Yesterday afternoon in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the St. Lucie County State Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff of St. Lucie County, representing the State of Florida, reached a settlement with Gun Owners Foundation and Gun Owners of America in GOA v. Del Toro. The lawsuit, filed in August 2024, challenged Florida’s open carry ban.

Under the settlement, Defendants agreed not to enforce Florida’s ban on open carry, and acknowledged that law enforcement agencies must align their practices with the right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. GOA maintained, and Defendants agreed, that the open carry of firearms is “presumptively protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment” and that § 790.053(1) is incompatible with the Second Amendment. Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) welcomed reports that the Trump Administration will establish a dedicated Second Amendment rights section within the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice—an action that directly reflects FPC’s top executive-branch recommendation and a priority first proposed by FPC during the previous Trump Administration. The new office is expected to officially ramp up in early December.

FPC has consistently called for the creation of such a legal arm as part of a broader, long-term strategy to challenge and dismantle unconstitutional state and local restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. The new section represents a vital infrastructure piece needed to confront what FPC has described as the ‘Axis of Authoritarianism’—governments that continue to defy Supreme Court precedent and block the exercise of fundamental rights.

FPC described the administration’s move as a major step toward properly recognizing the Second Amendment as protecting a real right that warrants the same institutional protection as all other enumerated rights. FPC also emphasized the importance of appointing leadership with deep expertise in original-public-meaning jurisprudence to ensure that the new section’s work remains faithful to the Constitution, as recommended in FPC’s White House briefing. Read more

The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court in a case challenging Hawaii’s concealed carry laws under the Second Amendment. This is the second time in the last week that SAF has urged a court to invalidate a law under the Second Amendment.

Hawaii does not respect the right to carry firearms. Between 2000 and 2018, the state issued just four concealed carry licenses. Things changed in 2022, when the Supreme Court declared that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a firearm outside the home. After that, Hawaii—along with New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and California—passed “default private property” or “vampire rules.” Under these rules, people exercising their right to carry a firearm need to get express permission from the open establishment before they can enter.

To justify its default rule, Hawaii is relying on classist hunting “qualification” laws that were a result of European feudalism. The brief explains that “early British game laws … were originally made with a view of taking the arms out of the hands of the common people, or at least with a design of rendering them in-expert in the use of them.” The colonial governments attempted to import these wealth qualifications to the United States. Hawaii and the other states that have adopted the default rule argue that these qualification laws establish a tradition of banning firearms under the Second Amendment.

As the brief points out, however, “America’s early settlers promptly rejected their mother country’s legacy of conditioning the right to take game on wealth and birthright.” And after the Revolution, courts referred to these qualification laws as “productive of tyranny” and “contrary to the spirit of our institutions.”

“We filed the brief to make sure those classist hunting laws that were rejected openly by the courts for 150 years remain in the past,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for SAF. “Those laws were never part America’s hunting heritage. They should serve as cautionary tales, and no more.”

Animal extremists already bully sportsmen. We do not need to be bullied by gun control extremists working to take away our firearms. The Sportsmen’s Alliance is fighting against those who are working to crater our heritage and traditions. Read more

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