The Trump Administration Defends the Federal Ban on Interstate Handgun Sales
In response to a Second Amendment lawsuit, the government says the restriction “serves legitimate objectives” and “only modestly burdens” the right to arms.

A couple of years ago, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Donald Trump, caused a kerfuffle by erroneously reporting that his boss had bought a Glock pistol while visiting a gun store in Summerville, South Carolina. That claim was striking because it implicated Trump, who was then seeking the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, in a federal crime: Since he was under indictment in state and federal court, he was barred from buying firearms. But even if Trump had not faced felony charges, the transaction that Cheung described would have been illegal because of federal restrictions on interstate handgun purchases.

As a resident of Florida, Trump would not have been allowed to directly buy a pistol from a South Carolina gun dealer. Instead, he would have had to arrange and pay for shipment of the weapon to a licensed dealer in Florida, who could have completed the transaction there, typically in exchange for an additional fee. A lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas takes aim at that rule, arguing that it is inconsistent with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) says the ban on interstate handgun sales fails the constitutional test that the Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

As president, Trump now controls the nation’s vast military might, including its nuclear arsenal. But because the dubious New York case against him resulted in felony convictions, he is not allowed to possess firearms, let alone buy new ones. And even if his convictions are overturned on appeal, he still won’t be allowed to buy a handgun in South Carolina or any other state he might visit. His administration, which is avowedly committed to protecting Second Amendment rights, nevertheless is defending that restriction against the FPC’s challenge, saying it “serves legitimate objectives” and “only modestly burdens the right to keep and bear arms.”

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2nd Amendment Victory Sends Clear Message About Government Overreach

In a landmark decision for gun owners, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently ruled in favor of two plaintiffs, Gerald Novak and Adam Wenzel, in a case that raises important questions about government overreach and the Second Amendment. The case revolves around the seizure of 14 firearms by the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department in Michigan, which Novak and Wenzel claimed as their property.

Despite no evidence that the firearms were involved in the criminal act that led to their confiscation, the sheriff refused to return the guns, citing a lack of proof of ownership. This legal battle, now on appeal for the third time, highlights the tension between individual rights and governmental authority.

 

Without freedom there will be no firearms among the people.
Without firearms among the people there will not long be freedom.
Certainly there are examples of countries where the people remain
relatively free after the people have been disarmed,
but there are no examples of a totalitarian state being created or
existing where the people have personal arms.
— Neal Knox

Just a reminder that when it’s a Republican, pleading the 5th is a tacit admission of guilt.

One year after Chevron’s demise, gun regulation is unraveling

Just over a year ago, the Supreme Court struck down one of the main pillars of how modern federal regulation works — the Chevron doctrine.

This rule, whose name was taken from a 1980s Supreme Court case, had required federal judges to defer to federal agency interpretations of their own authority in cases where the underlying laws were vague.

The Loper Bright ruling that ended so-called “Chevron deference” last June was described as a “return to judicial balance” — a technical correction. But its consequences are now impossible to ignore.

This decision gas hit gun regulation especially hard, stripping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of one of its key tools for enforcing gun control. Between Loper Bright and the Supreme Court’s striking down of the ban on bump stocks in Garland v. Cargill, courts across the South have begun systematically overturning rules.

Before Loper Bright, the ATF claimed the authority to decide what counts as a firearm — including whether modifications or added parts fell under regulation. The agency used that flexibility to slow the spread of dangerous modifications.

After the demise of Chevron, however, courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations, meaning that agencies like the ATF can no longer count on winning if they “fill in the blanks” where Congress was vague. That means every new restriction must be clearly written into law, and older rules are now being challenged in court. The ATF is left watching from the sidelines as Loper Bright has become a standard reference in gun-related cases.

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Hospice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Of course, these companies, like any other, are in it to make a profit, but it seems they could be a bit more attentive to each family’s different requirements.

A Principal source of errors and injustice, are false ideas of utility.
For example, that legislator has false ideas of utility, who considers particular more than general convenience; who had rather command the sentiments of mankind, than excite them, and dares say to reason, “Be thou a slave;” who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages, to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire, for fear of being burnt, and of water, for fear of being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature, are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent.

Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance?

Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator; and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty?

It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack armed than unarmed persons.

— Cesare Beccaria in “On Crimes and Punishment” 1764

A Bold First Step in Dismantling the National Firearms Act

President Trump and GOP lawmakers have every reason to celebrate a bold and historic moment for the Trump administration with the recent passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” – a new law that, among other things, reduces taxes for law-abiding gun owners.

In the original version of President Trump’s bill, GOP lawmakers and the White House strategically focused on the National Firearms Act (NFA), with the goal of eliminating many of the NFA’s burdensome requirements. That language would have removed an onerous $200 federal excise tax, and the needless registry and paperwork currently imposed on short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), firearm suppressors, and “any other weapons” (AOWs) defined within the NFA.

Yet this original language, which we actively supported, was stricken by a Harry Reid-appointed Senate parliamentarian who allegedly applied what’s known as the “Byrd Rule” in evaluating the NFA-related language in the Senate reconciliation package. The “Byrd test” is based upon factors including whether the provision would increase or decrease revenues, and whether the change in revenue would be “merely incidental” to the other alterations that the provision would make to public law.

Considering the NFA was passed as a taxation scheme by Congress and upheld as such by the U.S. Supreme Court, the parliamentarian’s ruling had the hallmarks of political activism designed to thwart the president’s and GOP’s efforts to restore gun rights. While we strongly disagreed with the ruling of the parliamentarian, we were not going to allow an unaccountable bureaucrat to have the last word. NRA therefore worked with House and Senate Leadership to revise language in the legislation that, while less comprehensive than what was originally envisioned, curtailed any opportunities for political gamesmanship under the Byrd test. The end result was legislation that eliminated the unconstitutional, highly punitive $200 tax on short-barreled firearms, suppressors, and other items.

That provision is certainly not perfect, in that it leaves intact the burdensome and intrusive administrative and registration requirements. But, it represents the biggest blow to the National Firearms Act since its creation nearly a century ago and takes a bold step to reduce unconstitutional financial hardships imposed on lawful gun owners. More importantly, this new law sets the stage for a robust fight in the courts to permanently eliminate the NFA.

Since the law zeros out taxes on the sale/transfer of short-barreled firearms, suppressors, and other items, the door is now open to wage a significant legal challenge to the continued existence of the NFA. Precedent supports a challenge arguing that, because the NFA no longer imposes a tax on certain regulated firearms, its constitutional justification as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power has been invalidated. And if it is determined in court that the reason the NFA exists as a taxing authority is now dissolved, then its days are numbered.

This is why the NRA has joined with several other organizations, including the American Suppressor Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation, to support a legal challenge that could finally put an end to the NFA and its infringement on your Second Amendment rights. Other organizations are filing similar lawsuits. Our focus now shifts to continuing the fight to fully eliminate the NFA and remove other unconstitutional gun laws. The NRA remains dedicated to preserving and expanding the rights of law-abiding gun owners as we utilize every tool at our disposal to do so on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures, and in courthouses across the nation.

Well, Dad is still in Hospital, and they’re working on getting him stabilized enough to come home where he’ll go on hospice.
Posting will still be on the sparce side until we get things settled in the new reality.