The Second Amendment is indisputably treated as a second-class right, there is no denying it.
In deciding how to handle Snope and Antonyuk's cert petitions, the Supreme Court will tell us whether it is even much of a right at all.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 28, 2025
BREAKING 2A SCOTUS: No order today in Snope (AR ban) or Ocean State (mag ban). This confirms they won't be heard this 2024-25 term. Best case: 2A must cheer that SCOTUS grants cert for cases to be heard in fall 2025. Worse case: cert is denied and someone issues dissent therefrom
— Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar (@fourboxesdiner) January 27, 2025
In my view, a per curium opinion like we saw in Caetano is not possible in the Snope or Ocean State cases. It is a theoretical possibility but I don't see it given the importance of those cases. Our best chance, which would not be terrible, is that they grant cert for next term.
— Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar (@fourboxesdiner) January 27, 2025
“There is no comparison whatever between an armed and disarmed man; it is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Wildfires in California Reinforce the Importance of Gun Rights
You are your own first responder
Wildfires have once again devastated California, reducing vibrant neighborhoods and close-knit communities to piles of ash in a matter of days.
The death toll continues to climb as firefighters and search teams recover the missing, and estimated damages now exceed $250 billion. Many residents are grappling with the heartbreaking reality that their homes—and priceless family heirlooms—are gone forever.
It is apocalyptic and utterly heartbreaking. My prayers go out to those mourning the loss of life, property, and their way of living.
But amidst the flames and destruction, another crisis has emerged: opportunistic criminals are preying on those who are at their weakest, looting homes, and businesses. They are targeting neighborhoods with high property values, exploiting this chaos for personal gain.
In Mandeville Canyon, a gang of looters stole over $200,000 worth of electronics and jewelry. In Altadena, another group was caught with an actual Emmy Award. More than 40 individuals have been apprehended by Santa Monica police alone and countless others remain on the loose.
Reports have emerged of armed residents having to patrol their neighborhoods at night to protect what little they have left. It is a stark and troubling reminder that in times of crisis, you cannot rely on someone else for your safety.
This moment, where a state of emergency has overwhelmed law enforcement resources, is a sobering reminder of why our Second Amendment rights are so vital. The ability to possess and carry a firearm could be the difference between life and death for residents in Southern California.
As a former California State Patrol officer, I served my community, region, and state for 13 years. We sacrificed life and limb to uphold our mission to “Protect and Serve,” and even deployed in 2017 (Tubbs Fire) and 2018 (Camp Fire) to protect devastated communities from criminals.
But despite our best efforts, there were many times when we arrived too late. Theft had already occurred, a victim was already dead, or property had been irreparably destroyed. The harsh reality is this: you are your own first responder. It is a difficult truth, but it is not up for debate. There are simply not enough law enforcement officers – especially during a national emergency – to protect everyone, everywhere, at all times.
That is why, in the years since my retirement, I have dedicated myself to Second Amendment advocacy. People need to understand the importance of the right to “keep and bear arms.” In moments like these, lives truly hang in the balance.
Following this disaster, there must be a robust conversation about accountability – who is responsible for the destruction, and how can justice be served? But equally important, we must address the dangerous impact of restrictive gun control policies that hinder Californians from protecting their loved ones. Taking firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens undermines public safety and emboldens criminals who know they will face little resistance.
We may never fully recover from these wildfires, but we can learn from them. History repeats itself unless we are willing to make meaningful changes. Government leaders must prioritize the safety and security of their citizens over political agendas.
In times of crisis, self-reliance is not just a virtue – it is a necessity. The ability to protect yourself, your family, and your community is a right worth defending
Do rights granted under the U.S. Constitution end at the border of one state when a citizen enters another? Generally speaking, no. The privileges and immunities clause of Article IV, Section 2, of the Constitution says that citizens of one state are “entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens” in other states. This includes the right to travel for employment and recreation. However, there are limitations.
The scope of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms for self-defense across state lines is the issue at the heart of a case filed on January 7, 2025, against Bob Jacobson, in his official capacity as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
The complaint challenges Minnesota’s refusal to recognize lawfully issued firearms permits of other states, including those held by plaintiffs David McCoy and Jeffrey Johnson in their home states of Texas and Georgia, respectively. Johnson also holds a permit from Florida, where he used to live.
The plaintiffs are professional long-haul 18-wheel truck drivers who crisscross the country, 300 days a year. According to the complaint, both maintain firearm competency with safety courses and memberships in various firearms organizations. Each regularly passes background checks required by their employment. Neither has any history of violence, felony convictions, or class one misdemeanors. Their backgrounds include experience as firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
The men consider themselves good Samaritans, their “personal ethos” impelling them to “make the road a little safer” by “helping stranded motorists, coming to the aid of accidents, assisting law enforcement and emergency workers.”
While driving, McCoy and Johnson regularly carry firearms for the purposes of self-defense, as well as defense of others, their home, and cargo. But whenever they reach the Minnesota border, Minnesota law requires them to unload their firearms and stow them in a closed, fastened container, rendering them not readily accessible. Other states have analogous restrictions.
Trump Skips Guns in Flurry of Day One Executive Orders
Gun policy did not factor into the new President’s immediate priorities.
Shortly after President Donald Trump officially swore in for his second term on Monday, he quickly signed dozens of sweeping executive orders to walk back several Biden-era policies and fulfill multiple prominent campaign promises. His actions included declaring a “national energy emergency,” a bid to end birthright citizenship, withdrawal from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement, a full pardon for roughly 1,500 January 6th defendants, and more.
Left out of the policy blitz was anything having to do with advancing gun-rights priorities or rescinding the Biden Administration’s gun-control policy achievements. The Trump Administration also left the Second Amendment and gun policy off of its revamped “priorities” page on the White House website.
The omission of any gun policy action comes despite the President pledging speedy reversals of former President Biden’s executive orders to gun-rights supporters on the campaign trail earlier this year.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated my very first week back in office,” Trump told a crowd of NRA members at the group’s Great American Outdoor Show last February.
His decision not to do so on day one places him on the clock to make good on those promises to gun voters the same way he did to immigration hawks and other key MAGA constituencies. If he chooses not to, it could be another sign that guns are low in the pecking order amongst the second Trump Administration’s prerogatives.
For instance, though some of the President’s Day One executive orders were sweeping representations of longstanding Trumpian concerns, others were relative novelties, including directives to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Denali mountain and promote beautiful architecture.
At the same time, some of the moves Trump pledged to gun-rights advocates were already accomplished by the time he got to the Oval Office on Monday. During a speech at the NRA annual meeting last May, he promised NRA members he would fire Steven Dettelbach, Biden’s chosen director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), on “day one.” Before he could do so, however, Dettelbach preemptively tendered his resignation effective January 18.
Others may be happening without any formal publicity. Shortly after his reelection in November, the National Shooting Sports Foundation called on Trump to dismantle the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an executive body created by his predecessor to promote gun-control measures. Though he did not issue any public directive on the matter, the office’s website appears to have been taken offline shortly after his inauguration. Although, many other sections of the White House website also appear to be down and it’s unclear what the status of the office is today.
The Trump White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Still, the President appears yet to have taken action to spur some of the more far-reaching instances of rolling back Biden’s gun policies. These more closely-watched options could include orders directing the ATF to rescind agency regulations that banned so-called ghost gun kits, reclassified pistols equipped with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, and expanded criteria for who must be federally licensed to sell used guns adopted under the prior administration that have rankled gun-rights advocates and resulted in prolonged courtroom fights.
While the road to rescinding those rules will likely be long and bumpy, initiating the process could be as simple as a stroke of the President’s pen–in the same way they were first set into motion.
2A Breaking: SCOTUS just relisted Snope and Ocean State Tactical as expected for January 24. We need a cert grant by midnight January 24 or we are toast for this term imho
— Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar (@fourboxesdiner) January 21, 2025
Lawmakers Introduce Measure Outlawing Federal Gun Registry
The threat of gun registration has long been a concern for U.S. gun owners, and for a very good reason: registration always leads to confiscation. Now, two U.S. lawmakers have introduced legislation to prevent any potential gun registration schemes in the future.
On January 16, U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, introduced the “No Retaining Every Gun In a System that Restricts Your (REGISTRY) Rights Act.” Although its name is somewhat awkward, this legislation is commendable as it would prevent the U.S. government from establishing a federal firearms registry.
Among other things, the act would require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to eliminate all existing firearm transaction records, permit federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to destroy transaction records upon going out of business and prevent the ATF from establishing or maintaining a firearms registry in the future.
The weaponized ATF’s overreach in implementing several new final rules under the Biden Administration was the impetus for the introduction of the measure.
“The ATF’s excessive overreach has gone unchecked for too long,” Sen. Risch said in a press release announcing the legislation. “Idaho’s law-abiding gun owners should not be subject to an already illegal federal firearms registry. The Second Amendment is not conditional to a list of guns in circulation and their owners. All law-abiding Americans have the undeniable right to keep and bear arms. My No REGISTRY Rights Act will safeguard this essential liberty for generations to come.”
Rep. Cloud, the measure’s sponsor in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that Americans’ right to keep and bear arms should not be subject to a government inventory.
“The Second Amendment is a cornerstone of individual liberty, and no administration—Republican or Democrat—should have the ability to compile a list of law-abiding gun owners,” Cloud said. “The Biden administration’s backdoor attempts to create a federal firearms registry are a clear threat to Americans’ privacy and constitutional freedoms. The No REGISTRY Rights Act will dismantle the ATF’s existing database and ensure such a registry can never be implemented.”
In April 2022, the Biden Administration issued a final rule requiring that FFLs retain all firearm transaction records indefinitely. Since 1984, federal regulations have permitted FFLs to discard records older than 20 years, as the “time-to-crime”—the interval between a firearm’s last known legal sale and its use in a crime—rarely exceeds two decades.
Risch and Cloud were joined in introducing the No REGISTRY Rights Act by Republican U.S. senators Mike Crapo of Idaho, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy of Montana, Roger Marshall of Kansas), Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi and 47 members of the House of Representatives.
What SCOTUS doesn't have much time for: most Second Amendment questions, even though they have taken very few such cases in their history.
What SCOTUS does have time for: pic.twitter.com/FpwnydnvO1
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 17, 2025
Supreme Court Second Amendment Update 1-17-2025
In my last update, I wrote, “If a cert petition reaches its scheduled conference date without a justice requesting a response, then we know it was placed on the deadlist and never voted on. It was simply denied.” That remains true. Every Second Amendment cert petition that went into last Friday’s SCOTUS conference, where the respondents had either filed a waiver or did not file any response, was denied. In one case, the Feds asked for the cert petition to be granted, the lower court’s decision vacated, and the case remanded (GVR’d) back to the lower court for proceedings consistent with US v. Rahimi. With only one exception that I can recall when the Feds ask for a GVR, they get it.
I also wrote The “assault rifle” and “large capacity” magazine cert petitions were today relisted to this Friday’s SCOTUS conference of January 10th.” They survived that conference and were relisted to today’s conference. We won’t know until Tuesday whether they and the other petitions scheduled for today’s conference survived.
A response was requested for one of the petitions scheduled for today’s conference, but the Second Amendment was just one of three questions presented to the justices. I suspect that one of the other questions (most likely question 3) in Jarvis Parker, Petitioner v. Florida No. 24-6146 resulted in a response being requested.
In any event, when a justice requests a response after a waiver has been filed and the response hasn’t been filed before the petition goes to its scheduled conference, the petition survives that conference.
Last Friday’s SCOTUS conference resulted in 13 denials, 1 GVR, and two relists.
The petitions that were scheduled for today’s conference are:
Congressman Ben Cline Reintroduces Hearing Protection Act
Washington, January 15, 2025
Today, Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA) reintroduced the Hearing Protection Act (HPA). This legislation reduces the overly burdensome barriers required to purchase a firearm suppressor to ease access for law-abiding citizens simply trying to obtain the hearing protection they need.
“Americans who enjoy hunting and target shooting should be able to do so safely and legally without facing burdensome government regulations,” said Rep. Cline. “The Hearing Protection Act will reclassify suppressors, making it easier for law-abiding gun owners to protect their hearing while enjoying recreational activities. It’s time to ensure that our Second Amendment rights are upheld, allowing responsible citizens to enjoy their freedoms without unnecessary obstacles.”
Congressman Cline was joined by Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS), Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV), Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX), Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), Rep. GT Thompson (R-PA), Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), Rep. Michael Bost (R-IL), Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), Rep. Brad Finstad (R-MN), Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Rep. Fulcher (R-ID), Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Rep. John McGuire (R-VA), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC), Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), Rep. William Timmons (R-SC), Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO), Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), and Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT) as original cosponsors.
The Hearing Protection Act is supported by the American Suppressor Association (ASA), the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA).
“The Hearing Protection Act is the epitome of commonsense legislation. Law-abiding citizens should not have to pay a tax to protect their hearing when they exercise their Second Amendment rights. The American Suppressor Association applauds Rep. Cline for his leadership and willingness to fight for the rights of gunowners across the United States,” said Knox Williams, ASA President and Executive Director.
“Congressman Cline’s Hearing Protection Act will have the federal government recognize firearm suppressors for what they are. These are accessories to a firearm that make recreational shooting and hunting a safer experience,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “These safety devices reduce the report of a firearm to a level that won’t cause instant and permanent hearing damage. Despite Hollywood’s depictions, they do not mask the sound of a firearm. The focus should be on removing barriers to safe and responsible use of firearms and dedicating resources to ensuring firearms are safeguarded from those who should never possess them. Strict regulatory control of firearm accessories, and the parts of those accessories that have no bearing on the function of a firearm, is unnecessary and not the wisest use of federal resources. NSSF thanks Congressman Cline for his leadership for ensuring safe and responsible use of firearms and dedicating necessary resources where they are most needed.”
“Onerous and unnecessary government regulation shouldn’t prevent America’s hunters and recreational shooters from protecting their hearing while exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms,” said John Commerford, Executive Director of NRA-ILA. “Suppressors do not silence firearms, but they are proven to reduce the severity of hearing loss. On behalf of our millions of members, NRA thanks Representative Ben Cline for introducing the Hearing Protection Act.”
“The Hearing Protection Act has been a longstanding priority for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), and we are excited to see this legislation reintroduced. Suppressors are one of the fastest growing and most popular accessories for sportsmen and women, unfortunately, current law makes acquiring suppressors an overly burdensome process, which would be addressed by this legislation. CSF thanks Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus Member Rep. Ben Cline for introducing this legislation, and we look forward to working with him in the 119th Congress to improve the suppressor purchasing process,” said CSF President and CEO Jeff Crane.
Read the full text of the bill here.
Congressman Ben Cline represents the Sixth Congressional District of Virginia. He previously was an attorney in private practice and served both as an assistant prosecutor and Member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Cline and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Botetourt County with their two children.
President Trump Can Lead in Fight Against State-Level 2nd Amendment Infringements
“Karina’s Bill, Named For Little Village Mom Slain By Husband, Heads To Pritzker’s Desk,” Block Club Chicago reported Thursday. “The proposed legislation would clarify the process for confiscating a person’s gun when they are served an order of protection during instances of domestic violence.” (Note: Signing the bill into law has not happened yet at this writing. It may be a done deal when this is posted.)
Is it? Either?
Per Fox 32 Chicago, chief co-sponsor Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid calls it “a critical step towards protecting survivors of domestic violence and making our communities safer. Together, we will continue to push to end gun violence and ensure that everyone in Illinois can live free from fear in their own home.” And it’s “a pivotal victory,” Lt. Governor Julian Stratton chimes in.
How?
Per a 2023 Block Club Chicago article recounting the murders:
“Jose Alvarez [The husband] sought mental health treatment but was put on a wait list… Alvarez owns a Glock 17 9mm-handgun and had a previously valid FOID card, but it was revoked with the order of protection, McCord said. McCord and Alvarez’s attorney said the order of protection was never served to him.”
If there were actionable evidence and charges against Alvarez, he could have been afforded full due process, brought to trial, and convicted. But that requires work, and it’s much easier for a government that chafes at such bonds to just issue a blanket diktat that makes mere accusations sufficient “justification” to usurp more powers and ignore more rights.
Instead, a net will be cast that will scoop up the innocent along with the guilty and do further injury to freedom. As colleague Darwin Nercesian, News Field Editor for Firearms News (full disclosure, I am the magazine’s Political Field Editor) reports in his analysis of Karina’s Bill:
“To truly understand the depths of Democrat legislative depravity, let’s first look at the method by which the bill was passed… Just six minutes before the scheduled commencement of the Illinois Executive Committee, the bill was posted, having been stripped completely of its language after the enacting title and replaced with what is called ‘Karina’s Bill.’ The move, executed before the sitting ‘Lame Duck’ session, is called a striking amendment, which differs from a floor amendment proposed in a legislative chamber in that it removes everything after the title and inserts a whole new bill.”
“Karina’s Bill advocates for the use of ex parte hearings to obtain orders of protection, immediately triggering a warrant to confiscate the subject’s firearms and ammunition,” Nercesian notes, explaining “Ex parte… refers to a legal proceeding by which one party communicates directly with a judge without notice to or knowledge of the other party, removing the respondent’s ability to be represented or present their side of a case prior to being stripped of their rights and property.”
The assaults on freedom will “obliterat[e] the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments,” Nercesian observes, noting the burden of regaining rights is on individuals victimized by the edict, which “holds agencies completely without liability for damage or destruction to property while it is in their custody.”
“What are you going to do about it, President Trump?”
Some may wonder what he can do. After all, these are state laws, the president isn’t supposed to be a dictator, and federalism is supposed to limit how much power the national government can exert over the states. And don’t forget the Tenth Amendment, reserving power “to the States respectively, or to the people.”
First, states have agreed the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the Land” and “the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers… of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” They can no more legitimately violate the Second Amendment than they can any other right.
And as I proposed in a November Firearms News column:
“Imagine now the Department of Justice under an actual Second Amendment advocate, and what it could do fighting infringements and prohibitionist lawfare waged by states with unlimited tax war chests in tandem with Astroturf prohibitionist groups funded by antigun elites. Right now, the costs to defend against these innumerable assaults on all levels are borne by gun rights groups and members of mostly modest means who can only support a fraction of what is needed. That equation could be turned on its head.”
And that would include enforcing the Second Amendment against state infringements, exactly as precedent has been established against abridgments of other civil rights.
Or we could listen to NRA instead and “Take Action Now!” by politely asking Illinois Democrats not to vote for the bill.
Too late, they already have. So, the question now becomes “Will President Trump do anything about it?”
Gun sales: lies, damned lies and statistics
With Donald Trump about to regain the White House and Republicans in control—barely—of both houses of Congress, gun owners and Americans who think they might want to be gun owners someday can relax, right? Right? Beginning January 20, 2025, the federal government probably won’t be harassing gun dealers or trying to write extra-constitutional rules to turn millions of Americans into instant felons for possession of guns or accessories that were lawful the day before, right? Let’s review the status quo on the way to an answer.
For 65 consecutive months, Americans have bought more than a million guns. That’s measured by NCIC record checks mandatory whenever one buys a gun—or guns—from a federally licensed gun dealer after filling out the standard ATF Form 4473. Private sales surely count for many more, but aren’t recorded.
After 2024 monthly gun sales — as measured by adjusted NICS data — trailing 2023 for most of the year, they started to accelerate in July and jumped even more in August. This may be due, at least in part, to the impending election. Americans tend to hedge their bets every four years by stocking up on firearms and related gear. And then there’s the general state of society that seems to have an increasing number of people concerned about self-defense.
Graphic: FBI data via NSSF. Public Domain.
SCOTUS Rejects Multiple Second Amendment Cases, Relists Gun Ban Challenges
On a day when gun-rights advocates hoped that the Supreme Court would announce its next big Second Amendment case, it only informed them which ones it was turning away.
On Monday, the High Court denied petitions for certiorari in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore and Gray v. Jennings. The cases challenged Maryland’s handgun-purchase licensing requirements and the preliminary injunction standard set in the case against Delaware’s sales ban on “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” ammunition magazines.
None of the justices wrote separately to explain or dissent from the denials.
Monday’s orders list dashes the hopes of gun-rights activists looking to overturn lower court decisions upholding the gun-control laws in question. It continues the Supreme Court’s recent streak of rejecting Second Amendment petitions, even as it agrees to hear government requests for review of decisions striking gun laws down. It could fuel further concern among gun-rights activists about the Court’s resolve to expand on the standard it set in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and address state-level gun bans or several other of its longest-standing constitutional concerns.
However, the Court left open the possibility it would take some of the highest-profile gun cases still pending before it. The Court relisted two other closely watched Second Amendment cases, Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island, to be considered again at this Friday’s conference. That keeps gun-rights supporters’ hopes alive for a Supreme Court grant of review of state bans on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
With no guidance on how the justices feel about those two cases and the possibility that the Court could relist them multiple times before deciding whether to take them up, those wondering about the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence face an uncertain timeline for further clarity. Still, Monday’s order list indicated what areas of gun law the Court won’t expound upon for the foreseeable future.
This isn’t “Doooooom!”.
The Machine Gun Win Now Before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
United States v. Morgan (24-3141)
Charles Nichols
Last August, Federal District Court Judge John W. Broomes issued two findings. The first was that the two machine guns the defendant was charged with illegally possessing are ““bearable arms within the original meaning of the [Second” amendment.” The second was “the government has failed to establish that this nation’s history of gun regulation justifies the application of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) to Defendant.”
Judge Broomes then dismissed the charges. The Federal government filed a timely appeal, and filed its opening brief on appeal on December 12th. On December 29th, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed an Amicus brief in support of the government. On Monday, January 6th, the Defendant filed a disfavored (but unopposed) motion for a thirty-day extension to file his answering brief on appeal. The motion was granted the same day. I am reliably informed that an Amicus brief will be filed in support of the Defendant.
Judge Broomes also said that some kinds of machine guns are not arms protected by the Second Amendment, and his decision says nothing about what restrictions or prohibitions the government could place on the carrying (bearing) of machine guns because the Federal law only makes it a crime to possess unregistered machine guns, not carry them.
Additionally, this is an interesting case because the case was prosecuted in the district court, and the opening brief on appeal was filed by the Biden administration. The reply brief and all further proceedings from January 20th onward will be by the Trump administration. The Trump DOJ attorney can simply acquiesce in the case, meaning he can concede that the law is unconstitutional but assert that President Trump will continue to enforce the law, including in this case. The latter is particularly important because if the President does not aver that he will continue to enforce the law, including against the Defendant, then the Court of Appeals could simply dismiss the appeal without deciding the case for lack of a “live case or controversy.”
Putting machine guns to the side for the moment, this quote from the Defendant’s motion for an extension of time is particularly telling, “The government’s brief is 36 pages long. The table of authorities is an additional 15 pages long and includes citations to roughly 200 cases, statutes, and legal texts. Many of the sources relied on by the government are hundreds of years old and were not cited by the government in the district court.”
The Federal criminal court system is rigged against defendants. Had the Defendant’s attorney failed to cite authorities or make properly worded objections in the proper manner at the appropriate time(s) in the trial court, then his failure would be subject to what is called “plain error review” on appeal, and he would almost certainly lose.
Will the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals afford the Federal government a more deferential standard of review? Will the Court of Appeals contrive some way around the NYSRPA v. Bruen mandate that the burden of proof lies with the government?
Time will tell. The appeal should be fully briefed in two months, after which the Court of Appeals can make a decision at any time.
You can read many of the briefs for free from CourtListener at the following links.
United States v. Morgan (24-3141) 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Docket.
United States v. Morgan (6:23-cr-10047) District Court, D. Kansas Docket.
On Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, Gov. Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 58, which prohibits requiring firearm liability insurance or being required to pay a fee for the possession of a firearm, part of a firearm, its components, its ammunition, or a knife.
Senate Bill 148, which was amended into SB 58, prohibits financial institutions from tracking firearms purchases and prohibits government entities from maintaining a registry of firearms or firearm owners.
Both SB 58, sponsored by Sens. Terry Johnson (R-McDermott) and Theresa Gavarone (R-Huron), and SB 148, sponsored by Sen. Terry Johnson, fight recent efforts by gun control advocates to make gun ownership more expensive and less private for law-abiding gun owners instead of cracking down on the actual criminal misuse of firearms.
Buckeye Firearms Association strongly backed both bills and thanks the governor for signing these vital pieces of legislation. These new laws go into effect in 90 days.
You can read BFA’s testimony for these bills here.
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
S. 65, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, has JUST been introduced in the Senate with 41 cosponsors.
President Trump has promised to sign the GOA-backed bill. THE MOMENTUM IS BUILDING.pic.twitter.com/MYuglNaWYf
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) January 9, 2025