Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) issued the following statement in response to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s letters sent to credit card companies asking them to stop processing payments for select firearm parts, which are legal to purchase under federal law:

When the law isn’t on their side, tyrants will attempt to strongarm the private sector into doing their authoritarian bidding for them. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s latest attack on Second Amendment rights, this time coercive requests to credit card companies to stop processing payments for all purchases of gun parts, is a prime example of such an authoritarian approach to regulation. However, it is notable that Gascón’s letters highlight how California’s voluminous and Byzantine gun control laws fail to prevent crime, and again make clear his policy preference of redlining the rights of the People in spite of the Constitution. Read more

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) released the following statement in response to President Biden’s latest attack on Second Amendment rights:

President Biden and his administration have cemented themselves as authoritarians on the wrong side of history, tradition, and the Constitution. His proposals announced today are another volley of shots aimed at undermining the fundamental right to keep and bear arms and putting more people in cages for exercising their rights. While Bloomberg-funded extremists spin their ban policies as mere “regulations,” Joe Biden clarified today what we all knew to be true: He does indeed want to take your guns.

Biden’s use of incendiary terms like “ghost guns” has one purpose: cause undue fear and obfuscate the truth, a cheap tactic to force his policy preferences on the People. And we see through it. Firearms Policy Coalition is committed to exposing anti-gun propoganda for what it is, and we will continue to open the eyes of our nation’s courts to the disingenuous strategies employed by unscrupulous lawmakers with regard to gun control the Second Amendment. Read more

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, challenging the constitutionality of a recently-enacted section of the state Penal Code requiring the state Department of Justice to share private information on millions of gun owners in the state, with the California Firearm Violence Research Center and others.

Joining SAF in this action are the Firearms Policy Coalition, California Gun Rights Foundation, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, Orange County Gun Owners PAC, Inland Empire Gun Owners PAC and Doe Brandeis, a private citizen. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay with the Benbrook Law Group, PC in Sacramento. The lawsuit is known as Brandeis v. Bonta.

The lawsuit contends disclosure of personal information about California gun owners under provisions of Assembly Bill 173, passed by the Assembly last year, violates their privacy rights, which are specifically protected by the state constitution. This information sharing also violates provisions of Proposition 63, the ammunition background check measure passed by voters back in 2016, which specified that personal information was to remain confidential, and shared “only for law enforcement purposes.” Read more

SAN DIEGO, CA — The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a new lawsuit today challenging California Assembly Bill 173, which requires the state’s Department of Justice to share the personal identifying information of millions of gun and ammunition owners with other parties for non-law-enforcement purposes. The complaint in Doe Brandeis v. Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with case information and documents, can be found at FPCLaw.org.

“Disclosure of Plaintiffs’ personal identifying information constitutes a severe privacy intrusion that is not adequately tailored to or justified by the state’s purported research interest,” the complaint states. “By forcing citizens to sacrifice one constitutional right (privacy) in order to exercise another (the right to keep and bear arms), AB 173 is unconstitutional.” Additionally, the complaint says that “the Legislature exceeded its power by eviscerating Proposition 63’s voter-mandated privacy restrictions and amending the statute to make personal information in the Ammunition Purchase Records File available to researchers on the same terms as [Automated Firearms System] data.” Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of their challenge to Maryland’s ban on modern semiautomatic rifles.

Joining SAF and CCRKBA are Field Traders, LLC, the Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, Micah Schaefer, David Snope and Dominic Banchi, for whom the case is named. The case is Bianchi v. Frosh. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and John D. Ohlendorf with Cooper & Kirk, PLLC in Washington, D.C., Raymond M. DiGuiseppe at the DiGuiseppe Law Firm, P.C. in Southport, N.C., and Adam Kraut, FPC in Sacramento, Calif. The brief may be read here.

As detailed in the 39-page brief, various circuits have upheld such bans by using what amounts to “a grab-bag of ad-hoc constitutional tests, varying from circuit to circuit,” with Maryland’s ban representing “perhaps the most extreme test contrived thus far.”

The brief goes on to explain, “Maryland’s ban…singles out for special disfavor not a recognized type of firearm, but certain features included on some firearms. That makes Maryland’s law particularly irrational, since most of the features it bans actually serve to make the firearms on which they are included safer.” A few lines later, the brief observes, “In truth, the odd assortment of firearms Maryland calls ‘assault weapons’ are mechanically identical to any other semiautomatic firearm—arms that, as no one disputes, are exceedingly common and fully protected by the Second Amendment.” Read more

The petition for certiorari spotlights continued disregard by lower courts for Second Amendment protections recognized by nation’s highest court

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) is asking the United States Supreme Court to strike down Maryland’s unconstitutional ban on so-called “assault weapons” in a petition filed today. FPC’s petition seeks to have the Court overrule a misguided Fourth Circuit decision that held common semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15 rifle were “like M-16s” and unprotected by the Second Amendment. The petition for certiorari in Bianchi v. Frosh can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“The firearms banned by Maryland are clearly protected under any honest reading of the Second Amendment and the Court’s Heller and McDonald decisions,” said Adam Kraut, FPC’s senior director of legal operations. “For over a decade, lower courts have ignored the text of the Constitution, binding Supreme Court precedent, and the relevant history and tradition to improperly uphold bans on constitutionally protected common arms. However, this case presents the Court with an ideal vehicle to both address the scope of protected arms and constitutionally infirm analysis applied by these recalcitrant lower courts. Just as Federal District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez held in our Miller v. Bonta case, the Supreme Court should grant this petition for certiorari and make clear that these common arms are protected and cannot be banned by any government.” Read more

The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®) and a group of fourteen firearm manufacturers, distributors, and retailers filed a lawsuit and moved for a preliminary injunction in federal court today challenging as unconstitutional a New York law designed to blame the industry for the criminal misuse or unlawful possession of firearms in New York no matter where they were purchased.

Specifically, New York’s “public nuisance” law would subject members of the firearm industry to civil lawsuits for the criminal misuse or unlawful possession of firearms in New York. The law would impose liability on industry members for firearms lawfully sold anywhere in the United States that end up being criminally misused or illegally possessed in New York thereby allegedly contributing to a “public nuisance” in the state.

Today’s lawsuit challenges the New York law as preempted by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). It also challenges the law as unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. The lawsuit further challenges the law as an impermissible attempt by New York State to regulate interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

New York is trying to use the threat of crushing liability to coerce out-of-state businesses to adopt sales practices and procedures not required by Congress or the law of the state where they operate. The Constitution reserves the power to regulate interstate commerce solely to Congress. This law interferes with the sovereignty of other states to make policy choices about how firearms should be sold in their state, subject only to the Second Amendment and federal law. Read more