On Nov. 20, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging two Hawaiian laws that pose undue burdens on gun owners.

Hawaii makes it very difficult for a person to acquire a handgun legally. The law first requires a permit to purchase. To do that, an individual must undergo a background check and provide specific information about the firearm they are purchasing—manufacturer, model, action, caliber, serial number, etc. The law forbids any local law enforcement agency from issuing the permit until 14 days after the application was received but requires it to be issued within 40 days. The permit expires 30 days after it is issued, and if the transaction is not completed in that timeframe, the process starts all over again.

But that is not the end of it. The seller must sign the permit and return it, along with the gun’s identifying information, to their local law enforcement agency within 48 hours. The pain is still not over as the buyer must then bring the firearm to the police station for a physical inspection within five days of completing the sale.

The expiration date on the permit to purchase and the five-day in-person inspection requirement were challenged in federal court under the Second Amendment. The trial court struck them down in 2021. Hawaii appealed, and a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the laws were invalid in March of this year. Hawaii then sought en banc review, a process in which 11 judges on the Ninth Circuit will review the three-judge panel’s decision. The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation’s brief urges the en banc court to hold Hawaii’s regulations unlawful … again. Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Wolford v. Lopez, urging the Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision upholding Hawaii’s infamous “Vampire Rule.”

The Hawaii law, like similar statutes in California, New York and other states, declares virtually all private property open to the public — grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and more — off-limits for lawful carry unless the property owner gives express permission. The result: permit holders who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights are effectively banished from most places.

“This is the post-Bruen rebellion in its purest form,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros. “Anti-gun states invented the ‘Vampire Rule’ for the sole purpose of nullifying the right to carry. They are not protecting private property rights – they are deliberately making public carry so burdensome that citizens will simply give up. The Ninth Circuit blessed this transparent end-run around the Second Amendment and only the Supreme Court can stop it.”

SAF is joined in the amicus by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Connecticut Citizens Defense League and Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.

“If the Ninth Circuit’s decision stands, the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense will exist only on paper in large parts of the country,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. Read more

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit following the U.S. District Court of Maryland’s decision dismissing NSSF’s lawsuit challenging Maryland’s law that intended to circumvent the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

The PLCAA prohibits frivolous lawsuits against members of the firearm industry for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold legal firearms by remote third parties.

“The PLCAA prohibits the type of laws that allow frivolous lawsuits brought by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown seeking to hold industry members liable for the criminal acts of third parties,” explained Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The law gives Attorney General Brown license to target perfectly legal commerce. As a result, it not only seeks to impose a gun control agenda through litigation that not only runs afoul of the PLCAA, but it also violates the First Amendment by limiting protected commercial free speech, the Commerce Clause, Due Process and the Second Amendment.”

Maryland’s Gun Industry Accountability Act is part of a coordinated effort by antigun state legislatures, their attorneys general and gun control special interest groups to engage in lawfare against the firearm industry as an “end run” around the bipartisan PLCAA which Congress passed in 2005.

In enacting the PLCAA, Congress explained it was because antigun politicians were using the courts to “attempt to circumvent the Legislative branch of government” and “expand civil liability in a manner never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution.” Recently, antigun states began a new lawfare tactic by enacting laws codifying vague “reasonableness” standards to hold law-abiding firearm industry members liable for harms caused by criminals who misuse their lawfully sold legal products. Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have filed a motion for summary judgment in a case challenging Massachusetts’ ban on the purchase, carry and possession of nearly all modern firearms by 18-20-year-olds.

For an individual to purchase or possess a firearm in Massachusetts they must first acquire one of two licenses: a firearm identification card or a license to carry. Only the identification card is available for adults who are 18-20 years old, however, and even with that license it only allows residents in this age group to purchase and possess “…rifles and shotguns that are not large capacity or semi-automatic…”

“In no other context would the American people tolerate limiting the civil rights of adults based solely on their age,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Denying adults under 21 years old the ability to possess a handgun – the quintessential firearm of choice for self-defense – is a clear violation of their Second Amendment rights. The ratification of the Bill of Rights takes precisely this sort of policy decision off the table, and Massachusetts lawmakers have no authority to strip away the rights of a discreet subset of the population.” Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a motion for summary judgment in Escher v. Noble, its federal constitutional challenge to Massachusetts’ sweeping ban on the possession and carry of semiautomatic firearms and handguns by law-abiding adults under 21. The motion urges the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to strike down the Commonwealth’s age-based prohibitions, arguing that the Second Amendment protects these adults and that the state cannot point to any historical tradition supporting its categorical disarmament scheme.

“This case is about ending Massachusetts’ authoritarian, age-based attack on peaceable adults,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “The state’s ban isn’t just unconstitutional—it’s an insult to the very principles this nation was built on. And just like we’ve done in other anti-rights states, we will force Massachusetts to comply with the Constitution, whatever it takes.” Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a scathing brief responding to a recent Department of Justice motion to gut a major Second Amendment victory in Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., et al. v. Bondi, a case where the court previously held that peaceable Americans must be allowed to carry firearms in Post Offices.

This latest DOJ maneuver—stripping nearly all practical benefit from a court order declaring a federal gun law unconstitutional—is not an isolated incident. Rather, this is part of the Trump DOJ’s sustained pattern of defending federal gun control at all costs.

“President Trump’s DOJ is again using tyrannical legal tactics to gut a major constitutional victory and continue enforcing federal gun control laws—even those already declared unconstitutional by federal courts,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “Instead of complying with the court’s order in this case, the Trump DOJ is spending time and money to keep people disarmed and defenseless. The Trump DOJ must stop wasting taxpayer money defending illegal gun control laws and start honoring the Bill of Rights—and their promise to protect the Second Amendment rights of the American people.” Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have filed a brief in response to the government’s efforts to limit the scope of the injunction SAF obtained on behalf of its members in its U.S. Post Office carry ban challenge.

In September, the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of SAF and declared the carry ban on post office property unconstitutional, enjoining its enforcement against the plaintiffs, including SAF members. In response to the ruling, the government filed a motion to limit the scope of the injunction to only the named individual plaintiffs and to members of SAF and its partner organizations, but only to those who were members when the complaint was originally filed and who have been identified and verified.

“The critical thing to remember here is that the government is fighting tooth and nail to continue enforcing an unconstitutional law against as many people as possible,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The DOJ’s position that it would be ‘impossible’ for it to know who was protected by the injunction without a membership list is just plain silly. If officials want to know if someone found to be carrying at a post office is a SAF member they can simply ask.” Read more

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in support of plaintiffs challenging Vermont’s mandatory 72-hour “cooling off” waiting period when lawfully purchasing a firearm. NSSF argues that nothing in the nation’s history or tradition supports delaying a law-abiding citizen from exercising their Second Amendment rights when legally purchasing a firearm.

The challenge to Vermont’s law, Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, Inc., v. Birmingham, is pending before the Second Circuit. NSSF’s amicus brief was filed on Tuesday.

“NSSF has long held that these mandatory waiting period laws are unconstitutional. Simply, rights delayed are rights denied,” explained Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found that New Mexico’s similar law requiring a mandatory waiting period when purchasing a firearm violated the Second Amendment. NSSF also supported a challenge to a similar 72-hour waiting period law in Maine, which is preliminarily enjoined pending a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. This is the same question before the Second Circuit.”

Firearms sold at retail are required to be transferred only upon the purchaser completing and signing a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Form 4473, attesting that the purchaser (or transferee) is not prohibited from possessing a firearm and is the true intended recipient of that firearm. The purchaser must also be subject to an FBI National Instant Background Check System (NICS) verification that there are no records of prohibiting factors that would bar that individual from taking possession of a legally purchased firearm.

Vermont’s law requiring a mandatory 72-hour “cooling off” waiting period to take possession of a lawfully purchased firearm denies citizens facing credible threats against their safety or lives the ability to defend themselves. Read more

BELLEVUE, Wash. —— The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit supporting plaintiffs-appellants in Vt. Fed. of Sportsmen’s Clubs, Inc. v. Birmingham, a case challenging Vermont’s 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases.

SAF is joined in the amicus by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and National Rifle Association.

“The district court’s ruling defies Bruen and Rahimi by misapplying the Second Amendment’s historical test and creating a false ‘fork’ in the analysis for so-called ‘ancillary’ rights, and by relying on unserious analogues like laws disarming intoxicated persons,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros. “History shows no tradition of waiting periods, even as mass production made guns widely available in the 19th century. We urge the Second Circuit to reverse and restore the proper Bruen framework.”

The Tenth Circuit recently struck down a similar waiting period in Ortega v. Grisham, and several other cases challenging waiting periods are pending nationwide. The brief also relies on primary sources in the form of historical newspaper advertisements offering firearms for sale as far back as 1745. Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of a motion for summary judgment in Jensen v. ATF, an FPC-backed federal case challenging key provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The motion—filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas—asks the court to strike down and permanently enjoin enforcement of the challenged provisions of the NFA. The full brief is available at firearmspolicy.org/jensen.

The filing argues that the NFA exceeds Congress’s enumerated powers and can no longer be justified under the Constitution. Because Congress eliminated the NFA’s making and transfer taxes for most regulated firearms in 2025, the Act’s remaining registration and recordkeeping mandates lack any valid constitutional foundation. The challengers also argue that the NFA’s regulatory scheme is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

Said FPC President Brandon Combs, “For nearly a century, the federal government has used the NFA to turn peaceable Americans into criminals. It was never about safety—it was always about control. When Congress erased the tax, it erased the last illusion of legitimacy holding this law together. What’s left is an unlawful exercise of government power aimed squarely at the very people the Constitution was written to protect.”

Combs continued, “The right to keep and bear arms isn’t a privilege that the government can tax, track, or ration—it’s a birthright. The NFA’s collapse isn’t just overdue—it’s inevitable. And when it falls, it will remind Washington that freedom isn’t granted by permission slip or registration form, it’s guaranteed by the Constitution.” Read more