Yesterday afternoon, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in their challenge to the Illinois ban on standard capacity magazines and so-called “assault weapons.”

These bans took effect in January 2023, and GOA quickly filed suit and secured an injunction from Judge Stephen McGlynn. As Judge McGlynn put it, the Illinois laws in question “seem to be written in spite of the clear directives in Bruen and Heller, not in conformity with them.”

Frustratingly, the anti-gun 7th Federal Circuit quickly blocked Judge McGlynn’s ruling, leaving Illinois gun owners with no choice but to request relief from the nation’s high court.

Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, issued the following statement:

“GOA has been at the forefront of this challenge since before the bans even took effect, and while our goal was never to have to end up before the Supreme Court, we were fully prepared to do so.

“We urge the Justices to hear the pleas of millions of Americans in Illinois and several other states nationwide who cannot purchase many of the commonly owned semi-automatic firearms available today because of the unconstitutional laws passed by anti-gun politicians.” Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation has been granted summary judgement in a federal challenge of California’s One-Gun-A-Month (OGM) purchase law.

U.S. District Judge William Q. Hayes stayed his decision for 30 days for the defendants to facilitate an appeal.

SAF is joined by the North County Shooting Center, San Diego County Gun Owners Pac, PWGG, LP, Firearms Policy Coalition and six private citizens including Michelle Nguyen, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney Raymond M. DiGuiseppe of Southport, N.C. The case was filed in December 2020 and is known as Nguyen v. Bonta.

“This is a win for gun rights and California gun owners,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “There is no historical justification for limiting law-abiding citizens to a single handgun or rifle purchase during a one-month period, and Judge Hayes’ ruling clearly points that out.” Read more

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a case challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “final rule” redefining frames and receivers as firearms, have filed a response brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case known as VanDerStok v. Garland.

SAF is joined by Defense Distributed, Polymer80, Inc., and Not an LLC, LLC (doing business as JSD Supply). They are represented by Houston, Texas attorney Charles R. Flores.

The brief recalls how Congress enacted the Gun Control Act of 1968 pursuant to the Commerce Clause with no intention of discouraging or eliminating the private ownership or use of firearms by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. This includes the long-standing tradition of building personal firearms, and the original act defined “firearm” as a working gun, not a gun part, or kit, or incomplete firearm. In 1978, ATF promulgated a rule defining the “frame or receiver” of a firearm, taking the position that “receiver blanks” were not “firearms” under the 1968 Act. Read more

BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners have filed a motion for summary judgment with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking a final resolution to its lawsuit challenging New York state and municipal laws prohibiting private citizens from possessing and using stun guns and tasers. The case is Calce v. City of New York.

“Given New York’s history of wanting to keep its peaceable citizens defenseless, it comes as no surprise they would remain an outlier in having a ban which prohibits people from owning electronic arms,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Second Amendment ensures our ability to possess and carry bearable arms, including those that were not in existence at the time of the Founding, yet lawmakers in New York believe they somehow have the ability to ignore that guarantee. Prior to Bruen, other courts have found these bans to be incompatible with the Constitution, and we believe this case should not yield a different result.”

Joining SAF in the lawsuit are the Firearms Policy Coalition Inc. Each of the five individual plaintiffs in this case – Nunzio Calce, Allen Chan, Shaya Greenfield, Raymond Pezzoli and Amanda Kennedy – are represented by attorney David Jensen of Beacon, N.Y.

As noted in the brief, “Electronic stun guns are no more exempt from the Second Amendment’s protections simply because they were unknown to the First Congress than electronic communications are exempt from the First Amendment or electronic imaging devices are exempt from the Fourth Amendment.”

“The brief filed today demonstrates that stun guns and tasers are protected by the Second Amendment and we demand a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the ban,” said SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This case was filed in March 2021, and it’s past time for the court to once and for all declare this law unconstitutional.” Read more

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, welcomes the introduction of S. 3812, the Fighting Irrational Regulatory Enforcement to Avert Retailers’ Misfortune (FIREARM) Act, by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Companion legislation, H.R. 7471 under the same name, was introduced by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). The “FIREARM” Act would create a safe harbor for federal firearm licensees (FFLs) who are at risk of losing their licenses and livelihoods due to the Biden administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that has weaponized the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to revoke licenses for minor unintentional clerical errors and mistakes.

“Senator Joni Ernst’s ‘FIREARM’ Act will help restore confidence that ATF will fulfill its mission as a regulatory agency over the manufacture and sale of firearms rather than being used as a political tool by special interests,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “Under the Biden administration, the firearm and ammunition industry has seen the ATF turned into a sledgehammer to carry out this administration’s extreme antigun policies. This damages the cooperative relationships between firearm retailers, who are on the frontline preventing illegal straw purchases of firearms, and the ATF, who enforces laws to safeguard our communities. NSSF is thankful for Senator Ernst’s leadership to provide remedies that repair this necessary public trust in our federal agencies.”

Specifically, the “FIREARM” Act: Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, hails the introduction of the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), which would ban the use of a firearm retailer-specific Merchant Category Code (MCC). The legislation would protect the Second Amendment privacy of firearm and ammunition purchasers from financial service and payment card providers compiling purchase history that has already proven to be exploited by the federal government for political purposes.

The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) admitted to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a letter that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that protect against illegal search and seizure when it collected the credit card purchase history from banks and credit card companies of individuals who purchased firearms and ammunition in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2020. Treasury’s FinCEN had no cause, and sought the information without a warrant, to place these law-abiding citizens on a government watchlist only because they exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase firearms and ammunition. Read more

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is excited to announce their inaugural Gun Owners Advocacy and Leadership Summit (GOALS), which will be held in mid-August in Knoxville, Tennessee.

This two-day weekend event is expected to draw tens of thousands of attendees and will feature speeches from leaders in the gun rights movement, educational panels, meet and greet sessions, and musical performances from major artists. Additionally, the convention’s festivities will kick off on Friday August 16th with an exclusive industry expo for manufacturers, retailers, and other firearms businesses.

GOA is also excited to share that all attendees will be able to lawfully carry while in attendance. Read more

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauded the decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Schopler granting an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California’s law that exposes firearm industry members to lawsuits in California for the lawful commerce in firearms that takes place entirely outside the state of California when those legally made and sold products end up being misused by criminals and others in California.

The ruling by Judge Schopler in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California enjoined the enforcement of California AB 1594, the so-called “Firearm Industry Responsibility Act.” NSSF sued to challenge the law in June of 2023 and moved for an injunction. In granting the injunction, Judge Schopler found the law is likely unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause.

“We are thankful the court enjoined the state from suing members of the firearm industry under this unconstitutional law that attempts to use the real threat of liability on commerce beyond California’s borders and impose its policy choices on its Sister states,” stated NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane.

Among other provisions, California AB 1594 bans the manufacture, sale and marketing of firearms the state deems “abnormally dangerous.” It allows civil lawsuits against a firearm industry member to be filed by the Attorney General, any municipality and any person who claims to have suffered harm from the misuse of a legal, lawfully sold firearm by a remote third party. The law unconstitutionally invades the sovereignty of sister States by directly regulating lawful commerce occurring entirely outside the state of California in violation of the Commerce Clause and the United States’ system of federalism. The law also violates the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) enacted by Congress in 2005 to stop just these sorts of frivolous lawsuits against members of the industry.

Keane added, “We are reviewing the balance of the court’s decision and whether we will file an amended complaint to provide the court more details on how California’s unconstitutional law and its threat of crushing liability is causing real and ongoing harm to members of our industry.”

NSSF also claims in its lawsuit that the law also infringes on the Second Amendment and chills First Amendment rights by restricting protected free-speech advertising of Constitutionally-protected products that are lawfully made and sold – even when that advertising takes place outside of California’s borders. Read more