Category: RKBA

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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We’ve been able to do online sales for the past 40 years. (FOPA ’86)
At least for the time being, this is standard operational grandstanding that’ll go nowhere.

More Restrictions: Democrat Reps. Push Bill to Limit Online Ammo Sales

Reps. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) announced Friday their re-introduction of legislation to limit the online sale of ammunition.
A press release from Mfume’s office indicates the bill, called the Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act, “would require federally licensed ammunition dealers to confirm the identity of individuals who arrange to purchase ammunition over the internet by verifying a photo I.D. in person.”

The legislation would “also require ammunition vendors to report any sales of more than 1,000 rounds within five consecutive days to the U.S. Attorney General, if the person purchasing ammunition is not a licensed dealer.”

Rep. Mfume commented on the legislation, saying, “Since we last introduced this bill, the crisis of mass shootings has continued unabated. We’ve been living with this scourge of violence for so many years as assault weapons and enormous amounts of ammunition continue to fall into the hands of diabolical people.”

He added, “Mass shootings are not going to stop on their own, and we cannot keep waiting for the next one to occur.”

Rep. Coleman said:

Regulating online ammunition sales is a commonsense step to countering the number of mass shootings we see every year. This legislation closes the loophole that makes tragedies like these so unfortunately common. Public safety must come before convenience for an unregulated market: Americans send us to Washington because it is our job to protect them, not mourn them.

The online ammo sales gun control bill has 17 co-sponsors.

Report: Murders Plummeted in 2025; Meanwhile, Gun Ownership Up

New data shows a dramatic decline in homicides in 2025 from the previous year, even though industry data shows the number of guns in private ownership has gone up. (Dave Workman)

By Dave Workman

A new report from the Council on Criminal Justice says homicides have declined more than 20 percent in 2025 from the previous year, based on data from 40 large U.S. cities, and the media is playing it up.

As note by the New York Times, “Last year will likely register the lowest national homicide rate in 125 years and the largest single-year drop on record.”

According to the Council on Criminal Justice report:

  • Looking at changes in violent offenses, the rate of reported homicides was 21% lower in 2025 than in 2024in the 35 study cities providing data for that crime, representing 922 fewer homicides. There were 9% fewer reported aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults, and 2% fewer domestic violence incidents last year than in 2024. Robbery fell by 23% while carjackings (a type of robbery) decreased by 43%.
  • When nationwide data for jurisdictions of all sizes is reported by the FBI later this year, there is a strong possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4.0 per 100,000 residents. That would be the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900, and would mark the largest single-year percentage drop in the homicide rate on record.

This has occurred at a time when gun ownership appears to be at record levels in the U.S. Raw data from the FBI’s National Instant Check System shows more than 2 million background checks each month during 2025, and adjusted data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation shows gun sales have declined, but they are still healthy.

In its annual report, NSSF included this caveat: “Though not a direct correlation to firearms sales, the NSSF-adjusted NICS data provide an additional picture of current market conditions. In addition to other purposes, NICS is used to check transactions for sales or transfers of new or used firearms.

“It should be noted that these statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold or sales dollars. Based on varying state laws, local market conditions and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.”

When NSSF released its annual report on firearm production in the U.S., including import and export data from 2023, it estimated there were 506.1 million firearms in civilian possession from 1990 to 2023. It has likely increased from that figure by several million.

Establishment media reports on the plummeting murder statistics have ignored or carefully avoided any mention of increased gun ownership and the number of firearms in private hands.

For several years, the gun prohibition lobby has been adamant with predictions that increased private gun ownership would result in a dramatic increase in homicides. This new report suggests otherwise.

 

The Perversity of Citing The Black Codes To Defend Gun-Control Laws.

Neal Katyal and Justice Jackson were placed in the uncomfortable spot of having to explain why racist legislation to disarm the freedman was actually relevant.

One of the most bizarre aspects of modern Second Amendment litigation is how supporters of gun control are forced to favorably cite Jim Crow laws. In all other contexts, these sort of anti-canonical statutes would be untouchable. Yet, when it comes to guns, all the usual rules go out the window. In Wolford v. Lopez, one of the leading authorities for Hawaii’s law is an 1865 Louisiana statute. Neal Katyal described it as a “dead ringer” for the Hawaii statute.

During the oral argument, Justice Gorsuch was incredulous that Hawaii was relying on this shameful precedent. He asked Wolford’s counsel if it was appropriate to rely on such a law to inform the nation’s traditions.

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Supreme Court Seems Skeptical Hawaii’s ‘Vampire Rule’ Comports With Second Amendment

A majority of Supreme Court justices appear ready to strike down Hawaii’s “vampire rule” that prohibits lawful concealed carry on all private property unless the property owner expressly gives their consent, though during oral arguments today the three liberal justices seem inclined to uphold the law.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, for instance, repeatedly questioned plaintiffs’ attorney Alan Beck and Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris (who participated in the oral arguments alongside the plaintiffs) about why this case wasn’t simply about property rights, without any Second Amendment implication whatsoever.

When Jackson asked whether this was really a case about property rights, not the Second Amendment, Beck rightfully responded that the law directly implicates their Second Amendment rights, but Jackson argued that while their rights might be “affected,” they’re not necessarily “implicated.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s line of questioning pushed back against Jackson’s contention, noting that the courts don’t allow property rights to be defined in a way that infringes on other constitutional rights.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, meanwhile, appeared ready to completely disregard the Supreme Court’s “text, history, and tradition” test by suggesting that Hawaii’s “culture” of not carrying firearms in public trumps the national tradition of bearing arms in publicly accessible places. Both Beck and the Harris rebuked that suggestion, pointing out that the Court has specifically discussed a national tradition.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh buttressed that argument in his own question to Harris, wondering if the government wasn’t making the issue too complicated by raising questions about pre-textual laws instead of simply looking to see whether Hawaii’s “vampire rule” is part of a “deeply rooted tradition,” which he defined, in part, as laws that were widely adopted among a number of states.

Several conservative justices raised questions about the level of generality that can be used when looking for historical analogues, which indicates that, whatever SCOTUS ultimately decides about Hawaii’s law in question, the opinion will address, to one degree or another, how close any law from the past must be to a current regulation in order to be useful history for judges.

Given the discussion and debate about Hawaii’s use of the 1865 Louisiana law that prohibited bringing guns onto plantations without the plantation owner’s permission (a law that was part of the state’s infamous Black Codes designed to restrict the rights of newly-freed slaves), I’m cautiously optimistic that the Court will not only address the level of generality for historical analogues, but also the relevance of statutes found in history that are unquestionably unconstitutional today.

Justice Jackson argued that those laws must be considered a part of the national tradition, but Harris pushed back on that. In her view, unconstitutional laws are, by their very nature, outliers. And under the Supreme Court’s test, outlier laws are not a part of the national tradition of keeping and bearing arms.

Neal Katyal, arguing for Hawaii, echoed Sotomayor’s contention that local laws and customs matter more than a national tradition of gun ownership, while still arguing that the national tradition of gun ownership includes the ability of states to flip the default rules.

Gorsuch asked Katyal about relying heavily on the “outlier” Black Code law in defending Hawaii’s statute. Katyal called them a shameful part of American history, but argued that the law was presumptively constitutional because Louisiana was re-admitted to the Union with that law still in place. Katyal, however, never really explained why the Louisiana law shouldn’t be considered an outlier.

Katyal also got pushback for asserting that the Bruen test requires looking at history when trying to figure out if the Second Amendment is being implicated, as opposed to looking at history when determining whether a law fits within a national tradition. To do otherwise, he said, would be to put the government in the position of having to defend the history of all laws regarding firearms. Kavanaugh and Barrett both disagreed with Katyal, arguing that’s exactly what the Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence dictates.

Both Beck and Harris did a great job in tearing apart Hawaii’s statute, and while Neal Katyal did his utmost to defend the law I don’t see him getting support from any of the more conservative justices. I predict the Court will drive a stake through the heart of Hawaii’s “vampire rule” when the Wolford opinion is released, though I’m sure anti-gun lawmakers in the Aloha state are already working on their next scheme to infringe on our right to bear arms.

Anti-Gunner Hacks Use Martin Luther King Jr. to Push for Gun Control, but There’s a Problem

While America is honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., some on the left are using his birthday to push for stripping Americans of their Second Amendment rights.

Giffords, one of the nation’s leading anti-gunner organizations, wrote a post on X in which it noted that King “dreamed of a world rooted in justice and peace,” but his “life was cut short by gun violence.”

The organization is honoring King “by continuing the fight for safer communities for all.”

The Stop Gun Violence PAC noted that King “taught us that every person has the right to live free from fear,” but “gun violence steals that freedom from our families every day.”

Here’s something the anti-gunners won’t tell you about King. He applied for a concealed carry permit in 1956 after his home in Montgomery, Alabama, was firebombed.

Back then, the police were responsible for determining who would be allowed to have a permit. They denied his application as they had with most other Black applicants.

King wished to carry a firearm to protect himself and his family against the KKK and others. Yet, the sheriff deemed him “unsuitable.”

The civil rights leader was known for his nonviolent approach to fighting for equality. Yet, most don’t know that he still approved of the use of firearms for self-defense in one’s home.

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The Trump admin tried to merge DEA and ATF. After pressure, it quietly abandoned the plan

After pushback from both gun rights and gun control groups, the Trump administration has quietly abandoned its plan to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to people briefed on the matter.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced plans last year to merge ATF into the DEA, a proposal that would require Congressional budgetary approval and is part of the early administration-wide effort to shrink the size of federal government agencies.

Officials involved in the proposal told CNN at the time of Blanche’s proposal that the two agencies had different missions — ATF is tasked with investigating violent crime, gun trafficking, arson and bombings, while DEA agents enforce the nation’s drug laws — but they naturally went hand-in-hand.

“Where there are drugs there are usually guns, and where there are guns there are usually drugs,” one of the officials previously told CNN.

The effort was re-affirmed in June, when Justice Department officials suggested eliminating the ATF “as a separate component, with its functions merged into the Drug Enforcement Administration,” leaving the DEA as “a single component that will address violent crime, drug enforcement, and crimes relating to firearms” in their budget proposal.

Administration officials’ expectations that pro-Trump gun-rights groups would welcome the plans were dashed almost immediately.

Some conservative and gun-rights groups have long called for the ATF’s abolishment but raised concerns that a merger with another agency would empower the agency’s gun-related efforts, not weaken them. The MAGA groups want ATF gone and the laws it enforces repealed. Giving its powers to another agency makes things worse, a gun rights source told CNN.

“Regulating guns is a hot potato. Everyone is for eradicating illegal drugs. Not everyone is for gun regulation,” one person involved in the Trump administration discussions that followed the Blanche memo told CNN.

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Florida House Wastes Little Time Repealing Parkland-Era Gun Control Law

It didn’t take long for the Florida House to approve a bill that would allow adults 18 and older to once again purchase long guns in the state, undoing a measure adopted after the Parkland shootings in 2018 that raised the age to purchase a firearm to 21. The 2026 session kicked off in Tallahassee on Tuesday, and by Thursday afternoon the repeal bill had already cleared the lower chamber in a 74-37 vote.

House Majority Leader Tyler Sirois, a Merritt Island Republican who is sponsoring this year’s bill, said the Parkland shooting was a “tragedy.” But he said lowering the minimum gun-buying age to 18 is about Second Amendment rights.

“The legislation seeks to restore the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Sirois said.

But Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, a Parkland Democrat who was the city’s mayor at the time of the mass shooting, said the law that increased the minimum age to 21 has “stood the test of time” and that it has been found constitutional by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“This bill today is going to hurt families,” Hunschofsky said.

It’s true that the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s law using the bizarre argument that “minors” couldn’t enter into legal contracts at the time of the Founding, which it considered analogous to depriving young adults of their ability to purchase a firearm today. But Hunschofsky failed to acknowledge that other appellate courts have concluded that adults under the age of 21 are fully vested with their Second Amendment rights, and the Supreme Court is currently hanging on to close to a half-dozen cases dealing with the conflict, including the NRA’s challenge to Florida’s law.

The law in question has been in place less than a decade, so it’s hardly stood the test of time. It has, however, remained in place despite the fact that the Florida House of Representatives has voted to repeal it for four years straight. Over the past three years the Florida Senate has failed to follow suit, and it sounds like gun owners once again have their work cut out for them in the upper chamber.

When asked Tuesday about the issue, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, noted that last year, senators “were not supportive of it. I have not heard anything different this year.”

“We are clearly a responsible gun-law state and we have a lot of freedoms here with the Second Amendment, which I’m proud of,” Albritton said. “But as it relates to that bill, it will be determined by the (committee) chairs in the Senate and the Senate appetite for such a bill as a whole.”

Albritton himself has been noncommittal about repeal, but former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, who chairs the powerful Senate Rules Committee, has been vocally opposed to undoing the gun control law. Albritton could always use some parliamentary slight of hand and assign the House bill to another committee, but at this point he’s expressed no interest in doing so.

Florida gun owners should be contacting their state senators and demanding they restore the right to keep and bear arms to young adults in the Sunshine State. I think there’s a very good chance the Supreme Court will eventually say that it’s unconstitutional to block adults under the age of 21 from purchasing or possessing firearms, but we’re still probably a couple of years away from that decision. In the meantime, the rights of under-21s continue to be curtailed, and its up to the Florida legislature to correct its error. The House has done its part. Now it’s time for the Senate to do the same.

DeStefano flown to New York City, prepping for court hearings

by Lee Williams

Indie Guns owner Lawrence Michael DeStefano was picked up from Florida’s Orange County Jail by New York detectives this week after serving nearly 90 days in custody and flown to New York City aboard a private jet.

When they landed, the officers took a group photo and then rushed DeStefano to an NYPD precinct to be booked, and then to a quick court hearing in Queens. Afterward, he was taken to Rikers Island, a notorious 413-acre state prison located in the East River near the Bronx, where he remains incarcerated.

At the court hearing, a New York State prosecutor tried to portray him as an “evil gun runner,” DeStefano said, but the judge cut her off.

“The judge looked at her and said, ‘I have a 65-year-old man with no criminal record and you’re saying all these bad things about him.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got some real serious charges against you. If you’ve got somewhere to stay, I will let you out on bail,’” DeStefano said over a jail phone Friday morning. “This is going to be a fight and the gloves are off. I am going balls-to-the-wall on this. It’s going to get ugly.”

DeStefano’s court-appointed defense attorney was of little help. She showed up just seconds before the hearing began.

“She had no idea what was going on,” he said.

He will appear in court for a bail hearing in two weeks, DeStefano said.

“I need to figure out how to get a message to the gun community,” he said. “If I am out on bail, I could win this. I know what I need to do to win this. I need to do research, but they’re seizing it for evidence. They already deleted my Telegram account after they got my password,” he said.

Throughout the trip, the detectives were talking furiously with the New York State Attorney General’s Office about whether to issue a press release, DeStefano said.

“It was chaos. Everyone was on their phones. They decided to issue a press release,” he said. “You guys really think you’re doing a press release? You’re helping me. The gun culture is a tight-knit family.”

New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued a massive press release late Wednesday, titled, “Attorney General James and NYPD Commissioner Tisch Announce Indictment of Florida Man for Illegally Shipping Firearms and Ghost Guns to New York.”

It contains a link to a 42-page indictment that charges DeStefano with 71 felonies, which could see him jailed for a total of 521 years.

“Lawrence Destefano and his company Indie Guns are accused of flooding New York with illegal firearms, and we are determined to bring him to justice,” James said in the press release. “I will not tolerate illegal and dangerous weapons in our communities, and I thank our partners in law enforcement for their work to shut down this ghost gun supplier.”

Despite the allegation and the centuries behind bars DeStefano faces, the press release indicates that only a dozen actual firearms were recovered, along with “two ghost gun kits, 28 high-capacity magazines, and over 1,400 rounds of ammunition, which were mailed to locations in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau County.”

The press release also mentions the default judgement James won in a civil suit against DeStefano, which he ignored.

“In March 2024, Attorney General James secured a $7.8 million judgment and court order against Indie Guns prohibiting it from selling firearms in New York,” the press release states.

The lengthy press release even includes quotes from NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch, HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel and USPIS Inspector in Charge Ketty Larco-Ward of the New York Division. All strongly supported James for “disrupting the dangerous illicit weapons pipeline,” and for “dismantling gun trafficking networks.”

DeStefano knows he will be severely outgunned in court.

“I am ready for the fight,” he said.

Supreme Court limits dual charges in overlapping gun statutes

WASHINGTON (TNND) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday clarified how federal gun statutes apply when a single act potentially violates two overlapping provisions, holding that prosecutors may not secure separate convictions under both statutes when one act triggers identical criminal elements.

The decision in Barrett v. United States (No. 24-5774) reversed part of a lower court’s judgment and sharply restricts the government’s ability to secure cumulative punishments for a single criminal act involving guns.

Background of the Case

The case stems from the prosecution of Dwayne Barrett, who was convicted in federal district court of robbery and related gun offenses.

According to court documents, Barrett committed a series of robberies between August 2011 and January 2012. During one, Barrett’s confederate shot and killed Gamar Dafalla.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) previously said Barrett, as well as a co-defendant, were convicted in March 2013 of murder, robberies, and gun charges after a two-week jury

During the commission of the underlying crime, Barrett carried and used a gun, conduct that prosecutors charged under two separate provisions of federal law, including one that makes it a crime to use or carry a gun during and in relation to a crime of violence or drug trafficking, as well as other that escalates the penalty where a person causes death while committing an offense, potentially exposing a defendant to life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

At trial and on appeal, the government argued that Barrett could be convicted under both statutes for the same act, essentially treating the gun use that caused Dafalla’s death as a basis for two separate convictions.

 

How Many Historical Gun Laws Constitute a ‘National Tradition’?

The Supreme Court has explicitly stated that, in order for a modern gun law to be constitutionally sound, it must comply with the text of the Second Amendment as well as the history and tradition of gun ownership (and gun regulation). So far, though, the Court hasn’t given a whole lot of advice as to what constitutes a national tradition.

In Bruen, SCOTUS doubted that “just three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation,” but declined to state definitely what would suffice; both in terms of the number of laws as well as when those laws were put into effect. Is 1791 the most important date, since that’s when the Second Amendment was ratified; is it 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified; or are both equally important?

Pete Patterson, an attorney at Cooper & Kirk with an extensive background as a Second Amendment litigator, was asked about this by SCOTUSblog’s Haley Proctor for her 2A-focused series “A Second Opinion,” and his answer worth discussing.

What does it take to make a sufficient showing of a history of firearms regulation? How many laws or practices do you need, from what historical period, and how do we describe the tradition those laws represent?

These are all issues that are hotly contested, but I will give you what I think is the view most consistent with Bruen and Supreme Court precedent generally.

First, the relevant historical period should be centered on 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. The court has held in many cases that when provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, they have the same meaning as they have against the federal government.

It should follow that the meaning was set in 1791, when those provisions were first ratified and applied to the federal government. To be sure, those rights were not incorporated against [applied to] the states until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, but that amendment did not purport to change the substantive meaning of the Bill of Rights.

This conclusion is consistent with the court’s practices, including its holding in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that the laws of over 30 states from the second half of the 19th Century could not alone “establish an early American tradition” that would inform the meaning of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

That makes sense, both from a legal and practical standpoint. As Patterson points out, there’s nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment that suggests any type of revision to the Bill of Rights. It’s purpose wasn’t to update the Bill of Rights, but to ensure that those rights were safeguarded against intrusion by state and local governments as well. And during the congressional debate over the Fourteenth Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms was front and center.

Second, what the government should have to establish is a limitation that was widely understood by Americans at ratification to qualify the scope of the right to keep and bear arms.

The common law frequently will be a primary resource in this inquiry, as that was law that was understood to be generally applicable. The common law is reflected in sources like case law and prominent secondary sources such as Blackstone’s Commentaries.

Of course, the focus should be on the prevailing American understanding rather than British understandings that Americans may have repudiated, so consulting American sources like Tucker’s Blackstone is an important part of the inquiry.

Statutes also play a role, of course, but the government should have to show that any statutes it relies on are consistent with the prevailing, general understanding and not a departure from it. That presumably is why Bruen repeatedly emphasizes that a handful of outlier statutes cannot establish a tradition of regulation.

I think its also important to note that the Supreme Court talked about a “national” tradition, not a state-specific or regional tradition. If three colonial-era statutes aren’t enough to suffice, then three statutes from one part of the country shouldn’t be enough either. This is particularly important when courts are considering laws adopted around the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, given that many southern states instituted laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms that might have been racially neutral on their face, but were hardly enforced in a colorblind fashion.

Patterson adds one more metric in determining a “national tradition.”

Third, the tradition should be described at a level of generality that is general enough not to make arbitrary distinctions, but specific enough not to risk eviscerating the right.

If readers are interested in the level-of-generality question, I recommend the brief my colleague John Ohlendorf filed in Wolford on behalf of professor [Joel] Alicea, which address that question at some length.

As an example of the need for the Court to address the level of generality that’s most appropriate, Ohlendorf cites the historical tradition recognized in Bruen of states prohibiting arms “in legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses.”

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