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

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, filed an amended complaint against New Jersey’s anti-Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) law that is not “consistent with the Constitution.”

NSSF filed a motion to reopen the NSSF v. Platkin case and for leave to file an amended complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The motion and amended complaint were filed after New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin brought a lawsuit against GLOCK, Inc., alleging the company is responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms when criminals modify and alter well-designed and lawfully-sold GLOCK pistols by illegally obtaining, possessing and installing a “switch” into the handgun.

NSSF previously sued to block New Jersey’s law from taking effect, but that challenge was dismissed by a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit because the court determined that NSSF lacked standing at the time to challenge the law. The Office of Attorney General Platkin disavowed to the appellate court that it had any intention of suing firearm manufacturers for engaging in lawful commerce or placing liability on firearm manufacturers for the criminal misconduct of third parties beyond their control. They promised to only sue for a company’s own misconduct. In dismissing the case, Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote, “[W]e see little evidence that enforcement is looming. Because the Foundation has jumped the gun, its challenge must be dismissed.”

That has all changed now that Attorney General Platkin is seeking to enforce this unconstitutional anti-PLCAA law against GLOCK, Inc., and other industry members.

“As feared, Attorney General Platkin has weaponized the judicial system against firearm manufacturers who have done nothing but engage in lawful commerce and have not violated any federal or state statutes. New Jersey is seeking to blame GLOCK and other industry members for the actions of criminals,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

NSSF’s amended complaint argues that New Jersey’s public nuisance law flouts the will of Congress and undermines the U.S. Constitution because it is preempted by the bipartisan PLCAA. Additionally, it violates the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Due Process Clause and the Commerce Clause. Read more

GW: Just another end run around the Constitution. Sure gets old!
Contact your Delegate today and urge them to Oppose these New Taxes!

On Thursday, February 13th at 1:00PM, the House Ways and Means Committee will hear two bills aimed at creating new, punitive taxes on firearms, accessories, and ammunition. If passed, these bills will have a significant impact on industry operations in Maryland.

HB 387 imposes an excise tax of 11% on the sale of firearms from dealers in the state and on sales from outside the state to residents of Maryland.

HB 937 increases the sales and use tax rate to 12% for firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition.

These new taxes are in addition to the 11% excise tax already imposed by the Pittman-Robertson Act. Proponents’ arguments that the money will fund programs and services to decrease gun violence are disingenuous. These taxes are punitive and have the intention to drive firearm retailers and manufacturers out of the state.

Please take action today by contacting your delegate and asking them to oppose these new taxes. You can also reach out to committee members and voice your opposition directly. Ways and Means committee membership is listed here.