FPC files appeal brief and seeks full-court review to overturn second-class legal standard blocking challenges to D.C.’s ban on common firearm magazines.

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it filed an opening brief and a petition for initial hearing en banc in its Wehr-Darroca v. District of Columbia appeal, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn decades-old precedent that treats Second Amendment challenges differently from other constitutional cases and keeps peaceable gun owners out of court.

At issue is Washington, D.C.’s ban on firearm magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition. Violating the ban is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison and a $12,500 fine, with a conviction potentially triggering a federal lifetime ban on possessing firearms. FPC and two of its members, William Wehr-Darroca and Gary Stemple, challenged the law because it prohibits them from possessing the standard magazines that came with their handguns. To avoid prosecution, the members were forced to leave those magazines outside the District and purchase restricted-capacity replacements.

But rather than hear their constitutional challenge, the federal district court dismissed the case under D.C. Circuit precedent requiring a heightened showing of a specific threat of prosecution. Under that rule, law-abiding gun owners who want to exercise their rights but refuse to risk criminal prosecution can be denied the opportunity to challenge the very laws threatening them.

“D.C. threatens peaceable gun owners with felony prosecution and years in prison for possessing standard firearm magazines, then hides behind a court-created rule to deny them their day in court,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “That is a disgraceful constitutional Catch-22. The government does not get to tell Americans they must either surrender their rights or risk prison just to challenge an unconstitutional law. The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and gun owners are not second-class citizens. We’re demanding that the D.C. Circuit end this absurd exception, open the courthouse doors, and let us fight D.C.’s immoral magazine ban on the merits. FPC and our Grassroots Army will Fight Forward until these unconstitutional bans are eliminated everywhere.” Read more

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah – In August, we celebrated one of the most impactful victories directly affecting suppressor ownership since the NFA was enacted in 1934. On October 9, the celebration returned following ATF’s announcement that it will no longer enforce the NFA’s requirements regarding making or transferring suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs) and “any other weapons” (AOWs).

Also, ATF will no longer enforce the requirement that these items be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. According to ATF, these policies apply to anyone otherwise subject to these requirements, not just the plaintiffs in the litigation.

We fought, we won. Now, that victory belongs to every American, and we think that’s worth celebrating. Quietly, of course. Very, very quietly.

So what does this mean for Americans? Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today a major victory in the FPC-supported case of Williams v. Blanche, where the en banc (full-court) U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment holding that the federal government cannot constitutionally impose its lifetime gun ban on Edward Williams because of his decades-old, nonviolent DUI conviction.

Williams was convicted in 2005 of a Pennsylvania DUI offense that, because of an earlier DUI matter, was punishable by up to five years in prison and therefore triggered the federal prohibition in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). His offense did not involve violence, physical injury, or a firearm. He served his sentence in home confinement, yet federal law purported to permanently prohibit him from possessing firearms for the rest of his life.

After years of litigation, the district court ruled for Williams in 2023, holding that the government had failed to demonstrate that permanently disarming him was consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The federal government appealed. After a three-judge Third Circuit panel heard argument in 2025, the court took the unusual step of ordering rehearing en banc on its own initiative. The full court heard oral argument in February and now affirmed Williams’s victory.

“The federal government spent nearly a decade trying to permanently disarm a peaceable man over a nonviolent misdemeanor—and it lost bigly,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “FPC has spent years building the historical record, litigating these cases, and briefing courts across the country to establish the correct rule: The government does not get to turn a nonviolent conviction into a lifetime ban on exercising a constitutionally protected right. Our strategy is paying off again. The Trump Administration would be better served working with us to end this immoral disarmament regime than fighting us and losing. Either way, FPC and our Grassroots Army will continue to Fight Forward until these unconstitutional lifetime bans are eliminated throughout the United States.” Read more

BELLEVUE, Wash. — The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has compiled a new fact sheet refuting 85 documented claims from anti-gun groups, advocates and public officials who stated pro-Second Amendment court rulings and reforms would produce more shootings, more deaths and immediate surges in violence.

FBI data and other sources instead show three consecutive years of declining murder rates (-9.1% in 2023, -13.7% in 2024, and -18.1% in 2025), the largest one-year drop in violent crime on record in 2025, and a 2026 trajectory that would put the national murder rate at a modern low of roughly 3.2 per 100,000 based on data through July. The sheet also links all 85 predictions researched and the underlying crime data for transparency.

“After Bruen, after Cargill, after permitless carry, after every other expansion of the right to keep and bear arms, the same organizations and officials predicted more death,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education and fact sheet author Kostas Moros. “They were not even close, yet the mainstream media continues to quote these sources without checking the facts, which directly contradict the predictions from gun-control advocates. The fact sheet even puts the predictions and the FBI numbers side-by-side, so no one has to take our word for it, the facts are readily accessible in the document.”

Titled The Bloodbath That Never Came, the fact sheet covers predictions issued after New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022), Garland v. Cargill (the bump-stock decision), the spread of permitless or “constitutional” carry, the elimination of the National Firearms Act tax on certain arms and recent Department of Justice and ATF actions. In each case, groups including Brady, Everytown, Giffords and March For Our Lives, along with elected officials, warned of bloodshed.

“Mainstream news coverage continues to quote anti-gun predictions of imminent violence without mentioning the unbroken record of prior claims that failed,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “We hope this research provides a unique resource to anyone looking for the researched numbers instead of relying on the same anti-gun rhetoric we see and hear on the news after every pro-Second Amendment ruling or reform.”

You can view the fact sheet in its entirety here. Read more

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today released guidance for dealers and consumers in response to the landmark National Firearms Act (NFA) injunction granted in Jensen v. ATF, a Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) supported case.

The documents released today provide guidance for both licensed firearms dealers as well as those wishing to purchase, transfer or make a previously regulated NFA firearm. The guidance states that the ATF will cease enforcement on Oct. 9 “…of NFA provisions as applied only to short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and ‘any other weapon[s].'” It further states the “…nonenforcement only extends to firearms on which Congress eliminated the making and transfer taxes.”

On Aug. 5, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the remaining registration scheme for short-barreled rifles and suppressors in the National Firearms Act (NFA) is unconstitutional. The injunction went into effect on Aug. 13 after the government did not seek to extend the stay of the ruling by the deadline set by the judge. Since that time, SAF and others requested guidance from the ATF to ensure compliance for both retailers and consumers, and SAF created a FAQ page to ensure the most accurate information was available.

“In each of our three cases challenging the NFA, the argument remains the same – when the tax on silencers and short-barreled rifles was eliminated in the One Big Beautiful Bill, Congress’ taxing authority was stripped with it,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The registration scheme for these arms, however, remained. SAF has challenged that remaining registration requirement as citizens shouldn’t be subject to federal gun registration for proving they paid a tax that doesn’t exist. While the guidance released today alleviates some questions in relation to the logistical application of the Jensen injunction, by its very nature purely as ‘guidance’ it cannot, and does not, provide a permanent fix for many remaining elements of the NFA. For that reason, our other two NFA cases – Brown v. ATF and Roberts v. ATF – will continue, so citizens can finally be relieved of this unconstitutional infringement on their Second Amendment rights.” Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has reached a settlement agreement with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office over policies that previously prohibited permit holders from carrying handguns equipped with red dot sights or flashlights and an outright ban on the carry of single action only 1911- and 2011-style pistols.

Under the agreement, the Sheriff’s Office will withdraw its prohibitions on red-dot sights, weapon-mounted lights and semiautomatic single-action 1911 and 2011 platform pistols carried under a county CCW license. The office will update its concealed-carry website within 10 days to reflect the change. SAF was joined in SAF v. Contra Costa County by private citizens Andrew Moore and James Treuel who were represented by John W. Dillon of the Dillon Law Group.

“A sheriff does not get to invent a shorter list of approved handguns and accessories than the Constitution allows,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education and attorney of record in the case Kostas Moros. “Even though red-dot sights, weapon lights and 1911 and 2011 pistols are in common use for lawful self-defense, Contra Costa treated them as contraband. This settlement ends that unlawful practice, and we are pleased the County saw the error if its ways and resolved these issues.”

Concealed carry license applicants in Contra Costa County remain subject to the usual range-qualification requirements for any firearm they intend to list on a license. Existing licensees who add a red-dot sight or weapon-mounted light to a listed firearm may also be required to present the firearm for inspection and to qualify with the added accessory. Listed firearms must otherwise comply with applicable law.

“Given SAF has more than a dozen lawsuits in California alone, it should come as no surprise that it took legal action to restore the right to keep and bear arms of citizens in Contra Costa County,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Hoffman v. City and County of Denver, asking the federal court to immediately block enforcement of the Colorado and Denver gun carry ban regime as to Plaintiff Gene Hoffman and similarly situated peaceable nonresidents, and require Colorado to allow them to obtain carry licenses on the same terms as Colorado residents.

The State of Colorado generally requires a permit to carry a concealed handgun but refuses to issue those permits to nonresidents. Instead, the State recognizes permits from another state only when that state recognizes Colorado permits. Denver separately bans open carry, so peaceable people from outside those states can be left with no lawful way to carry a handgun at all while in Denver. And because federal law generally prohibits firearm possession within 1,000 feet of a school unless the person has a license issued by the state where the school is located, Colorado’s refusal to issue permits to nonresidents creates a massive labyrinth of prohibited areas throughout the State where affected travelers can be effectively disarmed—or risk federal prosecution and imprisonment simply for carrying a firearm. Colorado law also reserves certain carry privileges in public university and government-building parking areas for permit holders.

“Colorado and Denver cannot turn their borders into a police-state checkpoint where peaceable people are forced to surrender their rights. The right to bear arms throughout the United States belongs to the People—not only Colorado residents. Colorado and Denver have created an insane regime that completely disarms peaceable Americans simply because they live somewhere else, and we’re asking the court to put an end to it now. FPC and our Grassroots Army will continue to Fight Forward and eliminate all of these unconstitutional and immoral residency-based bans,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

FPC’s motion argues that the case should be straightforward under the Supreme Court’s binding precedents—the Second Amendment protects the People’s right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, and that protection does not disappear when someone crosses a state line. As the filing explains, “the Second Amendment, like every guarantee in the Bill of Rights, ‘has the same meaning in all parts of the United States.'”

The historical record makes Colorado’s position even worse. Far from supporting residency-based disarmament, early American laws often gave travelers more protection to carry arms, not less. The motion identifies colonial laws requiring people traveling away from home to carry arms and later laws expressly exempting travelers from carry restrictions. The motion also argues that Colorado’s discrimination against nonresidents violates the Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects Americans from being denied fundamental privileges simply because they come from another state. Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) joined the National Rifle Association in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. United States, urging the Court to review the Tenth Circuit’s decision upholding a lifetime federal firearms ban for nonviolent felons.

Joseph Frederick Johnson is challenging 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) as applied to a peaceable person. The Tenth Circuit treated Heller’s reference to “presumptively lawful” felon prohibitions as conclusive and foreclosed an as-applied challenge. The brief argues that Bruen and Rahimi require every arms regulation – including those Heller called “presumptively lawful” – to be justified by historical tradition. That tradition supports disarming only dangerous persons, not everyone whose offense happens to be classified as a felony.

“Heller’s ‘presumptively lawful’ line was never a blank check for a lifetime ban on every peaceable American with a felony on his record,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros. “Historically, we disarmed dangerous people. We did not strip the Second Amendment right from those who broke the law without violence and then went back to living as ordinary, peaceable citizens. A permanent ban with no path to restoration is simply not how our tradition worked.”

Colonial and Founding-era restrictions targeted people thought to pose a threat: wartime enemies, rebels and those with a proven proclivity for violence. Ratifying conventions spoke of “peaceable citizens” and of disarmament only for those “in actual rebellion” or who presented “real danger of public injury.” After Shays’s Rebellion, Massachusetts required rebels to surrender arms and then allowed them to reclaim those arms within months. Militia laws required able-bodied men to keep arms and contained no exemption for prior nonviolent convictions. Some statutes even expressly protected criminals’ arms from seizure for debt.

“A conviction for a nonviolent offense should not automatically require a lifetime forfeiture of a person’s right to keep and bear arms,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The historical tradition as applied here requires only those who are deemed “dangerous” be disarmed. A nonviolent felony mistake should not require a lifetime ban on exercising someone’s Second Amendment rights. We encourage the Court to grant this petition and make clear that § 922(g)(1) cannot be applied to peaceable people the historical tradition never disarmed.” Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it filed a new federal lawsuit challenging Colorado and Denver laws that combine to deny peaceable residents of 15 states and the District of Columbia any lawful means to carry a handgun for self-defense while in Denver. The complaint for Hoffman v. City and County of Denver can be viewed here.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of FPC and FPC member Gene Hoffman, a California resident. Hoffman regularly travels to Denver, is legally eligible to possess firearms, holds a carry permit, and would carry a handgun for lawful self-defense there but for the challenged laws.

Colorado generally limits its concealed handgun permits to state residents and recognizes out-of-state permits only when the holder is a resident of a state that recognizes Colorado permits. And while Colorado generally allows open carry, Denver prohibits it. Together, those laws leave otherwise-qualified residents of states without Colorado reciprocity unable to carry either openly or concealed while in Denver.

The complaint asks the court to declare the combined Colorado and Denver restrictions unconstitutional and require defendants to provide FPC members and the individual plaintiffs a lawful means to carry. The requested relief does not prescribe a single mechanism: the complaint identifies options including allowing open carry, issuing nonresident permits, recognizing out-of-state permits, or providing an equally effective means.

“Colorado and Denver cannot deny millions of Americans their right to carry. As we’ve successfully shown in other cases, fundamental rights do not stop at state lines. Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that it filed its reply brief in support of a preliminary injunction in Bathras v. Moore, urging the United States District Court for the District of Maryland to block the State’s new ban on Glock and Glock-style handguns before it takes effect. Individuals who want to join the FPC Grassroots Army and help support important lawsuits like this one can sign up in under three minutes at JoinFPC.org.

Maryland’s new law prohibits the manufacture, sale, purchase, receipt, or transfer of so-called “machine gun convertible pistols” beginning January 1, 2027. The State acknowledges that the law targets ordinary semiautomatic handguns because criminals can illegally modify them using illegal conversion devices. FPC’s reply argues that this turns the Second Amendment on its head: the government cannot ban common, constitutionally protected arms because someone could later criminally alter or misuse them.

“Maryland is trying to impose a tyrannical ban on some of the most popular handguns in America, full stop. Glocks are constitutionally protected arms and Maryland can show no historical tradition that justifies banning them. We will Fight Forward until this immoral scheme is eliminated,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

The reply explains that Glock-style handguns are indisputably common arms used for lawful purposes, and that Maryland does not identify any historical tradition of banning an otherwise lawful firearm merely because criminals could illegally convert, misuse, or abuse it. Read more