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

PORTLAND, OR – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that United States District Judge Karin Immergut adopted FPC’s position regarding the implementation challenges of Oregon Measure 114’s “permit-to-purchase” law and the state’s associated admission that the system would not be ready in time – and stayed its enforcement for 30 days. However, the Court denied the motion for a temporary restraining order regarding the ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. The order in Fitz v. Rosenblum, along with filings in Azzopardi v. Rosenblum, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“Nevertheless, Plaintiffs are entitled to a prompt hearing to determine whether a preliminary injunction should issue based on a more complete evidentiary record addressing whether there is a likelihood of success on the merits under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments,” wrote Judge Immergut in her order. “The parties are ordered to confer and propose a briefing schedule to this Court by December 7, 2022.”

“FPC is cautiously optimistic that the most immediately glaring problem with Oregon Measure 114 – namely that requiring a ‘permit-to-purchase’ to acquire firearms, when no such permit application process even exists – has been acknowledged by the Court,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Nevertheless, in denying our request for a TRO regarding Measure 114’s magazine capacity restriction, the Court’s analysis leaves a lot to be desired.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an important brief with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in the case of California v. ATF. Initially filed in 2020 by California, Giffords, and two individuals, the case sought to force the ATF to re-define “firearms” under federal law to include numerous non-firearm items. Now, the plaintiffs are trying to ‘amend’ their lawsuit to claim that the ATF’s frame or receiver rule published this year doesn’t go far enough. FPC’s brief, along with its previous motion to intervene, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint is, in reality, an entirely new lawsuit based on a new agency action taken subsequent to Plaintiffs’ filing of this lawsuit,” argues the brief. “The basis of Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is Defendants’ prior implementation of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which Plaintiffs sought to collaterally attack by challenging a series of classification letters issued to non-firearm producers by the [ATF]. That prior implementation of the GCA is currently defunct, and those classification letters are no longer controlling. Accordingly, Applicants in Intervention request that this Court grant Defendants’ motion and dismiss Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint because it concerns an entirely distinct agency action and the basis for Plaintiffs’ original lawsuit is moot.”

“California and Giffords are attempting to hijack their old lawsuit designed to force the ATF to issue the frame or receiver rule to now say that the rule doesn’t go far enough,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “Plaintiffs’ argument that the ATF is required by federal law to regulate even more than it already does is nonsensical, and their attempt to disguise a new lawsuit as an ‘amendment’ to their prior case is legally infirm.” Read more