Category: RKBA

Somebody Finally Admits It!
Licensed Citizens are “Responsible Gun Owners”

Here’s something you don’t see every day, especially at a “mainstream” publication such as Axios, where a recent story — which (full disclosure) included a quote from yours truly — featured a stunning acknowledgement from the CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a Seattle-based, billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group.

“While we acknowledge more guns pose a greater threat to our communities, CPL holders tend to be responsible gun owners,” Alliance boss Renee Hopkins told Axios.

From an anti-gunner in the Evergreen State, that’s a choking mouthful. Just to make sure it wasn’t a typo, I spoke with reporter Christine Clarridge, a veteran journalist not known for flubbing a quote and was satisfied the remark was accurate.

Which raises the question: If the gun control crowd admits law-abiding, legally-armed citizens are not a problem, why do anti-gun-rights advocates continue pushing legislation which they know will only affect the good guys? The easy answer: They know honest citizens will remain so and they also know trying to get criminals to comply is a dead-end endeavor.

Back in 2021, Dr. John Lott, founder and CEO at the Crime Prevention Research Center, did an essay on just how law-abiding CCW permit holders are. To give readers an idea about where his research went, Lott wrote this: “In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of firearms-related violations at one-twelfth of the rate at which police officers. In the 19 states with comprehensive permit revocation data, the average revocation rate is one-tenth of one percent. Usually, permit revocations occur because someone moved or died or forgot to bring their permit while carrying.”

Dr. John Lott, founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center,
says private citizens licensed to carry are far more law-abiding
than most other people.

He added, “Academics have published fifty-two peer-reviewed, empirical studies on concealed carry. Of these, 25 found that allowing people to carry reduces violent crime, and 15 found no significant effect. A minority (12) observed increases in violent crime. These 12, however, suffer from a systematic error to varying degrees: they tend to focus on the last 20 years and compare states that recently passed concealed carry laws with more lenient states that had sustained growth in permits over the past two decades. The finding that crime rose relatively in such states is consistent with permit holders reducing crime.”

The Axios piece centered on Clarridge’s report about the rising number of concealed pistol licenses in Washington state. I’ve been reporting on this for some years, but the establishment media avoids the story like the Olympic shooting competitions. Nobody on the left wants to acknowledge the Evergreen State has more than 709,000 active CPLs, and that roughly 20 percent of those licenses are held by women. What’s the number in your state, and what percentage of armed citizens are women?
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If we can’t believe prohibitionist gunquacks, who can we believe?

Agenda Once More Bleeds Through in Latest National Gun Policy Survey

They left out “confiscation.” If they ever get these done and they’ll always be back for more. (Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions/Facebook)

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “The results are in! Our new National Survey of Gun Policy reveals that Americans broadly agree on many gun violence prevention policies,” Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions exclaims on X.com. “Check out the 2025 survey findings.”

They present those over at their website, where we find the Center is part of the “Bloomberg School of Public Health,” as in anti-gun (except for the government and his law-skirting security team) billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The use of the pejorative term “gun violence” to stigmatize the inanimate object instead of the willful human aggressor is our first clue as to what they mean by “solutions” and “prevention.”

We’re told it’s a “nationally representative survey” which “found wide support for gun violence prevention policies across political lines and among both gun owners and non-owners.” We’re told they’ve been doing this since 2013.  What we’re not told is any meaningful metric to prove any of their “solutions” have prevented anything except citizens being able to exercise a supposedly unalienable right with a government mandate that it “shall not be infringed.”

The questions, asked of “2,977 respondents, 1,001 gun owners and 1,976 non-gun owners and 959 Republicans and 1,419 Democrats” need to be viewed with two further caveats: The Bloombergians make no attempt on this page to share how the questions were worded (because doing so differently could produce different results), or to establish actual knowledge the respondents had – as opposed to what they’ve been told by the overwhelmingly prohibition-supporting media, and by the Democrat Party.

Why, if it’s “representative,” does the survey include significantly more Democrats than Republicans, especially after the popular and electoral victories Second Amendment-proclaiming Donald Trump attained over gun prohibitionist Kamala Harris? And don’t overlook that just because someone is a gun owner doesn’t automatically put them in the pro-Second Amendment camp, as the Fudds comprising Giffords’ “Gun Owners for Safety” amply demonstrate.

But on to the claims…

We’re told that “74% of Americans support laws that require a person to lock up the guns in their home when not in use.”  What they don’t tell us, and presumably didn’t tell the respondents, is that they also want ammunition locked separately from firearms, meaning if quick access is needed to defend against an intruder, he’ll be on you before you can load your gun. We’ve also seen cases where trained children have successfully defended themselves against intruders, and cases where they could not, with tragically outrageous results. It would also be helpful to see what percentage of homes where untrained children access unsecured guns include criminal residents.

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Signal Breaking Through: Australia ‘Losing Control’ as the Populace Slowly Re-Arms Itself.

[W]hile Australia has long been heralded as the gold standard for gun control, almost 30 years later, the landscape is shifting.

Gun numbers are on the rise – there are now more than 4m firearms in the Australian community, almost double the 2.2m weapons recorded in 2001, after the national firearms agreement, according to a report commissioned by gun safety groups.

At least 2,000 new guns are lawfully entering the community every week.

And while the number of gun licence holders per capita has gone down as Australia’s population has soared, there is now a larger number of guns in the community per capita than there was in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown.

That’s because the number of guns each licence holder has is going up – gun owners now average more than four firearms for each licence. In Sydney New South Wales firearm register data shows that there are more than 70 individuals who own more than 100 firearms. (Crucially, these are not deemed to be collectors, whose weapons are not functional.)

And, despite the Howard reforms promising uniform gun laws throughout Australia and the establishment of a national firearm register, 30 years later this is not a reality.

The states and territories are creeping towards the establishment of a new national firearms registry but the gun lobby is pushing back as the details of how it will operate are still being negotiated.

Other provisions of the national firearms agreement remain unimplemented, the country still has a hodgepodge of state-based laws and a lack of data transparency makes understanding Australia’s gun landscape difficult. In NSW the government is considering enshrining a new “right to hunt” in law, while in WA shooting groups are mobilising against tough new licensing requirements.

There are also growing concerns about weapons that circumvent the gun licensing system entirely. 3D-printed firearms of increasing sophistication are now routinely seized by police as Australians tap into an online ecosystem that glorifies a so-called “unlimited right to keep and bear arms”.

— Sarah Martin and Ariel Bogle in Australia was once the gold standard for gun safety. Experts say it’s losing control

 How Fashionable Lefty Mission Creep and Allegations of Racism All But Destroyed One Prominent Gun Control Operation.

In late 2024, with finances tightening, [March for Our Lives] let go five employees — nearly a quarter of the staff. Seeking to refine its mission and funding pitch, the group brought in a consultant who interviewed board members, leadership, and staff, compiling “verbatim comments” from across the organization in a [confidential strategic] report. “We were all so convinced that we were going to rise up and not only crush Trump, but really show how much the youth care what’s going on in society with respect to gun violence,” one comment reads. “That didn’t happen.”

Many of the comments in the report are in tension — they clearly represent individual perspectives, not MFOL’s official views or policies. But themes emerge.

Some participants said the group’s message had become diluted, in part because it weighed in on issues like climate change, abortion, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This detracted from gun violence efforts and hampered fundraising, they said. A few people said MFOL needed to acknowledge that donors respond more to white kids affected by school shootings than to gun violence in marginalized communities. “We don’t utilize the Parkland narrative enough,” one comment reads. “Parkland still brings out a visceral reaction in people. We walked away from the Parkland narrative because people felt we needed to focus on Black and brown communities, but I would not walk away — especially in fundraising rooms.”

According to [former development director Zachary] Ford, it was largely board members who argued that by taking stands on too many causes, the group was turning off donors and abandoning its core purpose. Board members were wary of taking a position on Gaza, for instance, failing to appreciate that silence would harm the group’s credibility with its primary demographic, he said. The divide on Gaza illustrates a broader split that Ford described between staff — whom he characterized as young, assertive, deeply committed to issues of social justice, particularly around race — and the board, which was on the whole older, more buttoned-up, and wary of being divisive. But he stressed that these differences did not lead to the terminations. After the board called for a new direction, sparking concerns that work on behalf of Black and brown communities was in jeopardy, staff accused it of racism. Only then were employees fired, Ford said. …

Former staffers said that the board wanted one-off events that would spotlight the group and its cause, while staff were invested in the steady work of producing long-term results. “It was very clear that the board wanted something splashy, a viral moment, to go back to 2018 and 2019 and have those connections with celebrity, popular culture,” said a former staffer who requested anonymity because of the terms of a severance agreement. In recent years, several of the Parkland survivors who’d garnered public attention left MFOL, though Corin and high-profile board member David Hogg remain. (Hogg’s recent attempt to shake up the Democratic National Committee led to his departure from party leadership.)

The report identifies drawing young people to the group’s cause as another challenge. “We need to think about how to pull Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z-ers in,” reads one comment. “There is a whole generation that does not feel connected to this movement.” Another concern was maintaining authenticity as a youth crusade when so much direct support came from an older demographic, particularly white women. “At one point, 80 percent of our following was middle-aged white women. We focused our message on them, and it was effective,” a comment reads. “That’s when we were raising money.”

— Will Van Sant in They Rallied the Nation After the Parkland School Shooting. Years Later, Their Group Is Floundering.

John Cornyn learns not to mess with Texas

“Don’t mess with Texas” is a homespun aphorism that expresses a genuine sentiment. Texans, and to a slightly lesser degree, Wyomingites, are independent cusses. They’re proud of their states and their beliefs, and pushed too far don’t whine about why government isn’t making things right. They handle it themselves and vote the useless weasels out at the next electoral opportunity.

One such weasel is long-serving Texas Senator John Cornyn. Once thought a reliable Republican, he forgot which state he represents and stepped on a known Texas land mine: gun control. In Texas, weakness on the Second Amendment and cruelty to animals are two things among many guaranteed to provoke political death. Cornyn was thought among the most untouchable politicians in Texas until he went wobbly during the Biden’s Handler’s years and crossed the aisle to pass a 2022 gun control bill, the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA).” Cornyn wasn’t the only line crosser, but he crossed a Texas line, which Texans don’t forget or forgive. The Garland DOJ bragged about it in 2024:

June 25 marks the second anniversary of the enactment of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) – a landmark law focused on reducing and protecting communities from gun violence. The Justice Department has pursued a cross-department approach with the new tools provided in BSCA, from enhanced background checks to grantmaking.

 

Accordingly, Cornyn is being primaried by Texas AG Ken Paxton, who has been leading Cornyn in the polls. As one might imagine, the media are doing all they can to try to negate Paxton’s lead. Both are Republicans, but they hate Paxton more:

The TSU poll shows Paxton leading Cornyn in a two-person Republican primary race by 5 percentage points. A similar poll conducted by TSU in May found Paxton leading by 9 percentage points.

“Cornyn has substantially narrowed the gap both related to our prior surveys but especially related to many of the surveys that were circulating earlier in the summer that had him down by 10, 15, 20 points or so,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who co-directed the study.

Paxton has a variety of personal and professional issues dogging him, but that anyone could be so far ahead of Cornyn is a reflection of how ticked off Texans are. This kind of politically convenient memory lapse isn’t helping:

Cornyn apparently forgot the Internet, including his own website, is forever:

 

Shooting News Weekly’s headline is pertinent:  “Is John Cornyn Cognitively Impaired Or Is He Just Lying About His Role in Passing Biden’s Gun Control Bill?”

I can’t vouch for cognitive impairment, but lying? As Texans might say: yup. They’re not fond of that either.

Texas Senator John Cornyn shocked gun owners across the country this week after denying any involvement in helping pass Biden’s signature gun control bill—the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA)—despite his well-documented leadership role in getting it across the finish line in 2022. [skip]

The backlash was immediate and fierce.

“Perhaps at 73, Cornyn is starting to share more than just policy blunders with Biden,” said TXGR President Chris McNutt. “That creeping forgetfulness might explain why he’s also in denial about those abysmal polls showing AG Paxton wiping the floor with him. Texas Gun Rights is happy to remind Cornyn — and all pro-gun Texans — of his blunders.”

Just how mad are Texans at Cornyn?  This mad:

Cornyn was booed by more than 8,000 delegates at the 2024 Texas GOP convention, and now faces rising grassroots opposition heading into the 2026 Republican primary. Both Texas Gun Rights PAC and National Association for Gun Rights PAC have already endorsed Paxton for U.S. Senate.

“Gun owners don’t forget betrayal,” said McNutt. “And they’re ready to make sure Cornyn never forgets 2026.”

Plenty can happen between now and the mid-terms, but Cornyn damned well knows how badly he screwed up and he’s fiercely backpedaling, trying to look like a solid Republican. Texans aren’t going to forget, and it looks like they’re not in a forgiving mood. If Trump endorses Paxton, Cornyn is likely toast and it will be his own fault.

 

If This Is Their Best Argument Against National Reciprocity, They Should Give Up Now

Concealed carry reciprocity at the federal level is more likely to happen now, before the midterms, than at any other point in history. It’s still an uphill fight, but President Trump has promised his support, and others are rallying to the cause. That’s the good news.

Unfortunately, there are still enough senators who can filibuster the bill that it makes it a challenge to get it to the president’s desk.

Still, gun control groups are digging in for a fight. They’re trying to lay the groundwork for their attacks on the bill, but if they look like this, they should just give up now.

Let’s start with the headline, because it matters. It reads, “More Than 2,800 Non-Self Defense Deaths Involving Concealed Carry Killers Since 2007, Latest Violence Policy Center Research Shows.”

Note the language here: “concealed carry killers” versus “non-self defense[sic] deaths.”

That’s an important point that will come up here in a bit.

Now, for the “argument”:

Concealed handgun permit holders are responsible for at least 2,817 deaths not involving self-defense since 2007, according to the Violence Policy Center’s (VPC) ongoing Concealed Carry Killers (concealedcarrykillers.org) project, an online resource that provides examples of non-self defense killings involving private citizens with permits to carry concealed handguns in public.

This latest update comes as legislation endorsed by the gun lobby and firearms industry has been introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 38) and Senate (S. 65) to allow individuals with state-issued concealed firearm permits to carry their weapons in any state that issues carry permits or does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms. The bills are currently moving through the committee process.

Overall, Concealed Carry Killers documents 2,552 fatal, non-self defense incidents since May 2007 in 40 states and the District of Columbia, resulting in the deaths of 2,817 people. Thirty-eight of the incidents were fatal mass shootings as defined by federal law (three or more victims killed), resulting in the deaths of 186 victims. At least 24 law enforcement officers have died at the hands of concealed carry killers since May 2007.

VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand states, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”

Of course, they note that there are no official records keeping track of this, so they have to base all of their so-called research on news reports and whatever limited data they can get from the states, but let’s start off by looking at the raw numbers presented here. They maintain that the actual numbers are probably higher, which might be true, but probably isn’t. Still, let’s look at what they’ve got because that’s what we have.

It’s been 17 full years since 2007, and I’m making an assumption they’re not including any information from this year–which isn’t a safe assumption, to be fair, but for the sake of argument, I think this will be fine–which means we’re looking at 165.7 “deaths” by concealed carriers per year.

Sure, those are all tragic, to be certain, but when you look at nearly 46,000 “gun deaths” each year, it’s not even a drop in the bucket.

“But Tom, those ‘gun deaths’ include suicides. Isn’t that apples and oranges?”

A fair question, good reader, but it’s not. Why? Because the VPC does the exact same thing.

In the vast majority of the 2,552 incidents documented in Concealed Carry Killers (2,435, or 95 percent), the concealed carry permit holder either died by suicide (1,732), has already been convicted (614), perpetrated a murder-suicide (65), or was killed in the incident (24). Of the 77 cases still pending, the vast majority (61) of concealed carry killers have been charged with criminal homicide, five were deemed incompetent to stand trial, and 11 incidents are still under investigation. An additional 40 incidents were fatal unintentional shootings involving the gun of the concealed handgun permit holder.

The fact that someone has a concealed carry permit has nothing at all to do with their suicide. Plenty of people take their own lives with guns while lacking carry permits. Others use different means of doing the same thing. Suicide numbers really shouldn’t be included in a look at “concealed carry killers,” now, should it? Not if you really want to make the case that national reciprocity will make people less safe.

Interestingly, the chart they include has a section for “self-defense/no verdict,” which makes no sense at all if you’re trying to claim these aren’t self-defense shootings.

Still, if we decide to accept the remaining numbers at face value–mostly because they don’t include any total on those “self-defense/no verdict” numbers–we end up with 1,085 deaths attributed to concealed carry permit holders. That’s an average of just under 64 killings per year. That’s versus an average of just under 18,000 murders with firearms.

That’s not a problem. That’s statistical noise.

Then we have their interpretation of these claims.

VPC Government Affairs director Kristen Rand is quoted as saying, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”

Except that’s not the case at all, and even the anti-gun The Trace knows that’s not true.

How do I know that? Because look at their report on defensive gun uses, which looked at both Gun Violence Archive numbers and numbers from The Heritage Foundation.

Gun Violence Archive, the Kentucky-based nonprofit that tallies gun-related incidents in near-real time, also counts DGUs. But it only captures incidents that make the news or are reported to police. And GVA includes incidents involving illegal gun possessors as well as legal owners, including shootouts as well as stand-your-ground shootings. GVA recorded 8,394 DGUs from 2017 to 2021, which works out to an average of 1,678 a year. But that’s likely a massive undercount.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, launched a DGU tracker in 2019 that relies on media reports, but counts only defensive gun use by lawful owners. Heritage tallied 2,106 shootings from 2019 to 2021, for an average of 702 per year. The group cautions that it’s “not intended to be comprehensive” because “most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets.” That’s a common belief among pro-gun advocates, some of whom believe the 2.5 million figure is, in fact, too low.

Both of these totals are much lower than the 165.7 per year average noted above. It’s worth noting, though, that these are compiled through media reports, just as VPC’s numbers are. If their estimates are low, then it stands to reason that we’re right about the defensive gun use totals also being low, especially since a lot of them never make the news.

And if you remove suicides from the equation, as you should, the difference is even more stark.

However, then we need to consider concealed carry holders versus society as a whole, since this whole report was intended to imply that they’re a danger to society.

Joe LoPorto, the Director of Legal Operations for the New Jersey Firearms Owners Syndicate, did a little math, passed along to me, comparing per capita rates overall. Here’s what he told me:

The VPC, financially backed by the Joyce Foundation, itself a President Obama pet project with over $1 billion in assets has been running its Concealed Carry Killers database for years. We all know the numbers they are producing are massively inflated. However, even when taken at face value and considering the most conservative estimate of the number of Americans with a concealed carry permit (rounded down to just 20 million), their own data support our point.

Based on their own data, presented by VPC in a way to look as inflammatory as possible, the murder rate amongst the population of concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. would be 2.7 per 100,000 people, or less than half the murder rate of the overall U.S. population at 5.9 per 100,000. Again, based on their inflated numbers, the suicide rate of concealed carry permit holders would be 5.0 per 100,000 or about 1/3rd that of the overall U.S. population at 14.2 per 100,000.

Even accepting their inflated statistics, their own data show that concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. are substantially safer than the overall U.S. population.

New Jersey is the perfect example.  Before Bruen, virtually no one was able to obtain a concealed carry permit. In the years since Bruen, nearly 100,000 New Jerseyans obtained concealed carry permits… and the violent crime and gun crime rates in the state declined.

Peaceable people exercising their core constitutional rights in the U.S. are not the problem.

That last bit, especially, is absolutely correct.

On every level, their entire premise falls apart. The attempt to demonize concealed carry permit holders fails in the face of literally any other evidence. It only works in a vacuum, and there’s no such thing in the world of media today.

Seriously, this is so absolutely pathetic that they should hide in shame for the next thousand years or so.

Tennessee’s “intent to go armed” and “parks” statutes declared unconstitutional

On August 22, 2025, a three-judge panel (the “court”) in Tennessee declared Tennessee’s intent to go armed statute unconstitutional. The court also declared Tennessee’s statute that prohibits carrying firearms in parks to be unconstitutional.

Tennessee’s “intent to go armed” statute is contained in Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1307(a)(1) which provides “A person commits an offense who carries, with the intent to go armed, a firearm or a club.” The statute makes it a criminal offense to carry any firearm at any time and at any place, including a person’s on property or in their own home, “with the intent to go armed.” Thus, an officer would have reasonable cause to believe a crime is being committed just by observing a person carry or wearing a firearm – even in their own yard. That reasonable cause justifies an officer in stopping, detaining, questioning, charging or arresting the individual for that crime. The statutes do provide certain affirmative defenses, such as the individual had a handgun permit or that they were in their own home, but those defenses do not shield the individual from being stopped, questioned or arrested. Indeed, Tennessee law currently puts the burden on the individual to raise and demonstrate those defenses at trial.

Recognizing the statute’s function, the court’s ruling stated “As such, the Going Armed Statute criminalizes conduct within the scope of the Second Amendment as discussed above. Such conduct is presumed to be constitutionally protected—in other words, this statute is presumed to
be unconstitutional—unless Defendants can demonstrate that regulation of carrying a weapon with the intent to go armed is within the historical tradition of this nation.”

Turning to the arguments by Defendants Gov. Lee and Attorney General Skrmetti, which the court rejected, the court stated “Defendants’ arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive because they make no defense of nor even address the constitutional infirmity at the heart of the statute—the criminalization of the constitutional right to bear arms. . . . Defendants do not satisfy their flipped burden under Bruen and have in no way demonstrated a plainly legitimate sweep for proscribing in toto, subject to narrow exceptions in subsequent subsections, the right to bear arms.”

In striking down the intent to go armed statute as violating both the 2nd Amendment and the Tennessee Constitution, the court concluded by stating “this Court holds that the Going Armed Statute violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and therefore also violates Article I, Section 26 of the Tennessee Constitution. With respect to the Going Armed Statute, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby GRANTED….”

The Plaintiffs also asked the court to declare Tennessee’s “parks statute,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1311(a), unconstitutional. That statute makes it a crime for individuals to carry weapons prohibited by Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1302(a), a statute which Tennessee’s Attorney General asserts includes everyday handguns and other commonly owned firearms. The court, adopting much of its analysis regarding the intent to go armed statute, also found the parks statute to be unconstitutional.

In the effort to defend the park’s statute, the state (Attorney General Skrmetti’s office) had argued that Tennessee’s parks (including its greenways and recreational areas) were “sensitive places.” However, the court likewise rejected this argument by the defendants.

Finally, the Defendants asserted that should the court rule in favor of the Plaintiffs that the determination that these statutes are unconstitutional should be limited and protect only the Plaintiffs and not all Tennesseans. The court likewise rejected that request by the Defendants. Instead, the court stated “Plaintiffs here have vindicated their constitutional rights. No government official, or the public for that matter, has a legitimate interest in the enforcement of unconstitutional laws. Tennesseans that are not party to this action may unintentionally benefit from the protection of their constitutional rights, but no right of theirs could be prejudiced by the relief sought by Plaintiffs. Accordingly, we do not limit the scope of the declaratory relief sought by and now granted to Plaintiffs.”

This lawsuit was brought by three individuals who are members of Tennessee Firearms Association and in which Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation are organizational plaintiffs. All plaintiffs were represented by John Harris, who is also the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association. The defendants were Governor Bill Lee and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti in their respective official capacities in addition to several state commissioners, a district attorney and a sheriff.

Efforts by the Tennessee Firearms Association to repeal these statutes in the Legislature have been rejected repeatedly by the Republican controlled Tennessee Legislature. Those blockades were one of the motivations for bringing this court challenge.

Federal Judge Issues Permanent Injunction on California’s Ban on Non-Resident Carry

The Firearms Policy Coalition is hailing a federal judge’s permanent injunction against the state’s ban on non-resident carry, which allows FPC members to file an application for a permit to carry in any of the state’s 58 counties.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo issued the permanent injunction on Thursday, several weeks after she concluded that the state’s ban on non-resident carry was unconstitutional.

Defendant Attorney General Rob Bonta; Defendant’s officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys; and any other persons who are in active concert or participation with Defendant, are hereby permanently enjoined from enforcing California Penal Code sections 26150(a)(3) and 26155(a)(3) as to CCW applications submitted by Plaintiff Firearms Policy Coalition’s members who are not residents of California, including the named Individual Plaintiffs.

That’s pretty simple and succinct. And as FPC notes, that’s also pretty much the exact opposite of what Bonta was asking for.

In a statement, FPC elaborated on Bonta’s request.

The State of California had asked the Court to issue a complex injunction requiring applicants to submit a sworn statement declaring intent to carry in a specific county within the next 12 months and limiting applications to that county — along with five pages of additional conditions and qualifications. But the Court agreed with FPC, which asked the Court to enter a straightforward injunction simply blocking enforcement of the ban altogether.

“People do not lose their right to keep and bear arms when they visit California. With this injunction, they can finally protect themselves and their families while in the Golden State,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

FPC members will be able to apply in whatever county they wish, without having to provide any sort of sworn statement or notarized declaration of intent, which is exactly how it should be. California residents may be forced to apply for a carry permit in the county where they live, but it makes no sense for non-residents to be funneled into one particular county… particularly given the lengthy wait times and excessive fees that are found in some of the state’s most populated counties.

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Appeals Court Backs Florida Medical Marijuana Patients in Gun Rights Battle

Atlanta, GA –  A federal appeals court has delivered a major win for medical marijuana patients and gun rights advocates, ruling that the federal government cannot automatically strip gun rights from Floridians who legally use cannabis for medical reasons.

The Ruling

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government’s argument that medical marijuana patients should be treated like drug addicts or dangerous individuals. Writing for the panel, Judge Elizabeth Branch stated:

“When viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the allegations in the operative complaint do not lead to the inference that the plaintiffs are comparatively similar to either felons or dangerous individuals—the two historical analogues the Federal Government offers in its attempt to meet its burden”.

Branch emphasized that plaintiffs Vera Cooper and Nicole Hansell, who disclosed their medical marijuana use on federal gun purchase forms, “cannot fairly be labeled as dangerous people solely due to their medicinal marijuana use”.

The court concluded:

“Appellants cannot be considered relevantly similar to either felons or dangerous individuals based solely on their medical marijuana use. Accordingly, the Federal Government has failed, at the motion to dismiss stage, to establish that disarming Appellants is consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation”.

The ruling vacated a lower court dismissal and sent the case back for further proceedings.

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Judge strikes down Minnesota’s binary trigger ban, suggests invalidating 2024 omnibus bill

A Ramsey County District Court judge on Monday struck down a 2024 law banning binary trigger devices — which double the rate of fire of semiautomatic firearms — as a violation of the state constitution’s rule requiring legislation to be about a single subject.

Although just the binary trigger ban was struck down, Judge Leonardo Castro used sweeping language about the DFL-controlled Legislature’s violation of the single-subject rule, clearing the way for potential litigation over a bevy of subjects included in the law, from Uber and Lyft driver wages to paid leave provisions.

The ruling didn’t strictly address the legality of binary triggers, but instead focused on the 1,400-page bill in which the binary trigger ban was included last year. In the final moments of the 2024 session, the DFL-controlled Legislature passed an “omnibus” bill — think: everything but the kitchen sink — that included 13 separate subjects, including minimum pay rates for Uber and Lyft drivers; alterations to the state’s paid leave program; and changes to make the child tax credit more user-friendly.

The Minnesota Constitution states “no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” The purpose is to prevent legislators from steamrolling provisions into big bills with little notice.

But bills running several hundred pages about a multitude of subjects are common, no matter which party controls the Legislature.

Castro said in his ruling that the Minnesota Supreme Court has considered dozens of cases challenging the state Constitution’s single-subject clause since 1857.

The case challenging the binary trigger ban was brought by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, arguing the 1,400-page omnibus bill in 2024 was unconstitutional.

Castro ruled that the bill included many provisions that had nothing to do with one another.

“The 2024 Omnibus Bill violates the Single Subject and Title Clause, because, at best, it contains many non-germane parts, and at worst, has no identifiable common theme,” Castro wrote.

Despite his sweeping language, Castro employed judicial restraint. He refrained from invalidating all the provisions in the 1,400-page bill and only struck down the binary trigger ban. He did so because Minnesota Supreme Court precedent states that courts should favor striking certain provisions rather than invalidating entire bills, he wrote.

“But make no mistake, during the late hours of May 19, 2024, lawmaking did not ‘occur within the framework of the Constitution,’” Castro concluded. “This Court respectfully suggests that if there has ever been a bill without common theme and where ‘all bounds of reason and restraint seem to have been abandoned,’ this is it; and if there has ever been time for the ‘draconian result of invalidating the entire law,’ that time is now.”

Supreme Court Being Asked to Hear Magazine Capacity Case

California’s magazine capacity limitation law from 2000 has been under fire for several years. In 2016, the law was supersized, completely banning magazines that hold over 10 rounds. Formerly petitioned to the Supreme Court of the United States, Duncan v. Bonta was granted, vacated, and remanded to the lower court in the wake of NYSRPA v. Bruen. The National Rifle Association-backed case has returned to SCOTUS and they’ve filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on August 15, 2025.

Named plaintiffs Virginia Duncan, Richard Lewis, Patrick Lovette, David Marguglio, and Christopher Waddell are joined by California Rifle and Pistol Association in this challenge. The petition was filed by the powerhouse firm Clement & Murphy, with Paul D. Clement and Erin E. Murphy listed as the counsels of record.

“Since 2000, California has prohibited the manufacture, import, sale, and transfer of ‘large-capacity magazines,’ defined by the state as ‘any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.’ In 2016, the state banned the possession of such magazines, and required any lawfully possessed magazine to be surrendered, permanently altered, or destroyed,” the National Rifle Association said in a release. “This lawsuit was filed before the possession ban took effect, alleging that it violates the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.”

In the petition, Clement and Murphy laid out the history of the case, asserting that “it should have been easy to see that California’s ban on feeding devices that can accept more than ten rounds of ammunition violates the Second Amendment.”

For the district court, that was indeed easy to see. But the Ninth Circuit would have none of it. The court bypassed the ordinary panel-review process, reconvened an en banc panel that now consisted mostly of judges not in active service, granted “emergency” relief to the state over the dissent of most of the active judges on that panel, and ultimately held that California’s sweeping and confiscatory ban on some of the most common arms in America does not even implicate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin of the NRA weighed in on the filing. “Tens of millions of Americans lawfully own hundreds of millions of the magazines that California bans,” said Hamlin. “The Supreme Court should take this case to vindicate the rights of Californians and reaffirm that the Second Amendment prohibits the government from banning common arms.”

In the filing, they further argue that the 9th Circuit erred in their decisions. They state that the 9th’s decision can’t “be reconciled with this Court’s precedents or the constitutional traditions.” And, they observed that the circuit court professed “surface-level adherence to Heller, Bruen, and Rahimi” but “ultimately cast those decisions aside, pawning off interest-balancing as careful consideration of constitutional text and historical tradition.”

On behalf of the litigation arm of the Association — the NRA Institute for Legislative Action — Executive Director John Commerford said that: “After nearly a decade of litigation, two en banc decisions, and a prior remand from the Supreme Court, this case is more than ready for the Court’s review.” Commerford continued, “the people of California have endured long enough” and that “it’s time to restore their constitutional rights.”

The frenzy of post-Bruen grant, vacate, and remands that occurred in 2022 are coming home to roost. Snope v. Brown out of Maryland was one such GVRed case that was denied certiorari when represented to the High Court. Snope did not deal with magazine capacity restrictions, but rather so-called “assault weapons.”

The magazine question in Duncan, which affects Heller-protected handguns, could be the stepping stone SCOTUS uses to get back to the topic of semi-automatic rifle prohibitions.

A New Jersey case, also NRA backed — ANJRPC v. Platkin — was also in the batch of punted cases. Like Duncan, it concerns magazine capacity and is sitting at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in a post-argument state. (ANJRPC has been consolidated with two semi-automatic rifle ban challenges and that might be an interesting twist in the prevailing days).

Will the High Court pick Duncan v. Bonta as the case to settle the debate on magazine capacity restrictions? Possibly. Or, is it more likely the justices wait out for an opinion from the Third Circuit on the New Jersey case in hopes that there’s a split? We’ll be watching the Supreme Court’s calendar when the session starts to see if Duncan makes the cut.

Not surprisingly, a bill has earlier been filed in the state legislature to increase the ration of gun buys to 3 a month.

Final Judgement from 9th Circuit Strikes Down California Gun Rationing Law

The most left-leaning federal appeals court in the nation on Thursday closed the coffin lid on California’s controversial “one-gun-per-month” law.

In June, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling and struck down the limit as not in line with the right to keep and bear arms. The case, Nguyen v. Bonta, challenged California’s 2019 ban on purchasing more than one handgun or semi-automatic centerfire rifle inside a 30-day period.

The same court this week issued a mandate that the judgment takes effect as of Aug. 14. The state had until Aug. 6 to request a rehearing in the case, but did not file, effectively waving a white flag on defending the law. 

The case was filed by six individuals and supported by a variety of pro-gun groups, including the Firearms Policy Coalition, the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, and the Second Amendment Foundation.

The gun rights groups characterized the win this week as a historic precedent.

“Today’s mandate issued by the Ninth Circuit marks the first time the court has issued a final decision striking down a law for infringing on the Second Amendment,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut in an email to Guns.com. “Between Heller and Bruen, every case heard by a panel which concluded the law was contrary to the Second Amendment was reheard en banc by the court and ultimately upheld. This is a historic victory for Second Amendment rights in the Ninth Circuit and marks a measurable defeat for Governor Newsom and the legislature’s attempts to curtail the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms in California.”

: Moral Imperative: After Senate Vote, North Carolina House Needs to Override Governor’s Veto of Permitless Carry.

North Carolina gun owners are watching closely to see where their elected officials stand. Will they cave to gun control pressure or stand with law-abiding citizens exercising their rights?

In June, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoed SB 50, the legislation that would allow permitless concealed carry, or constitutional carry, of firearms by law-abiding North Carolinians. By the end of July, the Tarheel State Senate countered by overriding the governor’s original veto.

Needless to say, gun control activists and antigun groups aren’t happy about that development. They prefer infringing on Second Amendment rights and penalizing law-abiding Americans instead of holding criminals accountable for their actions when they break the law. Gun control advocates are putting pressure on N.C. state lawmakers as the bill heads back to the House at the end of August where, if the lower chamber also overrides Gov. Stein’s veto, Constitutional carry will become law.

Joining the Crowd

In North Carolina, opponents of SB 50 are crowing about public safety and the “potential for increased gun violence.” Gun control groups would prefer to leave responsible Americans defenseless and their continued shouts of “increased gun violence” ring hollow. After all, that was the playbook run after the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Bruen decision striking down New York’s subjective and overly burdensome “may issue” concealed carry permit requirements. Americans approved of the Bruen decision by a large margin. Still, several states reexamined gun control laws despite the fact that law-abiding gun owners weren’t the criminal nemesis gun control advocates predicted they would become overnight.

Now, North Carolina is at a crossroad. Lawmakers can trust those who overwhelmingly obey the law or cave to gun control pressure.

Supporters of SB 50 agree the bill protects individual liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. If the House follows the Senate and overrides Gov. Stein’s veto, it would make North Carolina the 30th Constitutional carry state. Other states that have adopted such freedom include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The House veto override vote could come as early as August, but – given the close margin in the state’s lower chamber – is not a done deal.

‘Safety Precautions’ for Whom?

Like clockwork, the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety is now declaring that the North Carolina House overriding Gov. Stein’s veto of SB 50 would “eliminate the safety precautions that are currently in place,” and that in the last several years, criminal misuse of a firearm has increased. Notably, they make no mention of the bail reform policies and soft-on-criminal prosecutors in North Carolina cities that have contributed to the surge in criminal violence.

That’s unsurprising. Gun control advocates have never been bothered over taking away Constitutional freedoms from law-abiding Americans. They grasp onto the misguided belief that guns are the root of evil, not the craven hearts of those who have no respect for the law. They would uproot the rights of those who obey the law even as they ignore criminals illegally obtaining firearms for illicit purposes, and policies which put these same criminals back onto our streets.

Taking away Constitutional rights – and the natural right to self-defense – isn’t going to stop criminals. Only enforcing the law will do that. Recent history shows that law -abiding Americans from all walks of life choose to exercise their right to keep and bear arms over surrendering to fear of crime.

No Time for Facts

Gun ownership among law-abiding Americans has surged in the last five years, including through the addition of at least 26 million new first-time gun owners since 2020. While crime spiked nationwide in the early 2020s – including in North Carolina – these high marks have come down since a few years ago. Moreover, these declines have taken place at the same time that firearm ownership increased, and more states have adopted permitless carry freedoms.

In a recent podcast from The Reload, Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics spoke about how the murder rate is down overall, and how it will likely continue to drop through the end of the year.

“Murder peaked sometime at the end of 2022. In 2023, it had the largest one-year decline ever recorded,” Asher explained. “In 2024, it had the largest one-year decline ever recorded – likely – we don’t have the FBI’s 2024 numbers yet. And 2025 we’re seeing the largest one-year decline ever recorded. So, an even larger decline than what we saw last year in our sample.”

The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski added, “and one of the most under-covered stories out there is this crime trend of just huge decreases in murder, to the point where we’re getting it seems like we’re on track, right, to have the lowest murder rate, perhaps in recorded history.”

So, while gun control activists, antigun politicians and the media continue to portray “gun violence” as an interchangeable issue with lawful gun ownership, the actual trends belie their hyperbolic predictions. Lawful gun owners simply won’t become overnight criminals if North Carolina’s House overrides Gov. Stein’s SB 50 veto.

Here’s the real truth that’s been proven in 29 other states that already adopted Constitutional or permitless carry laws. If the North Carolina House votes to override Gov. Stein’s veto, it will mean North Carolinians will have more options to exercise their Second Amendment rights and protect their families, homes and businesses from criminals that blatantly and openly ignore the laws.

 

Second Amendment rights must apply to our military service members | PHIL WILLIAMS

Gun control laws continue to fail.

And where gun control laws make the least amount of sense are on U.S. military installations ― policy that must change.

The world turned its attention recently to an active shooter incident in Manhattan. A depraved individual drove to the heart of New York City, walked calmly into a downtown high rise, killed five people and took his own life. No one knows why a bad guy took up arms and committed heinous acts of terror.

Just weeks before the New York shooting, we saw the heroism of a former Marine named Derrick Perry in Michigan, who pulled his concealed-carry firearm and saved innocent bystanders from a knife-wielding madman who had just stabbed multiple people at random. A good guy who took up arms and stopped heinous acts of terror.

In reality, it is not guns that are bad. It is bad people with guns who are bad. Let’s keep in mind that both New York and Michigan have stringent gun control laws. Gun control did not stop the loss of life in Manhattan. Gun control laws did not stop the violence in Michigan.

More recently, another episode of gun violence erupted at the U.S. Army’s Fort Stewart, Georgia. Army Sgt. Quornelius Radford, using a personal weapon, opened fire on fellow soldiers, wounding five. He was stopped by other servicemembers who have since been decorated for their bravery.

But none of the responding soldiers could be called “good guys with guns.” Why? Because the U.S. military has the most draconian gun control laws in the nation.

Let that sink in.

Fort Stewart is home to the legendary 3rd Infantry Division, whose exploits include those of Audie Murphy. It’s the same Fort Stewart with two Armored Brigade Combat Teams, and its nearby sister installation Hunter Army Airfield, which houses the 1st Ranger Battalion. Soldiers who are trained as experts in the use of firearms, yet they cannot have their own firearms on post. Unless of course they are a bad guy who snuck it in with intent to do harm.

What about red state Alabama whose state motto resounds “We Dare Defend Our Rights?” All personal firearms on Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal must be registered or be subject to confiscation. Outside the gate, Alabama citizens may freely open carry a firearm, and concealed carry no longer requires a permit. But on Redstone Arsenal, where soldiers have far more firearms training than the average citizen, that freedom is curtailed. The same is true for Alabama’s Fort Rucker.

Consider the disparity in treatment here. Outside the gate, civilians freely exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms. They do so with no prerequisite training or conditioning. There are no mandatory gun safety course. There are no annual weapons qualification requirements for civilians.

But on an Army installation, soldiers have all of the above: Basic training with firearms, advanced training, reflexive fire training, annual qualification and awards for marksmanship. And yet, they must face the complete curtailing of their Second Amendment rights.

In 2016, President Donald Trump called for the military gun control policies to be rescinded. Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley opposed the idea. Go figure.

Firearms are not scary. People are scary. Period.

Aside from noise and a general lack of familiarity, most people are more concerned about the manner in which firearms are used, maintained or handled, which are issues of purely HUMAN fault. Those are issues for which the U.S. military is more than qualified to address.

I bear the surgical scars from someone being lax with firearm safety. Despite getting shot by one of those evil firearms I was able to separate the causation from the instrument. It was not the shotgun that shot me in and of itself. Rather, it was the knuckleheaded laxity of the guy who shot me and who should have known better.

And soldiers? They know better than most.

Soldiers know how to handle firearms. Breach load, bolt action, magazine fed and pump. Holographic sights, iron sights, and no sights. Holstered, unholstered and slung. Long guns, sidearms and scatter shots. They are trained to carry them in combat. Trusted in every respect. Except when they are in garrison on the Army installations to which they are assigned.

“You don’t forfeit all of your rights when you enter the military,” Carpenter said. “Outside of a military situation, the service member has just as much Second Amendment right as anyone else.” Referencing the recent shooting at Fort Stewart, Carpenter also said, “All those rules aren’t going to prevent someone from doing what the guy did today,”

Guns are not scary. People are scary. GOOD people with guns are what often stands between potential victims and bad people with guns. And our U.S. servicemembers are among the best. We trust them with our lives and swear them to an oath before taking up arms. It is time that we looked them in the eye and told them that we trust them with their rights.

Let’s restore the Second Amendment for our military. They’ve earned it.

Phil Williams is a former state senator from District 10 (which includes Etowah County), retired Army colonel and combat veteran, and a practicing attorney. He previously served with the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute in Birmingham. He currently hosts the conservative news/talk show Rightside Radio on multiple channels throughout north Alabama. The opinions expressed are his own.

Cornyn Called Out Over Short Memory on Gun Control

Members of Congress pop off on X, formerly Twitter, all the time. It’s one of the more important uses of the platform for them, but there’s a risk there.

See, you can chirp all you want, but people get to chirp back. You’re not really immune from criticism and it’s really kind of impossible to create a true echo chamber, even if that’s your desire. People will still say what they want to say and say it where you can see it, at least until you mute or block them or something.

That’s a lesson Sen. John Cornyn of Texas was reminded of on Wednesday evening.

After trying to get a dig in at his primary opponent, Texas AG Ken Paxton, he was asked a simple question based on the wording.

I mean, it wasn’t that long ago, so the smart move would have been to just ignore it.

Cornyn, however, isn’t that smart.

Seriously?

If that’s true, his mind is as gone as Biden’s.

Luckily, Texas Gun Rights was happy to remind him.

That’s right, Cornyn was the primary reason we got saddled with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. He rallied enough Republican votes to break the filibuster, thus foisting gun control onto the American people, which came with a lot of issues that we’re still trying to deal with.

Cornyn was awfully proud of it at the time. He celebrated it. He bragged about his efforts.

It wasn’t until after that that he suddenly started trying to play damage control.

Now, he’s just trying to pretend it never happened. Of all the tactics for deflecting criticism for bad decisions, that’s certainly one of them.

I get that Cornyn doesn’t want to have to defend his Second Amendment record in Texas, of all places, and that’s one area where Paxton is going to eat his lunch and everyone knows it. It’s obvious that on this issue in particular, he’s going to lose.

But could he (or at least his social media team) have just ignored the comment? Absolutely. The smart move would have just pretended he didn’t see it. I’d imagine a senator’s X notifications get a lot of comments, so it’s easy to legitimately miss things. Pretending that’s what happened would have been cowardly, but still smart.

Or, he could have tried to defend it, or admitted that he screwed up royally. I’d have at least respected the latter, at least. I’d still want him gone because there’s no way I’d trust him not to screw up like that again, but I respect a lawmaker admitting they made an error, if for no other reason than it’s so rare. He didn’t do that, though.

Instead, he just played Biden…I mean, dumb (same thing, really).

Well, Cornyn might have a short memory–I don’t buy it, but let’s play like he’s being honest here–but the internet doesn’t. He did Biden’s bidding to help get the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed, was proud of the effort, and now he’s playing dumb because his constituents aren’t happy about it and he thinks so little of them that he thinks a denial like this will work.