BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation and its allies have filed a brief supporting their earlier motion for summary judgment in a federal challenge of Illinois’ ban on concealed carry by young adults in a case known as Meyer v. Raoul.

The brief was filed today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The lawsuit was filed in May 2021 by SAF, the Illinois State Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and three private citizens in the 18-21-year age group, David Meyer, Eva Davis and Mitchell Nalley. They are represented by attorneys David G. Sigale of David G. Sigale, P.C. in Wheaton, Ill., Christian D. Ambler of Stone & Johnson in Chicago and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William V. Bergstrom, all with Cooper & Kirk PLLC in Washington, D.C. Read more

Innovative armorer and Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition file a lawsuit

holding key government officials accountable for arbitrary and capricious policies and rulings

MINDEN, Nev. –– Franklin Armory, Inc., a leading U.S.-based manufacturer of firearms and accessories, in conjunction with the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Inc. (FRAC), today announced that it has filed a federal lawsuit challenging wrongful classification of firearms and regulatory delays by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The Co-Plaintiff, FRAC, is a nonprofit organization demanding accountability, transparency, and fairness from those agencies that regulate firearms.

The case, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Inc., et al. v. Merrick B. Garland, et al., seeks the immediate promulgation of procedures and forms necessary to facilitate sales and transfers of Franklin Armory’s Reformation® firearm line as required by law. The case also seeks the immediate reclassification of Franklin Armory’s Antithesis™ firearm line consistent with the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA).

The complaint centers around the multi-year delay by ATF to develop the mechanisms necessary for Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs) to sell and transfer Franklin Armory’s Reformation, which the agency considers to be a firearm subject to GCA but not subject to NFA. In one of its letters to Franklin Armory, ATF acknowledged that its classification created “a gap in the federal firearm regulations,” which the agency would need to promptly rectify. As of this case’s filing date, it has been more than 1,500 days since ATF classified Reformation as a non-NFA firearm without implementing the requisite procedures. Read more

DAYTON, NV – Polymer80 Family,

As you may have seen or heard, on Tuesday ATF published an open letter to FFLs declaring that certain Polymer80 blanks are considered “Firearms” under their latest – and unprecedented – interpretation of Final Rule 2021R-0F5. I wanted to personally address this with all of you, our loyal customers, many of whom have been with us since we started in a rundown old maintenance shop on Callen Street in Vacaville, CA.

Over the past several years, Polymer80 has shouldered a considerable amount of legal expenses fighting egregious, unwarranted, and naked assaults on us, our products, and the natural and inalienable rights embedded in the Second Amendment and enshrined in our history.

I want to make three things VERY clear.

1. 1. Polymer80 is not – and I am not – taking the bait. While Polymer80 vehemently disagrees with the open letter, we will take appropriate steps to ensure we continue to remain in compliance with applicable laws or regulations.
   2. In addition to continuing to produce quality products and innovate, we are also modifying existing product lines taking into careful consideration – as best we can given ATF’s constantly changing interpretations of its own rules – ATF’s various positions, statements, and guidance, as well as the Final Rule and challenges to it across the country.
   3. Finally, we are going to fight, as vigorously and fervently as ever, using every resource available to us in the legal system, against the open letter and reclaim our rights.

Read more

A federal lawsuit supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition has been filed in New York, challenging that state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Plaintiffs are represented by SAF and FPC attorneys.

The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on behalf of New York residents J. Mark Lane of Larchmont and James Sears of Irving. They are represented by attorneys Cody Wisniewski, Adam Kraut, who is also SAF executive director, and Nicolas J. Rotsko.

Named as defendants are New York State Attorney General Letitia James, State Police Supt. Steven A. Nigrelli and Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah, in their official capacities.

“The issue in this lawsuit is very plain,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Both Sears and Lane are law-abiding New York residents who wish to own modern semiautomatic sport-utility rifles such as the AR-15, for lawful purposes including target shooting and home defense. Such rifles are in common use across the country, yet in the Empire State, citizens face the threat of arrest, confiscation, prosecution, fined and imprisonment for lawfully using such rifles.” Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, condemned the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Martin J. Gruenberg as Chair and Member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Gruenberg led the FDIC from 2011-2018, during which the Obama administration conducted the illegal Operation Choke Point scheme to deny banking services to firearm businesses. NSSF opposed his confirmation in the strongest terms as he has already demonstrated a lack of respect for the law and unparalleled disdain for the Constitutionally-protected firearm and ammunition industry.

“The Senate’s confirmation of Martin Gruenberg is a flagrant disregard for his role in illegally using the levers of government to force discriminatory banking policies on the firearm and ammunition industry,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “His culpability in shepherding this illegal operation was not only previously investigated by Congress but was also highlighted by Senate Banking Committee Republicans. Mr. Gruenberg’s leading role in creating, administering and punishing the firearm industry through illegal means simply because he, President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder found this industry politically-disfavored clearly disqualified him from being reconfirmed to a position of public trust.”

Under the Obama administration, an initiative called “Operation Choke Point” was launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop financial institutions from offering services to some regulated industries in an attempt to choke off banking services. This operation, which represented an abuse of the agencies’ statutory authority, was first aimed at non-depository lenders (so-called payday lenders) but expanded to ammunition and firearms sales, tobacco sales and pharmaceutical sales, among other industries.

The goal of the operation was to coerce banks, third-party payment processors and other financial institutions into closing or denying business accounts of clients that the FDIC has classified as “high risk” or as a “reputational risk” for the financial institution. According to a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigation, the FDIC, “equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.” Read more

NEW ORLEANS, LA (December 20, 2022) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that Texas has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to withdraw the state’s appeal of the district court order that struck down its ban on handgun carry by young adults. The motion in FPC’s Andrews v. McCraw, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

“We applaud Texas for doing the right thing and accepting the district court’s ruling against its law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-old adults from carrying firearms in public,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “Not only do young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults, they are also among the reasons we have a Second Amendment, Constitution, and Country in the first place.”

In August, the trial court stayed the injunction for 30 days to allow Texas time to appeal. Once the court disposes of the state’s motion to withdraw its appeal, the trial court’s injunction will take effect.

The plaintiffs in this case were represented by David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, and William V. Bergstrom of Cooper & Kirk, who are representing FPC and individual gun owners in multiple other legal cases, as well as Texas counsel R. Brent Cooper of Cooper & Scully, P.C.

In addition to Andrews, FPC is litigating to restore the right of young people to keep and bear arms in cases including Lara v. Evanchick (vs. Pennsylvania, in the 3rd Circuit), Reese v. ATF (vs. the federal government, in the 5th Circuit), Beeler v. Long (vs. Tennessee, in the 6th Circuit), Meyer v. Raoul (vs. Illinois, in the 7th Circuit), Worth v. Harrington (vs. Minnesota, in the 8th Circuit), Jones v. Bonta (vs. California, in the 9th Circuit), and Baughcum v. Jackson (vs. Georgia, in the 11th Circuit). Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, rejects the false premise of the lawsuit brought by the City of Buffalo against several firearm manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The accusations are without any legal merit and are an obvious attempt by city officials to deflect attention and shift responsibility for their failure to enforce the law against criminals by casting blame on a Constitutionally-protected and most highly-regulated industry in the nation today.

“The junk lawsuit by the City of Buffalo attempts to deflect attention for illegal activities by criminals by laying blame at the feet of the firearm industry, which is following the law,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This is no different from the frivolous and unsuccessful lawsuits filed against firearm manufacturers in the late 1990s and early 2000s by crime-ridden big-city mayors across the country. Those lawsuits failed because they were legally and factually baseless. But they did, however, result in Congress passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005 by a broad bipartisan margin.”

The recently passed New York public nuisance law, upon which Buffalo’s lawsuit is based, is a transparent and unconstitutional attempt to defy the will of Congress. A lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of the New York public nuisance law is now before a federal appellate court in Manhattan. Read more

BELLEVUE, WA — A California appeals court panel has unanimously denied a request from state Attorney General Rob Bonta for an immediate stay of an injunction in a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation in a challenge of the state law allowing the state Department of Justice to share personal information about firearms owners with private researchers.

Bonta claimed the law, AB 173, “does not create a serious invasion of privacy.” The trial court disagreed, granting a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs, thus placing a hold on enforcement of the information sharing law. The case is known as Barba, et.al. v. Bonta.

SAF is joined in the lawsuit by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., California Gun Rights Foundation, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, Orange County Gun Owners PAC, Inland Empire Gun Owners PAC and a private citizen, Ashleymarie Barba. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay with the Benbrook Law Group, PC in Sacramento.

“We’re delighted the appeals court panel unanimously rejected Bonta’s effort to set aside the preliminary injunction because the privacy of California gun owners is important, even if he thinks otherwise,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Bonta is determined to supply gun owner information to biased researchers who, we believe, will use it to promote additional restrictions on their Second Amendment-protected rights.”

Gottlieb dismissed arguments by Bonta that the researchers take steps to protect identifying information about gun owners.

“That’s not the point,” Gottlieb said. “The point of our challenge is that this information is being shared at all, especially with non-government entities. This isn’t just about Second Amendment rights. California’s law clearly threatens the privacy rights of gun owners.” Read more