BELLEVUE, WA – President Joe Biden’s new executive order on guns won’t reduce gun-related violent crime, nor will it make our communities safer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Biden signed the executive order Tuesday in Monterey Park, California. He is bypassing Congress, “with the goal of increasing the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales,” and moving the country closer to so-called “universal background checks” as possible without additional legislation.

“Joe Biden is trying to sell this new gun control scheme the way he’s always done: by promising less violent crime and safer neighborhoods,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “But, this plan isn’t going to accomplish either goal, and he knows it. This sleight-of-hand maneuver simply makes it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase firearms, while creating the impression gun dealers are crooks and the industry is unregulated.

“This is just another chapter in Joe Biden’s war on gun rights,” he continued. “It is a diversion to the Democrat failure to keep Americans safe from violent criminals who are released without bail and are free to prey on us all.”

Biden will encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to all civilians, including through the use of military imagery.” He will “Provide the public and policymakers with more information regarding federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law.” He will also direct the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement principles to further firearm and public safety practices through Department of Defense acquisition of firearms, consistent with applicable law.

“So,” Gottlieb observed, “Biden wants the Defense Department to buy more guns, he will blame crime on gun dealers and tell gun makers how to market their products. But he won’t tell the Justice Department to crack down on recidivist criminals, he’s not asking the courts to lock up armed felons and he’s continuing to treat the Second Amendment as a second-class right. Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners in a federal lawsuit challenging the prohibition of handgun sales to young adults have filed an appellant’s brief with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The case is known as Reese v. ATF.

Joining SAF are the Louisiana Shooting Association, Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens, Emily Naquin and Caleb Reese, for whom the case is known. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William V. Bergstrom at Cooper & Kirk; George J. Armbruster, III at Armbruster & Associates; Joseph Greenlee, FPC Action Foundation; John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group; Raymond M. DiGuiseppe, DiGuiseppe Law Firm and Adam Kraut at SAF.

Defendants are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its director, Steven Dettelbach and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

At issue is the ban on licensed handgun sales to law-abiding 18-to-20-year-old adults, because this prohibition is at odds with the Second Amendment, SAF and its partners contend.

“At the time the Second Amendment was adopted,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “there were no restrictions on the rights of 18-to-20-year-olds to keep and bear arms because of their age. Indeed, people in that age group, because as Americans they were in the civilian militia, were actually required to acquire firearms. Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, takes exception with President Joe Biden’s Executive Order to increase gun control measures. In the name of “doing something,” the Biden administration is chilling fundamental Constitutional rights and simply rehashing existing law, many of which were previously supported by the firearm industry.

“The Biden administration should demand that soft-on-crime prosecutors and lawmakers use the laws already in existence to lock up criminals that misuse firearms to prey on innocent Americans,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Instead, this administration continues to scapegoat the firearm industry for its unwillingness to address crime. The failure of this administration to seriously address spiraling crime and instead focus its attacks on a Constitutionally-protected industry that works diligently to remain in compliance with laws and regulations and actively cooperates with law enforcement, especially ATF, exposes the lack of urgency Americans demand to curb rampant and out-of-control crime.”

The firearm industry worked with Congress to update the statutory definition of “in the business,” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed last year and signed into law by President Biden. The update defined those Americans “in the business” of selling firearms as those “predominantly earning a profit.”

Further, The White House accused industry members, without evidence, of selling firearms without required FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This is disingenuous, at best. The firearm industry was the progenitor of the point-of-sale instant background check to ensure firearms are sold only to those the law has determined can be trusted to possess a firearm. Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, is encouraged by the announcement from Visa and MasterCard that they will “pause” plans to implement a special Merchant Category Code (MCC) specific to purchases at firearm retailers with their credit cards. That announcement was later echoed by American Express and Discover, which previously announced plans to implement the special codes.

This is a positive development that the major credit card companies have recognized the hazards of implementing this special MCC for purchases at a firearm retailer. However, this is an announcement of a pause, not an abandonment of these special codes.

NSSF is committed to ensuring that these specific MCCs not be used at all as they have the potential for exploitation of customer privacy and denial of services by politically-motivated activists. These codes were the product of Amalgamated Bank and Andrew Ross Sorkin to specifically track the lawful purchases of firearms and ammunition by law-abiding Americans.

In reality, it is just the first step, by the admission of these two parties, to isolating and eventually denying the exercise of a Constitutional right by those who oppose lawful firearm ownership. NSSF will continue to work with state legislators and Congress to put an end to this blatantly discriminatory practice of using private enterprise to construct a back-door firearm registry.

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed have filed their final summary judgment brief with the federal court in Texas in the case of VanDerStok v. Garland, which challenges the authority of the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to regulate items that are not firearms, as if they were firearms.

The brief was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division.

SAF and Defense Distributed have taken a unique approach, alleging the agencies violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by both (1) failing to consider the history that Bruen deems constitutionally mandatory and (2) using balancing analytics that Bruen deems constitutionally improper.

“The ATF is trying to wriggle out of this,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but we’re not going to let them. Clearly the agencies violated the APA, and in the process used means-end scrutiny to make their decision, which the Supreme Court threw out in the 2022 Bruen ruling.” Read more

BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a lawsuit challenging New York State’s so-called “Anti-Carry Default” law have filed an appeals court brief in the case with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, responding to the state’s appeal of its lower court loss. The case is known as Christian v. Nigrelli.

Joining SAF are the Firearms Policy Coalition and a private citizen, Brett Christian, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys Nicolas J. Rotsko at Phillips Lytle LLP in Buffalo and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and John W. Tienken at Cooper & Kirk LLC in Washington, D.C. Defendants are New York State Police Supt. Steven A. Nigrelli, and Erie County District Attorney John L. Flynn, in their official capacities.

In their brief, plaintiffs note how Christian was able to legally carry his sidearm for personal protection prior to Sept. 1, 2022, the effective date of New York’s new gun control law. The law was hastily passed in reaction to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which nullified the state’s previous law requiring “proper cause” in order to obtain a concealed carry permit. The new law attempts to circumvent the high court’s Bruin doctrine regarding Second Amendment cases. Read more

Video: NRA America’s 1st Freedom Video Why the Gun-Control Crowd Loathes John Lott

Now on A1F.com: John Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, explains why gun-control groups and many in the mainstream media call him a “debunked researcher” and why they’ve spent years doing all they can to disparage, delegitimize and cancel him.

Watch this video interview at A1F.com.