“…shall not be infringed.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, urges the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to heed the call by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and 29 other U.S. Senators to quickly act on President Donald Trump’s Executive Order to review and roll back unconstitutional gun control regulations and rules that were levied on the firearm industry by the previous White House administration.

A letter, sent to Marvin G. Richardson, ATF Deputy Director, specifically called on the agency to formally end the “engaged-in-the-business” rule, the pistol-brace rule, the “ghost gun” rule and ATF’s “zero tolerance” policy that has forced small business firearm retailers to lose or surrender their licenses for minor clerical errors discovered during inspections.

“The previous administration wielded the ATF like a hammer and anvil against the firearm industry, turning the regulatory agency into one that punished and carried out a radical gun control agenda designed to diminish Second Amendment rights. President Donald Trump – along with Senator John Cornyn and these dozens of other senators – are righting the ship and returning ATF to its mandated role as a law enforcement agency focused on combatting violent crime and to act as a non-partisan regulator of the firearm industry,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The rules specifically identified by the senators were designed to punish the firearm industry and usher in gun control outside of the legislative process. NSSF has protested these rules ever since they were announced and is heartened that the Trump administration and the Senate is acting quickly to protect Second Amendment rights and the lawful firearm industry. NSSF encourages ATF to act quickly on Senator Cornyn’s letter and enact these reforms to roll back unconstitutional overreaches brought by the Biden administration.”

In addition to urging the ATF to roll back the punishing and unconstitutional measures, the Senate letter urges ATF to “immediately destroy the hundreds of millions of ATF Form 4473 firearm transaction records and other licensee records that are over 20 years old. These records have no particular law enforcement value but do contain the sensitive information of millions of law-abiding gun owners.”

NSSF concurs with this request as those two-decade-old background check forms hold little value providing actionable law enforcement leads to solve crimes. This action would ensure gun owners’ privacy is protected and reduce administrative burdens to firearm trace requests. Prior to the Biden administration, federal firearm licenses were not required to retain these records after 20 years.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of a brief with the United States Supreme Court in the case of FCC v. Consumers’ Research, which is set to address the question of when and how Congress may delegate its authority to administrative agencies. The brief can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

“Amici have a particular interest in this case for two reasons. Amici litigate cases in federal court around the country, and the question added by the Court concerning the availability of mootness exceptions is of great importance to Amici,” the brief explains, as “firearms cases frequently risk becoming moot, and the contours of the mootness doctrine are thus extremely important to Amici. Of even greater import to Amici is reigning in unconstitutional delegations of legislative power. Individual liberty, including the right to keep and bear arms, is routinely violated under the guise of broad delegations to administrative agencies.”

“The Supreme Court should affirm the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in this case and make clear that only Congress can make federal law,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “Congress may not continue to unconstitutionally delegate its law-making power to federal agencies like the ATF to abuse peaceable gun owners throughout the United States.”

“This case presents the Supreme Court with an opportunity to correct course and restore the protections that are inherent in the Constitution through our Nation’s separation of powers,” said FPC Action Foundation President Cody J. Wisniewski. Read more

The U.S. District Court in North Dakota issued its opinion in the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition (“FRAC”)-Franklin Armory firearms classification-related lawsuit against ATF. In his ruling, Judge Daniel M. Traynor vacated the ATF’s prior misclassifications of Franklin Armory’s Reformation and Antithesis firearms. Judge Traynor’s ruling solidifies what the firearms industry has known for years—that the ATF has been abusing its firearms technology classification powers.

Per the Court’s opinion:

Franklin Armory presented a square peg, and ATF shoved it into a round hole. If Congress wanted “shotgun” to be a catch-all category for anything that doesn’t fit “rifle,” it could have done so. . . . . It is not for ATF to redefine the terms because it thinks Congress didn’t intend a certain outcome. Therefore, ATF exceeded its authority in defining “smoothbore” as anything lacking “functional rifling.” Read more

Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), together with several individual gun owners, are pleased to announce that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has granted our petition for allowance of appeal. This means that the Pennsylvania high court will now hear our challenge to the City of Philadelphia’s unconstitutional ban on the private manufacture of firearms.

GOA’s lawsuit challenges Philadelphia’s ordinance that restricts the manufacturing of firearms, components, and attachments for personal use. We argue that the ban violates Pennsylvania’s preemption statute, the Uniform Firearms Act (UFA), along with infringing Article I, Section 21 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms.

Philadelphia’s ordinance, which prohibits the private manufacturing of firearms through processes like 3D printing or completing unfinished firearm frames, directly contradicts state law, which preempts all local firearm regulations. GOA’s petition argued that the Philly ordinance infringes upon the constitutional right to self-defense and violates the UFA, which gives the General Assembly exclusive power to regulate firearms. Read more

GW: Another example of over-reaching government in an attempt to circumvent the Constitution. We pay our taxes and then they’re used against us. Any wonder why we commoners are behind President Trump and DOGE? Go get ’em!

Gun Owners of America (GOA), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), Gun Owners Action League (GOAL), and Commonwealth Second Amendment (Comm2A), alongside plaintiff Mack Escher, have filed a lawsuit challenging Massachusetts’ unconstitutional restrictions on 18- to 20-year-old adults possessing, purchasing, or carrying semiautomatic firearms and handguns. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues that the state’s laws violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments by infringing upon the constitutional rights of young adults.

Under H.B. 4885, Massachusetts has enacted a law that completely bans 18-to-20-year-olds from acquiring, possessing, or carrying semiautomatic firearms and handguns, leaving them defenseless and stripping them of their fundamental rights. The plaintiffs argue that this ban has no historical precedent and directly contradicts Supreme Court rulings that affirm the Second Amendment’s protection of firearms for self-defense. And as the complaint makes clear, historically, 18-year-olds were even required to keep and bear the same sort of common firearms that older citizens owned.

GOA and its 2A allies are seeking a court order declaring the law unconstitutional, a permanent injunction against its enforcement, and an award for attorney’s fees and costs. Read more

GW: “…shall not be infringed.”

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, lauds the decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine to grant a preliminary injunction of the state’s 72-hour waiting period law handed down today. The law, passed in 2024, required firearm retailers to delay delivery to a law-abiding citizen of lawfully-sold firearms for three days after an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification allows a transaction to proceed. The challenge to the law is supported by NSSF.

“This decision by the court is an affirmation that unconstitutional delays on the free exercise of rights are not in compliance with Second Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Rights delayed are rights denied. The decision to enjoin this law while it is challenged in court ensures that law-abiding Mainers are not encumbered and deprived of their rights to keep and bear arms after they have proven they are not prohibited from legally possessing a firearm.”

The court rejected Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey’s argument that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to acquire a firearm as “interpretative jui jitsu that would make Kafka blush,” and which the “Supreme Court would view with great skepticism.”

The lawsuit against Maine’s Attorney General Frey was filed by several individuals, federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) and an organization that provides firearm training. One of the plaintiffs is a domestic-abuse survivor and certified firearm instructor who offers self-defense classes to victims and survivors. Maine’s 72-hour waiting period law prevents the women she assists from adequately defending themselves against abusive partners who pose a credible and imminent threat to their physical safety, as it forces them to wait three days to secure a firearm even when they have passed the NICS background check. Likewise, another plaintiff—a federally licensed firearm dealer—has been forced to delay sales to qualified individuals with time-sensitive needs, including a single woman who was being stalked and a married couple whose home was burglarized. These stories are emblematic of the countless number of individuals whose rights have been denied and whose safety has been put in jeopardy due to Maine’s 72-hour waiting period.

NSSF supported the plaintiffs who brought the challenge to the law that passed in the wake of the tragic and senseless murders in Lewiston, Maine. State lawmakers, and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, passed and enacted the law under pressure by gun control groups to “do something.” The law they crafted does little to improve public safety and only denies the Constitutional rights of those who obey the law. A commission studied the tragic murders and concluded that multi-agency failures, including by the U.S. Army Reserve and local law enforcement, were to blame for the threat posed by the murderer.

For more information, visit nssf.org.

A Circuit Court judge in Illinois has struck down the state’s requirement to have a Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card to possess a firearm in the home for personal protection in a case supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association.

The case is known as State of Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown. Ms. Brown is represented by attorney David Sigale of Lombard, Ill.

In his 15-page decision, White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb observed, “The Defendant’s possession of a .22 caliber rifle within the confines of her home, even without a valid FOID card falls squarely within the protections afforded her by the Second Amendment.

“If an intruder had entered Ms. Brown’s home,” Judge Webb added, “and threatened violence towards her and, God forbid, she was forced to use that .22 rifle to defend herself, she would have committed a class A misdemeanor carrying with it a possible penalty of up to 364 days in the county jail. She could claim self-defense, but that does not change the fact that she possessed a firearm without a valid FOID Card. Such an outcome is asinine especially in this great nation that so cherishes the right to be secure and defend oneself within the home.”

“This is an important ruling in a case that has been up and down the Illinois judicial ladder a couple of times already,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We expect the state to appeal again, which could put the case right back before the Illinois Supreme Court for the third time, and we are confident we will win. It’s hard to see how the Illinois Supreme Court avoids the constitutional issue, as they have done on the previous two visits.”

“Today’s decision reflects a correct application of Supreme Court precedent to unconstitutional restrictions on the rights to keep and bear arms,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Illinois’ FOID card poses an untenable barrier to the exercise of Second Amendment rights in one’s home as the court correctly identified. Determining the FOID card to be an unconstitutional obstacle to firearms ownership and possession in one’s home was the only logical result.”

There has never been a more important time in sportsmen’s history than now to be involved and engaged in protecting our way of life. Animal extremists and other radical elements are working hard to cancel sportsmen’s rights and our way of life forever. Even Utah is not safe.

Last Friday, the Senate Natural Resources Committee heard a bill that would have cratered hunting and firearm ownership in the Beehive State. Thankfully, the bill overwhelmingly failed 5 to 1 to receive a favorable recommendation by the committee. Essential, defeating the bill for the year.

Utah’s 45-day legislative session is not over yet. The Sportsmen’s Alliance Government Affairs team will continue to monitor SB 130 and other bills moving through the legislative process. Nothing is completely defeated until the legislative session adjourns sine die.

SB 130 would have, among other items:

• banned the import, sale, manufacture, transfer, receive, or possess, in certain circumstances, a gas-operated semiautomatic firearm;
• required the Department of Public Safety to create a system for individuals who possess certain gas-operated semiautomatic firearms before January 1, 2027, to register the firearm with the department; and
• required, beginning on January 1, 2027, a manufacturer or seller of gas-operated semiautomatic firearms that is manufacturing or selling the firearms to the government of the United States, a state, or a federally recognized tribe, to mark on the firearm that the firearm may only be used by a government employee in accordance with government policy;
• created a waiting period, with certain exemptions, between the purchase of a firearm from a dealer and the delivery of the firearm to the purchaser;
• created a criminal offense beginning on January 1, 2027, for a person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, receive, or possess, in certain circumstances, a large-capacity ammunition feeding device. Read more