Category: RKBA

Firearm industry ‘responsible controls’ legislation is existential threat to gun owners

Anti-gun activists think they have figured out a way around the Second Amendment, democratic accountability, and the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to impose a limitless raft of gun control on the American people.

The strategy is to enact what civilian disarmament advocates term “firearm industry responsibility” laws in anti-gun states. These laws impose a duty on members of the firearms industry to institute “reasonable controls” over the sale and distribution of their products, on top of the mountains of explicit state and federal statutes and regulations they are tasked to comply with, lest they face ruinous civil liability.

The term “reasonable controls” is vague and ill-defined, resulting in the decidedly unreasonable circumstance where gun industry members can’t know how to comply with the law. These statutes empower anti-gun government officials to abuse the vague language in a manner that imposes ever-expanding restrictions on the industry and its customers, limited only by the officials’ imagination. Moreover, this legislation impacts not just firearms dealers, manufacturers, and distributors as they would be understood under federal law, but includes any business involved in the stream of commerce for ammunition or any other firearm-related products.

The goal is to use the threat of devastating civil liability to force the firearms industry to restrict the rights of themselves and their customers by instituting gun controls that were not enacted (and often rejected) through the democratic process and may be found unconstitutional if imposed directly by government. The entire enterprise is a grotesque and cynical evasion of democratic accountability and constitutional review.

Thus far, 10 states have enacted versions of this legislation, with extremist gun control advocates in Virginia also seeking to enact a variant (HB21) at present.

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Evidence-Free Hackery: Another Highly Respected ‘Expert’ On the Alleged Conflict of Guns and Public Safety

Crucial Concealment Covert IWB holster open carry Dan Z. for SNW

Oh look…a Robert Spitzer op-ed. Let’s take a look and see what kind of brilliant insights this very respected expert has for us. He is, after all, an academic that antigun courts take super-seriously. The article’s headline itself — What Happens When the Second Amendment Collides With Public Safety? — is based on a false premise. The reality is, the Second Amendment right to carry need not ever collide with “public safety.”

Especially in the context of the Pretti shooting, Spitzer seems to implicitly accept the argument made by some administration officials (and Trump himself) that the mere act of carrying at a protest means you are asking to be shot by police.

This fraught political moment has thus found the Trump administration in the uncomfortable position of taking criticism from both liberals who blame heavy-handed federal agent tactics and conservatives who bristle at the administration’s seeming abandonment of public gun carry rights.

On the one hand, civilian gun carry is indeed a right under the Second Amendment according to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in the Bruen case where the high court said that individuals have a “right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” The court proposed no exception for doing so in a public gathering.

Spitzer says carry is indeed a right “according to the Supreme Court.” Interesting. I thought it was because the plain text of the Second Amendment says we have a right to bear arms, which all relevant historical sources confirm is a reference to public carry.

If you ever wondered why an “expert” like Spitzer (and the other usual suspects) always takes the side of the government in gun rights litigation, you can start with the fact that they clearly don’t believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right at all.

On the other hand, the consequences of such action are clear. Public gun carrying, especially in the context of a public demonstration or similar gathering is, no matter the intentions of the carrier, a terrible idea.

I should have included the very next paragraph. He basically concedes carry is a right (because SCOTUS said so), but then says it’s a terrible idea to exercise that right.

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Missouri? Well, yes.

As West Virginia Machine Gun Sales Bill Makes Waves, Who Else Might Pass Similar Measure?

As we noted on Monday, a bill from Gun Owners of America introduced in West Virginia would allow political entities to sell machine guns to the public. There’s nothing I can think of that would be illegal in this measure, and it would do a whole lot to increase the number of full-auto weapons in the market, thus potentially driving down prices.

But my question is, just who else might go down this road?

I’m sure a lot of pro-gun legislators may look at this and think about introducing it in their states, but introducing bills is the easy part. Getting them passed is where it gets tricky.

So, assuming that it’ll pass in West Virginia–and looking at their makeup, that’s a strong possibility–where else might it pass?

At the top of the list would have to be Missouri. They’ve tried nullifying all gun control laws from the federal government, which would include the National Firearms Act. Clearly, they don’t mind lawful citizens owning machine guns.

Because this doesn’t violate federal law, at least so far as I can see, I could see an enterprising Missouri lawmaker introducing a version of this bill and it actually passing. It’s not like they’re not looking for more ways to be pro-gun, and this is a great way to make that happen.

Wyoming seems to be doing all it can to follow in similar footsteps, so I could see them passing this as well. The same is true of both Dakotas, which seem to be pretty pro-gun.

Montana would be another possibility.

An interesting prospect would be New Hampshire. Its “live free or die” motto is often reflected in its gun laws. It’s one of the best in the nation as things currently stand, so I couldn’t rule out this one making the cut there. However, I also see it being a much tougher fight than we’re likely to see in West Virginia.

Then, of course, let’s look at some ostensibly pro-gun states where there’s not a snowball’s chance in Lucifer’s living room of it passing.

One is, unfortunately, my home state of Georgia.

While we’ve gotten some pro-gun measures passed of late, the tide may well be shifting on that. Plus, we have a lot of Republican lawmakers who are way too squishy on gun rights. They might not want to pass gun control, but they’re not interested in upsetting the status quo, either, and selling machine guns to Georgia residents is probably enough to give them an aneurysm.

Let’s not even talk about Florida. “The Gunshine State” won’t even let legal adults under 21 buy a shotgun for home defense, so there’s no way they’ll sell machine guns to law-abiding citizens.

I can also see it not quite making the cut in Alabama, which recently passed a law that mirrored the feds on illegal machine guns. It’s likely untenable for those lawmakers to decry machine guns one year, then a couple of years later, start selling them to people. It’s a different matter entirely, of course, but politics is often more about perception than reality.

So I’m going to be watching what happens in West Virginia going forward, and it’ll be interesting to see who else jumps to follow.

So, what else is new

SCOTUS Kicks 2A Can Down Road Again

By Dave Workman

Editor-in-Chief

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has kicked the proverbial can down the road when it comes to important Second Amendment cases which have been submitted for high court review, leaving another conference session this coming Friday, Feb. 27, to possibly take up one or more of these cases.

As noted by SCOTUSBlog, several high-profile cases are waiting for a decision, one way or the other, on whether they will be accepted. This delay has become a familiar problem with the John Roberts Court, which seems content to not take some cases dealing with semi-auto rifles, original capacity magazines and restoration of rights for years-old non-violent felony convictions.

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Minnesota Dems Push Bill Allowing Law Enforcement to Enter Homes to Check Gun Storage

Minnesota Democrats are pushing to allow law enforcement to enter homes to check compliance with semiautomatic gun storage requirements.

On February 20, 2026, Breitbart News reported that Democrats in the Minnesota House were pushing a ban on the ownership or transfer of AR-15s and numerous other semiautomatic rifles.

The legislation, HF 3433, bans the mere possession of a Colt AR-15 and at least 25 other specific semiautomatic rifles and pistols. It then goes beyond those specific guns to ban “any firearm that is another model made by the same manufacturer as one of the firearms listed…and has the same action design as one of the listed firearms, and is a redesigned, renamed, or renumbered version of one of the firearms listed.”

If passed and signed into law, HF 3433 would take effect January 1, 2027. It contains a grandfather clause allowing the current owner of what will be a prohibited firearm to obtain a “certificate of ownership” from law enforcement in order to keep the gun.

However, anyone keeping a prohibited gun must “safely and securely store the device pursuant to the regulations adopted by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.” And to be sure the gun is stored as mandated, owners of prohibited guns must “agree to allow the appropriate law enforcement agency to inspect the storage of the device to ensure compliance[.]”

 We’ve Been Running a Huge, Real-World Experiment in the Expansion of Carrying Guns in America…Here Are the Results.

The United States is currently experiencing what is likely to be a record-low in homicide, which has occurred at the same time as a massive expansion in firearm carry rights across the country. I have previously written
about how those with carry permits almost never commit crime. State-level data proves it, and even gun-skeptical research organizations have recognized that “evidence generally shows that, as a group, [carry permit] license holders are particularly law abiding and rarely are convicted for violent crimes.”

Yet this irrefutable data didn’t stop the usual antigun suspects from predicting doom when the Supreme Court first issued its ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022. There, the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. Gun control groups angrily claimed that the decision would lead to dramatic increases in violence.

For example, the then-Chief Counsel of Brady, Jonathan Lowy, said that Bruen “is extremist judicial activism at its worst, and Americans may die as a result of what the Court issued in the sanctity of its protected chambers.” John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the Supreme Court chose “to put our communities in even greater danger with gun violence on the rise across the country.” Giffords claimed the ruling would “escalate gun violence,” “spur unlawful militia activity,” “embolden those inclined to vigilante justice,” “increase violence at protests,” and cause “more domestic violence and hate crimes.”

Antigun politicians made similar breathless predictions. Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey claimed Bruen was a dangerous decision that “will make America a less safe country.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said it “severely undermines public safety not just in New York City, but around the country.” Senator Alex Padilla of California put it more bluntly: “Today’s decision will make our communities less safe, plain and simple.”

Countless other examples abound. I encourage you to follow @2Aupdates if you want to constantly be reminded of all these claims.

We all make incorrect predictions from time to time, but the degree to which opponents of the Second Amendment were wrong is simply astounding.

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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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