ThinkingAfield.org

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