Justice Kavanaugh to Second Amendment: We’re Really Busy Now, Come Back In A Year Or Two

On December 1, 2020, the Maryland ban on AR-15s was challenged. The plaintiffs lost in the District Court and before the Fourth Circuit. In August 2024, a cert petition was filed in Snope v. Brown. The petition sat in purgatory for nearly a year with fourteen relists.

Today, the Supreme Court finally put the petition out of its misery and denied cert. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted. Justice Barrett, as usual said nothing. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a very unusual statement respecting the denial of the petition. The first two paragraphs explain why the Maryland decision was “questionable.” If you read these parts, you would expect a grant. Indeed, Kavanaugh as circuit judge had found that the District of Columbia’s ban on AR-15s was unconstitutional. But then, we get to the last paragraph:

In short, under this Court’s precedents, the Fourth Circuit’s decision is questionable. Although the Court today denies certiorari, a denial of certiorari does not mean that the Court agrees with a lower-court decision or that the issue is not worthy of review.

The AR–15 issue was recently decided by the First Circuit and is currently being considered by several other Courts of Appeals…..

Opinions from other Courts of Appeals should assist this Court’s ultimate decision making on the AR–15 issue.

 Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.

My mouth nearly hit the floor when I read this. Kavanaugh all-but signals that he will be a fourth vote to grant cert. He does not identify any vehicle problems, or reasons why the Maryland petition should not be granted. Does he really think that rulings from the Ninth Circuit will help much in the deliberations? These courts will all rule against the Second Amendment. Nothing is in doubt. The upshot is that the Court is really busy with other stuff right now, and you all should just come back later. The Second Amendment could take a sabbatical for a year or two until the docket lightens up. Indeed, this case has been pending for nearly four years. Maryland gun owners will just have to chill.

Of late I’ve been praiseworthy of some of Kavanaugh’s actions, but this is the sort of Kavanaugh opinion that infuriates me. And where is Justice Barrett on these issues? A decade ago in 2015, Justice Scalia dissented from denial of cert in Friedman v. Highland Park, a challenge to an assault weapon ban.

This issue isn’t new. I think this term will be remembered as the term in which Justice Barrett’s slide became indisputable. I started tracking it years ago, but it is hard to ignore now.

Kostas Moros

May as well do a proper thread on this. Read for my analysis/cope.
Snope denied. The Supreme Court has forsaken us.
Kavanaugh says they want more percolation, apparently.
First up is Kavanaugh, in a statement respecting the denial of cert. (Basically a concurrence in denying it) Not that it will matter until SCOTUS actually polices the antigun circuits, but Kavanaugh confirms we are right that: a. there is a “common use” test. Antigun states have denied this, arguing there is no such test, or if there is, it’s only “commonly used for self-defense.” b. it is historically-based (i.e., not part of the phony “plain text” analysis). Antigun states have argued it’s at the plain text step.
Not strong enough to get granted cert now though, I guess?
Sure, but the antigun circuits will absolutely take this as an affirmance of the terrible Fourth Circuit ruling. SCOTUS needs to accept that it must actively police those circuits, or just admit it has no interest in protecting the Second Amendment so we stop wasting our time.
While they didn’t join this statement, this is Barrett and Roberts speaking too, it’s pretty clear. Kavanaugh wouldn’t write with such confidence (i.e. “presumably”) if he didn’t think they – or at least one of them – was on board to hear such a case soon. You are free to think I am coping – I can’t blame you for having zero confidence in the Court after this. It’s just how I read it. Even if I am correct, that wouldn’t make it okay. Another year or two of denied rights is incredibly damaging. As I have pointed out before, our lives are not that long, and not having our Second Amendment right fully realized for another year or two is a real loss. Moreover, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from percolation. Only antigun circuits ever here AWB cases, and their rulings are all very similar to each other.
We love you Justice Thomas, thanks for always being a real one.
I don’t like Justice Thomas embracing the plain text “step.” I guess I now have to concede there is such a step, bummer.
That said, the plain text is not hard to meet in an arms ban case, as Thomas points out.
Now that Thomas has confirmed I was wrong and there is a “plain text” step, I now urge the Supreme Court to gut it and make Bruen the one-step test it should be. Antigun circuits will always place “too high a burden” on Plaintiffs to avoid the historical analysis. The plain text step, if it is too exist, should be no more than a simple qualifier, not some rigorous analysis.
to* exist.
So while Thomas does reject my view that there is no meaningful plain text step, he does agree that it isn’t a hard step to meet.
Beautifully written. Too bad it is in a dissent from denial of cert, and not the first line of a per curiam ruling.
Thomas deals with the 4th Circuits dumb slippery slope argument.
Thomas agrees that percolation has no value.
He concludes by pointing out the Court’s logic in VanDerStok could allow for the federal government to declare AR-15s to be “machineguns” and ban them. A future Dem administration will no doubt try this.
So, what’s my speculation?
I think there was clearly a lot of negotiating behind the scenes, and Roberts/Barrett or one of them just doesn’t want another controversial issue on their plate right now.
They promised Kavanaugh they’d take up the issue soon, but who knows if they will keep that promise (no doubt the stream of Trump admin cases will continue for the whole four years). Hopefully the USDOJ will support the Duncan cert petition to add some pressure for a grant. If they deny Duncan, then the next best candidate is probably the Illinois cases about to be heard on final judgment by the Seventh Circuit.
It is interesting that Kavanaugh had no similar statement for Ocean State Tactical. As a judge on the DC Circuit, he dissented from an opinion (Heller II) upholding an AWB, but said as to magazines he would have remanded for further proceedings. It’s possible Kavanaugh is against AWBs, but would be accepting of a magazine capacity limit. I certainly hope that isn’t the case. I can’t blame anyone for dooming at this point, but we’ll keep doing the best we can. We need Justices Thomas and Alito replaced by fire-breathers like VanDyke who don’t care about suffocating decorum traditions and will openly call out their colleagues when they are being hacks. Thomas and Alito are the best justices on the Court, but they are aging and it is critical they be replaced with equally-strong but younger judges.
Finally, the percolation excuse must be especially frustrating for the Snope plaintiffs. Let’s say in a best case scenario, Kavanaugh is being truthful, and SCOTUS does grant a similar case and strikes down AWBs. The Snope plaintiffs are still out all of their legal fees, which do not get reimbursed if you are vindicated two years later. You only win back fees if your case wins. So they are just SOL.
Very cool SCOTUS, thanks.

Why have we had such a decline in moral climate? I submit to you that a major factor has been a change in the philosophy which has been dominant, a change from belief in individual responsibility to belief in social responsibility. If you adopt the view that a man is not responsible for his own behavior, that somehow society is responsible, why should he seek to make his behavior good?
-Milton Friedman

Demoncraps and Men

Democrats are spending $20 million to win back men—but until they understand what men actually want, they’ll keep buying maps without learning the terrain.

Since last November, Democrats and their friends in the media have spent a great deal of time wondering what they can do to win back male voters. Now they’re prepared to spend a great deal of money to help them figure it out. The “gender gap” in American politics was traditionally about Republicans’ inability to win over a majority of women voters, but this imbalance has more than evened out over the last few election cycles. Today, the Democrats’ struggle to win male voters—and young male voters, in particular—is as pronounced—if not more so—than their opponents’ struggle with women. Some of them, at least, would like to know why and would like to spend $20 million of their donors’ money in the process.

The explanations and consequent solutions offered so far range from the seemingly practical to the hopeless to the head-scratching. One might think that $20 million would buy something more insightful than this, but then, this is the same party that triumphantly chose Tim Walz as its vice-presidential nominee, fully expecting him to be the answer to their gender gap problem. Or in other words, don’t hold your breath.

In reality, the odds that the contemporary Democratic party will be able to win back men, now or in the foreseeable future, are vanishingly small. The party, as it is currently constituted, lacks both the will and the ability to make the changes that would be necessary to do so. What I mean by this is that the contemporary Democratic party is built on a handful of foundational notions that are, by and large, incompatible with the goal of appealing to men.

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ATF Announces Firearms Regulatory Reforms and Renewed Partnership with Firearms Industry

On May 21, 2025, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced a series of policy changes initiated under the Trump Administration. The agency prefaced this announcement by stating the following:

[ATF] is ushering in a new chapter—marked by transparency, accountability, and partnership with the firearms industry. This is not the same ATF of the last four years. We are fundamentally changing course with a renewed focus on rebuilding trust with federal firearms licensees (FFLs), gun owners, and the public by prioritizing public safety and collaboration.

This marks the first – and most substantial – effort in history to roll back restrictions that have caused significant uncertainty and hardship for Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs).

ATF outlined eight ongoing policy efforts and 10 implemented measures in its announcement:

Policy Items in Progress:

  • Releasing an updated Firearms Commerce Report: ATF will be updating its annual data on firearms manufacturing, import/export, and tax revenue collected from the administration of the National Firearms Act (NFA).
  • Converting ATF Form 20 (Authorization to Transport Firearms) into a streamlined, notice-based process: ATF Form 20 is a required filing for individuals who wish to transport certain NFA firearms (e.g., machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns) across state lines. Replacing the form with a notice-based process will remove the current weeks-long waiting process for approval.
  • Revising ATF Form 4473 to be shorter and more accessible for both purchasers and federal firearms licensees: ATF Form 4473 is used by FFLs to record background check results and purchaser information during a firearm transfer. During the previous Administration, the form was commonly reviewed by ATF for errors as a way to initiate revocation proceedings. By simplifying and shortening the form, it will likely reduce the number of unintentional errors.
  • Issuing an open letter outlining revisions to the Brady Chart: The Permanent Brady Permit Chart is a tool for FFLs to determine whether a state-issued firearms permit can be used as an alternative to conducting a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check at the point of sale. These “Revisions” will likely indicate that more states may be exempt from the Brady Act requirements.
  • Standardizing inspection and enforcement practices for dealers nationwide: ATF field divisions have been found to apply inconsistent inspection standards across regional offices. Standardization aims to ensure fair, consistent, and predictable application of the law to all FFLs.
  • Issuing an open letter to lift the existing restriction on importing dual-use barrels: Firearm barrels useable in both importable and non-importable firearms were previously restricted from importation based upon what firearm they were previously affixed to. The new policy would interpret the law as written to look at the traits of the barrel itself, not what it may have previously been affixed to overseas.
  • Finalizing a ruling to permit electronic signatures on National Firearms Act forms: Most NFA forms require physical signatures on paper. Allowing e-signatures would modernize and streamline the application process.
  • Conducting a comprehensive review of existing regulations to repeal those deemed outdated or unnecessary: Certain ATF regulations may be outdated, duplicative, or lack statutory support. The ongoing review is intended to identify these provisions and recommend either their modification or their removal. Previously, this Administration has indicated it is planning to review “the regulatory framework surrounding stabilizing braces (Final Rule 2021R-08F) and the definition of ‘engaged in the business’ of firearms dealing (Final Rule 2022R-17F).”

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Backer of Hawaii’s Failed ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Won’t Bring It Back Next Year

Given the large Democratic majority in the Hawaii legislature and the state’s longstanding hostility towards the right to keep and bear arms, the demise of a proposed ban on the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles on May 1 was a welcome surprise for Second Amendment advocates.

Hawaii gun owners got even more good news this week when Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, who was one of the leading proponents of SB 401, told Honolulu Civil Beat that he has no plans to revive the bill next session, calling it “a waste of time,” to bring it up during an election year.

That in itself is an unexpected twist, since Democrats have adopted expansive “gun-free zones” and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms in recent years. But according to Civil Beat reporter Kevin Dayton, further gun control efforts could be stymied by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats representing more rural parts of the state.

The ban on those guns was effectively blocked at the last minute by Democratic Sen. Lynn DeCoite, who said she wanted to exclude rural residents, subsistence hunters and conservation workers who use those weapons to combat invasive species such as axis deer and feral pigs.

Experts in firearms laws say the language DeCoite offered in her proposed amendment would have diluted the proposed restrictions in Senate Bill 401 so completely that the new law would have been largely unenforceable.

Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, a leading advocate for the bill, said as much during the debate before the pivotal vote on the Senate floor. “This amendment creates a huge carve-out for the sale of assault weapons,” he told his colleagues. “If we pass it, it basically eviscerates the underlying bill.”

According to Republican Sen. Brenton Awa that was the whole point. “Essentially what this amendment does, if you don’t get caught up in everything that’s in it, is allows us to kill the bill,” he said.

None of the other senators bothered to argue with Awa, and minutes later he proved to be correct. The amendment passed 13-12, with Senate President Ron Kouchi from Kauaʻi casting the tie-breaking vote. He then announced the bill was shelved for the year.

That vote was a strikingly rare example of Senate Democrats joining with their Republican colleagues to muster a majority. It also suggests Hawaiʻi’s longstanding political consensus on firearms may be fracturing as senators from mostly rural districts join forces with a handful of Republicans to push back on the issue.

Dayton’s full piece details the “convoluted” politics that led to the defeat of SB 401 and is well worth a read. The big takeaway is that while Hawaii isn’t going to adopt Constitutional Carry or other pro-2A measures anytime soon, there does appear to be a growing reluctance to pass the kind of sweeping gun controls that groups like Everytown have been lobbying for.

SB 401 had the support of anti-gun groups, as well as the backing of Gov. Josh Green. And DeCoite’s amendment would likely have been defeated were it not for the “yes” vote by Senate President Ron Kouchi. The Democrat told the Civil Beat that he supported the carveouts because he represents a “large hunter and fisher group on Kauaʻi, and they are putting food on their table as part of the subsistence in meeting some of the challenging economic times.”

Kouchi also expressed concerns that the magazine ban portion of SB 401, which contained no grandfather clause, would have turned constituents into felons for keeping ahold of the magazines that they had lawfully purchased.

While I’d much rather Kouchi and DeCoite oppose a gun ban on principle instead of citing concerns about invasive species and the impact on subsistence hunting, at the end of the day they were still responsible for defanging and defeating a top priority for the gun control lobby this year; not only in Hawaii but across the country. I certainly hope this is the start of a new coalition that will defend the right to keep and bear arms in what’s traditionally been hostile territory, and that this is just the first of many gun control bills to get swatted down by a bipartisan group of Hawaiian legislators.

Inside the Anti-Gun Playbook: How Propaganda Manipulates the Public

I’d like to recommend a little light reading for your weekend, and it won’t cost you a cent. It’s Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging, a downloadable 84-page book containing almost all the strategies and tactics employed by the gun control gang.

One thing you will notice is that the Second Amendment gets very little mention, and what it does get is almost entirely about Antonin Scalia’s opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. McDonald v. City of Chicago gets a brief mention, too.

This isn’t surprising: Knowledgeable gun-control fans know there’s nothing they can do about the Second Amendment itself. The process described in Article V of the U.S. Constitution and the fact that the gun-grabbers would have to persuade 38 states to ratify a new amendment is a barrier to the hopes of all but the most optimistic gun control Pollyannas.

The book came out in 2012, so there’s no mention of Bruen or Rahimi. It was also when the National Rifle Association was riding high and membership was peaking. As you might expect, the NRA is the principal villain in this book, sort of like the Death Star in Star Wars or Godzilla.

The book’s emphasis on emotional appeals as propaganda displays a quite unflattering cynicism. They’re shedding crocodile tears while standing on the bodies of the slain, demanding laws that wouldn’t have saved them.

The books authors emphasize avoidance of “(t)he political food fight in Washington or wonky statistics.” That’s almost humorous, considering how “wonky” the statistics used by Everytown and Giffords really are.

Sources like the Gun Violence Archive inflate the number of mass shootings: So far in 2025, the GVA claims there have been 124 mass shootings in the U.S. while the Violence Prevention Project, which has a far more exhaustively researched database, reports no mass shootings since September last year.

But which number, 124 or zero, is more likely to be on the evening news?

It’s just like the exaggerations in the K-12 School Shooting Database I mentioned in a previous article.

In his classic 1984, George Orwell wrote: “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

It’s called the Big Lie. Adolf Hitler also wrote about it in Mein Kampf. The idea is if you’re going to lie, make it a big lie; repeat it frequently. Eventually, the public will come to accept the Big Lie.

How effective is this? In February 2019, Marist conducted a poll of 880 adults. The survey was commissioned by NPR and PBS and covered ‘popular’ gun control laws.

The results were as one would expect: Big numbers for the gun-grabbers’ agenda.

However, the last question on the survey unintentionally affirmed how well the Big Lie works.

The question was: “From what you have heard or read, do you think, compared to 25 years ago, the per capita gun murder rate in the U.S. is higher, lower, or about the same?”

59% of the survey group said the rate had gone up; 23% said it was about the same.

According to data from the FBI and the CDC, over the 25 years from 1994 to 2018, the murder rate plunged 37 percent.

82% of those responding believed something demonstrably untrue.

Was that ever mentioned in the media coverage of the study? No.

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New Poll Has Bad News for Anti-Gun Democrats

As recently as 2010, a quarter of Democrats in Congress were “A” rated by the National Rifle Association. But over the past fifteen years the gun control lobby and Democratic leadership have purged the party of Second Amendment-supporting politicians. Oh sure, Kamala Harris claimed to own a Glock, even though she backed San Francisco’s ban on handguns when was the city’s District Attorney.

Despite his support for “red flag” laws, bans on modern sporting rifles, and support for depriving young adults of their right to keep and bear arms, Tim Walz was billed as a Democrat that gun owners could get behind because he owned a shotgun and like to shoot clays. Those pathetic attempts to portray the 2024 Democratic ticket as friendly to Second Amendment supporters were abject failures, but the party hasn’t learned any lessons from their disastrous performance last year. Instead, they voted to put gun control activist David Hogg in a leadership position at the DNC, introduced bills banning almost every semi-automatic rifle and shotgun on the market, and are now trying to ban the sale of Glock handguns in states like New York and Illinois.

So how’s that working out for them? According to a new YouGov survey, not well at all.

A new YouGov survey asked Americans whether they think the Democratic Party or the Republican Party does a better job handling each of 20 issues. Both Democrats and Republicans have changed their views since last year on several key issues. For example, Democrats are less likely now than they were in August 2024 to say the Democratic Party does a better job at handling guns (69%, down from 80%). Meanwhile, Republicans are less likely now than they were last summer to say the Republican Party does a better job handling inflation (80%, down from 87%).

On the question of who does a better job of handling “guns” as an issue, 36% of all survey respondents picked Republicans, 31% picked Democrats, 16% said they were about the same (which is flabbergasting to me), and 16% said they were unsure. YouGov says that’s the one issue where there’s been “notable” movement among the American electorate, which should be ringing alarm bells for Democrats across the country.

I doubt it will, though. The YouGov survey shows more than 2/3rds of Democrats still believe their party is better on the gun issue than Republicans, and even though that number has plunged from 80% to 69% in the past year, the gun control lobby is so entrenched within the party itself that it will take a lot more than one survey and one terrible election cycle before we could start to see any genuinely pro-Second Amendment Democrats running for Congress or statewide office.

I’d love to see both major political parties embrace and support our Second Amendment rights, but I just don’t see that happening in the near future. Some Democrats might try to disguise their animosity towards the right to keep and bear arms by dropping their attempts to ban gas-operated semi-automatic rifles and shotguns until the 2026 election cycle is over, but there’ll be plenty of others in the party who will continue their crusade to turn a fundamental civil right into a privilege subject to the whims of anti-gun politicians. 

Cornyn seems to be trying to buy his way back into our good graces.
If he wants any consideration, he better be right in there pushing for the inclusion of the SHORT act.

Cornyn Statement on Inclusion of Deregulating Firearm Suppressors in House’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes a provision he is pushing for inclusion in the Senate’s version of the legislation to deregulate firearms suppressors by eliminating the unconstitutional suppressor tax and registration requirements under the National Firearms Act:

“Firearm silencers should not be subject to overregulation and unconstitutional taxes that hamstring Texans’ freedoms and pocketbooks,” said Sen. Cornyn. “I’m proud to see the House stand up for law-abiding gun owners, eliminate senseless red tape, and proudly defend our Second Amendment rights, and I will continue to fight for this as the Senate works to pass President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Background:

Suppressors are currently subject to additional regulatory burdens under the National Firearms Act (NFA). Sen. Cornyn cosponsored the Hearing Protection Act to remove suppressors from regulation under the NFA and replace the burdensome federal transfer process with an instantaneous National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check.  This would make the purchasing and transfer process for suppressors similar to the process for rifles and shotguns.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a reconciliation package today that includes a provisions from the Hearing Protection Act to strike the registration requirement for firearm silencers and makes the manufacturer tax on silencers $0. Specifically, it amends Sec. 112029 to strike the registration requirement for firearm silencers by removing silencers from the list of firearms in the tax code.

 

“What ‘multiculturalism’ boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture—and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.”
— Thomas Sowell