time as a Florid’s AG, we knew she was no fan of RKBA.
The real question no one seems to have the sense to ask is WHo DECIDED to litigate this?
Was it Bondi, and Trump is too loyal to her to bring her too heel, or is it Trump being his NOO YAWK self?

Rep. Ben Cline: The Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans, last year President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law which included the Hearing Protection Act — part of it — which was sponsored by myself and Congressman Clyde. It reduced the national firearms tax, $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms, to zero and while the tax has been eliminated, the NFA’s registration and paperwork requirements remain in effect.

And your DOJ has said that would, even though the tax has been reduced to zero, that the registration requirement is still somehow necessary even though with regard to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, when that tax penalty was reduced to zero, you decided that the mandate was no longer necessary.

How are you justifying the existence of this registry?

AG Pam Bondi: Congressman, that’s pending litigation right now.

Rep. Cline: It is and I would hope that you would reconsider that.

Grassroots Legislative Report—February 9, 2026

By Tanya Metaksa

What’s New—Connecticut: Governor Ned Lamont has put the full weight of his office behind HB5043; Florida: HB1551, to provide protections at the state level to complement the PLCAA; Hawaii: On Feb. 2, a hearing was held in the Senate Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee; Indiana: SB 176, a bill. to prevent shooting ranges from being closed; Maryland: Hearings are scheduled in three Committees this week; Missouri: The Senate Transportation, Infrastructure, and Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on Monday on SB1128; Nebraska: A hearing was held on Feb. 2, on LB1237;  New Hampshire: On  Feb. 5, the House passed HB1793; New Mexico: The Senate Health & Public Affairs Committee held a hearing on SB17, an omnibus gun-control bill,on Jan. 28; Oregon: The legislature convened on Feb. 2, and immediately, the House Committee on the Judiciary had a hearing for HB4145; Pennsylvania: HB 1909 passed the House 104-94. South Dakota: SB2,removing silencers from the state’s controlled weapons listing has passed both the House and Senate; Virginia: The Democrat controlled legislature is on a mission to erase the Second Amendment in the Commonwealth; Washington: The Senate is in a hurry to pass HB2320

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Major 2A Win: Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Lifetime Gun Ban for Non-Violent Felon

A unanimous decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just delivered one of the most important Second Amendment wins in years—and it did so quietly, methodically, and on solid constitutional ground.

In United States v. Charles Hembree, the Fifth Circuit ruled 3–0 that the federal government cannot permanently disarm a person based solely on a single, non-violent drug possession conviction. Applying the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment framework, the court held that enforcing the federal “felon-in-possession” statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), against Hembree violated the Constitution.

For gun owners, this ruling matters far beyond one defendant in Mississippi.

United States v. Hembree

Charles Hembree had one felony on his record—a 2018 Mississippi conviction for possession of methamphetamine. Hembree was not accused of trafficking drugs, committing violence, or using a firearm in connection with the offense. Years later, federal prosecutors charged him under § 922(g)(1) after he possessed a firearm, arguing that any felony conviction automatically justifies a lifetime gun ban.

A federal district court agreed. The Fifth Circuit did not.

On appeal, a three-judge panel vacated Hembree’s conviction, holding that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. The court concluded that permanently disarming someone for a single, non-violent possession offense has no grounding in the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

That historical grounding is not optional. It is now the law.

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Half of Canada Says ‘No’ to Gun Buyback

By Dave Workman

Virtually half of Canada—several provinces and two territories—are saying “No” to the federal government’s multi-million-dollar buyback scheme, with the National Post reporting this week that the government of Newfoundland is also refusing to participate.

According to the report, “This now means that half the provinces, along with two of the three territorial governments, have declined to participate in the buyback: only Quebec, British Columbia, the Maritimes and Nunavut are left.”

Extending support across the border for this stunning rejection is the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, based in Bellevue, Washington. Calling the proposed buyback “compensated confiscation,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb declared in a statement to the media, “This is a remarkable—and welcome—wake-up call to Canada’s liberal national government, and it is long overdue. Gun control in Canada has crossed the line when it pushes a massive ‘buyback,’ which is really nothing more than compensated confiscation. What the governments in those provinces, and the territories are saying on behalf of the citizens is that this massive gun control scheme is a non-starter.”

Canada does not have the equivalent of the Second Amendment, so there is no recognized fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

But governments in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon have rejected the plan. Gottlieb noted that’s virtually half of Canada’s land mass.

“The people in those provinces need guns for their very survival,” he said, “and their voices are being heard.”

In a statement issued by Newfoundland earlier this week, the government said, “Government has raised concerns about the program’s practicality, the strain it could place on policing resources, and whether it would deliver meaningful improvements in public safety for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The Provincial Government believes police resources should be directed toward tackling violent crime, drug-related activity, and repeat offenders — not toward measures that risk targeting law-abiding residents.”

The central government in Ottawa has a list hundreds of guns it wants people to turn in, and according to the National Post story, some $250 million has been allocated to compensate gun owners for their surrendered firearms.

But rural Canadians—except in British Columbia—are having none of it.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham explained, “As Premier, I call on the Federal Government to further engage provinces and territories on this issue, and to re-allocate the resources allotted for this program toward reducing crime, drug-related violence, and repeat offenders. Decisions are being made at a federal level that are isolated from legitimate civilian use of firearms. The Federal Government should focus on criminals, not law-abiding hunters and our way of life.”

The ‘Common Sense Gun Control’ Lie: How Antigun States Restrict Access to the Second Amendment.

Events in Minnesota have created some strange temporary bedfellows. An opponent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s efforts, Alex Pretti, was shot and killed by federal officers. Because he happened to be carrying a firearm while protesting against deportations, the typical talking points coming from many politicians have completely flipped from their typical stances on guns and the Second Amendment.

On the one hand, some Trump administration officials, and later even the President himself, asserted that carrying a firearm at a protest or near law enforcement officers is illegal. Both of those claims are false in Minnesota, with the latter claim being false everywhere else, too. Whether any of this leads to a policy shift remains to be seen, though that seems unlikely. Generally speaking, the second Trump Administration has been very helpful to Second Amendment activists, particularly to those of us in antigun states like California.

But just as the President and a few members of his administration were rhetorically throwing the Second Amendment under the bus, some politicians who have long opposed gun rights suddenly express support for the right to keep and bear arms. This support, of course, is phony.

As all of this was going on, Virginia Democrats were advancing legislation to ban the gun and magazine he carried, along with many other popular firearms. Just like stray comments from President Trump likely don’t indicate any real shift in policy, neither does Democrats suddenly voicing support for the Second Amendment mean that they will be opposing further gun control laws.

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Proposed WV House Bill Would Expand Castle Doctrine, Strengthen Self-Defense Protections

CHARLESTON, WV (LOOTPRESS) — A newly introduced bill in the West Virginia House of Delegates would expand the state’s Castle Doctrine laws, strengthening legal protections for people who use force — including deadly force — in self-defense.

House Bill 4878, introduced on January 28, would broaden when and where West Virginians may legally defend themselves, their homes, and others, while also shielding them from both criminal charges and civil lawsuits when force is lawfully used.

The legislation clarifies that a lawful occupant may use reasonable force, including deadly force, against an intruder or attacker inside a home or residence if they reasonably believe the intruder could cause death, serious bodily harm, or intends to commit a felony.

The bill also extends those protections beyond the walls of the home to include the curtilage — areas immediately surrounding a residence, such as yards, driveways, and porches — and removes any duty to retreat when a person is lawfully present.

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