Sour Grapes: Jackson’s Hemani Concurrence Rips Bruen, Calls for Means-End Restoration

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized the Bruen Second Amendment test in her United States v. Hemani concurrence.

Those who thought the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in United States v. Hemani, striking down the federal prohibition on gun ownership by anyone using marijuana was too good to be true, need only to carefully read the concurring opinion from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to restore their skepticism.

Jackson’s five-page opinion, joined by fellow liberal Sonia Sotomayor, is pure sour grapes. It begins with this remark: “I join the Court’s opinion in full because it correctly applies our decisions in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022), and United States v. Rahimi, 602 U. S. 680 (2024). But I continue to believe that we veered off course in Bruen…I write separately to emphasize that means-end scrutiny—the approach courts applied before we adopted Bruen’s ‘history and tradition’ metric—offers a more rational way of assessing the constitutionality of firearm regulations.”

Jackson, appointed by anti-gun-rights former President Joe Biden, makes it clear she believes Second Amendment questions should be decided by the discredited “Means-End Scrutiny” formula, which almost invariably favored government restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. She maintains the “’history and tradition’ metric” (her words) established in the landmark Bruen ruling, announced almost exactly four years earlier, got it wrong. She argues that Bruen makes it difficult for government to do what government does: Erode fundamental, constitutionally protected rights.

“The difficulties Bruen has created are all the more striking when compared to the test it abolished: means-end scrutiny,” she writes

Bruen declared the century-old New York State gun permit law, requiring applicants to demonstrate some need to exercise a fundamental right, to be an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment. That means it was always unconstitutional, and that for more than 100 years, honest New Yorkers were deprived of their right to bear arms by a bureaucracy which wanted them to remain disarmed.

Means-end scrutiny—an approach lower courts quietly embraced after the 2008 high court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller—perpetuated that legal perversion until Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion set things straight.

Bill Sack, director of Legal Operations for the Second Amendment Foundation, summed it up via email.

“Justice Jackson is building a reputation for expressing her frustration when she can’t rule in favor of the government,” Sack told Ammoland. “She expressed concern in Murthy that the First Amendment ‘hamstrings’ the government from censoring speech, and now in Hemani she bemoans the Bruen test once again as it requires her to rule in favor of civil rights.”

His colleague at SAF, Konstadinos Moros, director of Legal Research and Education, added via email, “The Jackson and Sotomayor concurrence complains that Bruen is ‘unworkable’ while calling for a return to a standard (means-end scrutiny) that was actually unworkable. As just one example, from when Heller was decided in 2008 until Bruen was decided in 2022, the Ninth Circuit did not strike down a single gun law even though it heard dozens of cases. It was a test that even more strongly favored the government and drifted massively from the original intent behind the adoption of the Second Amendment. Perhaps that’s what Justice Jackson and Sotomayor would prefer, but it was not a ‘workable’ status quo for a meaningful Second Amendment.” 

Still, in her concurring opinion criticizing Bruen, Jackson doesn’t skip a beat, rattling off a quartet of cases in which the courts “regularly assess whether the government’s justification for a law is legitimate and whether the law’s operation is sufficiently tailored to promote that justification” when considering other constitutional rights. The cases she mentioned involved First, Fifth and Fourteenth amendment questions.

“Constitutional adjudication through means-ends scrutiny is squarely within the competence of courts,” Jackson insists in her concurrence. “There is no reason why an approach that has worked well enough in these other contexts would pose a problem only for Second Amendment adjudication.”

Well, yes there is a reason, gun rights activists repeatedly argue. They say it is stated clearly in the Second Amendment: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Justice Jackson contends in the closing paragraph of her Hemani concurrence that the Bruen ruling is somehow a failure because it requires the courts to make decisions based on history, not modern governmental whims.

“Adding to Bruen’s weaknesses,” Justice Jackson writes, “is the fact that its framework provides no clear role for this kind of tailoring discussion. But such analysis is key. Scrutinizing the fit between a challenged law’s justification and its operation is an essential part of any sensible framework for Second Amendment adjudication. In a future case that squarely presents the question, we should consider whether to retire the failed Bruen experiment and return to an explicit assessment of Congress’s ends and means when deciding the constitutionality of firearm restrictions.”

Recall that liberal Justice Stephen Breyer dissented in the 2022 Bruen ruling, and that Jackson was appointed to fill his seat when he retired.

When Jackson wrote a concurring opinion in the 2024 Rahimi decision, she led off with this in the first paragraph: “This case tests our Second Amendment jurisprudence as shaped in particular by New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022). I disagree with the methodology of that decision; I would have joined the dissent had I been a Member of the Court at that time.”

She followed up with this observation: “I write separately because we now have two years’ worth of post-Bruen cases under our belts, and the experiences of courts applying its history-and-tradition test should bear on our assessment of the workability of that legal standard. This case highlights the apparent difficulty faced by judges on the ground. Make no mistake: Today’s effort to clear up “misunderst[andings],” ante, at 7, is a tacit admission that lower courts are struggling. In my view, the blame may lie with us, not with them.”

Her concurrence is begrudging and is pure spoil sport. Justice Jackson’s dilemma is that she essentially finds herself in the same position as the government in Hemani. She’s stuck with a rule of law she doesn’t like.

As wisely observed by Alan Gottlieb at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the government’s broad-brush prohibition on gun ownership by people who use marijuana squarely collides with the government’s traditional approach to people who use alcohol. CCRKBA joined in a January amicus brief supporting Texas-born Ari Hemani, who fought this case to the highest court in the land, and won.

“The federal statute, as the court rightly held, casts too wide a net,” Gottlieb stated in reaction to the Hemani ruling. “This one-size-fits-all approach to law enforcement has never worked. As we noted in our brief, historically the government has never prohibited sober people from owning firearms because they sometimes drank alcohol. The same logic applies here, especially since so many states now allow recreational marijuana use, and its use as a prescribed medical aid are widely recognized.”

Justice Jackson is clearly at odds with the Court’s landmark Bruen ruling and the guidelines it sets down for deciding Second Amendment cases. That’s probably not going to change as future cases come before the Court.

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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Virginia Calls AR-15s ‘Weapons of War.’ American History Tells Another Story

Virginia calls AR-15-style rifles “weapons of war,” but Americans have privately owned military-pattern firearms since before the Revolution. iStock-2281848084

Jay Jones, Virginia’s attorney general, should be ashamed. The Boxtop School of Law and Massage Parlor should recall his degree and the Virginia bar should be looking into why he was admitted.

The shoddy ‘weapons of war’ excuse Jones used to justify Virginia’s new gun laws dishonors George Mason, one of the leading lights among the Founders and a champion of an armed citizenry.

Jones’ claims have no basis in fact, even if the Fourth Circuit used them to uphold Maryland’s ban. The choice of politics and prevarication over law to deprive a state’s citizens of their rights is reprehensible.

Jones’ justification is a lie; it’s a sham easily discredited with even a cursory search of our history dating back to Colonial America. To add insult to injury, it is a repudiation of George Mason, a Founding Era patriot and a champion of the people’s right to be armed.

Spotsylvania County Judge William Glover also has some explaining to do.

American colonists owned ‘weapons of war’ for years before the Declaration of Independence. Many owned British Land Pattern ‘Brown Bess’ muskets because they were relatively plentiful, less expensive than other muskets of comparable quality, suitable for most uses, and easily met the requirements for militia service.

Colonists were more likely to have the original Long Land Pattern Musket introduced in 1722. British troops had begun transitioning to the Short Land Pattern version in 1768. Other than four inches in barrel length, the muskets were the same. They were produced by the same contractors, just like Colt, which made both the M16 rifle and the AR-15 Sporter.

Among the colonists, the Brown Bess was generally a personally owned gun. The Continental Army’s primary long arm was the Charleville musket the French government supplied in the tens of thousands.

So-called ‘weapons of war’ continued to remain popular into the Nineteenth Century. There were thousands of Spencer carbines, Sharps rifles, 1853 Enfields, and Springfield Model 1861s in American households. The Henry Rifle used by the Union Army in the Civil War became the mass-market Winchester; the most popular rifle among American hunters well into the Twentieth Century.

During this period, hunters wanting a bolt-action rifle were dependent on U.S. government surplus sales. The first commercial market bolt-action didn’t appear until 1920.

The best example of the ‘weapons of war’ fallacy is the World War II M1 Carbine.

The M1 Carbine was designed for the military and exclusively produced for and sold to the U.S. military. Millions were issued and used in combat in World War II, Korea, and the early years of the Vietnam war. They were also issued to the National Guard, so they were used in militia service, as well.

The M1 Carbine was supplied solely with 15-round and 30-round magazines. In its M1A1 configuration, it had a pistol grip and folding stock. The M2 version was selective-fire and ticked all the boxes for an actual assault rifle.

Yet the M1 Carbine was not included in the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban. Because it had a pistol grip and folding stock, the M1A1 was included despite the fact the actions and barrels could be freely swapped between the different stocks.

In the eerily 1960s, the federal government began selling surplus M1s and M1A1s into the civilian market with an initial lot of about 240,000. Prices were as low as $20.00. M1s were sold in F.W. Woolworth stores; private citizens could order them by mail.

Looking at Virginia’s statutory excuse, we start with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller. In its opinion, the court said:

“In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.”

In other words, the court said the Second Amendment protected only those weapons suitable for military service.

Jones is asserting a claim that the rifles the state wants to ban are exactly that. So Jones is also saying they are protected by the Second Amendment and cannot be banned.

Never let it be said the gun-grabbers are troubled by contradictions.

In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court expanded the protection of the Second Amendment to other types of firearms but carved out a poorly defined niche for firearms considered to be “dangerous and unusual.”

The AR-15 and similar rifles are functionally and operationally equivalent to firearms first offered to American hunters more than 100 years ago. Even detachable magazines holding more than ten rounds were available.

Considering the standard cartridges in the most common platforms are an average of 43% less powerful than popular deer hunting rounds, it’s hard to say they are particularly dangerous. Their popularity shows they are definitely not unusual.

But not a single army in the world uses a semiautomatic rifle as its standard-issue infantry weapon.

Now for the coup de grace.

The Fourteenth Amendment, which extended the Bill of Rights to the states, was ratified in 1868. However, not all of the Enumerated Rights were fully incorporated until later.

The Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment was fully incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment under the Due Process Clause in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).

The Supremacy Clause means the federal constitution trumps every state constitution and every treaty with a foreign power (Reid v. Covert (1957)).

Including Virginia’s.

[Note: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. I will happily admit there are (lots of) deficits in my knowledge of constitutional law. However, when it comes to knowledge of firearms, their technology, and their history and tradition in America, I am more than a novice.]

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About Bill Cawthon

Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago. He has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.

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South Carolina HOA Bans Guns From Sidewalks, Parking Areas

Forest Pines Condominiums has prohibited open and concealed carry on sidewalks, parking areas and other HOA-maintained property. iStock-1453704487

A South Carolina condominium association has told residents they may no longer carry firearms through many of the shared spaces surrounding their own homes, including parking lots, sidewalks, and the community mail kiosk.

The sweeping restriction at Forest Pines Condominiums in Horry County is drawing objections from residents and raising serious questions about how far a homeowners association may go in regulating the lawful carry of firearms.

According to an email obtained by WMBF News, firearms, “whether openly carried or concealed,” are prohibited in Forest Pines common areas, including:

• The pool and pool deck
• The clubhouse and restrooms
• The mail kiosk
• Parking areas
• Sidewalks and landscaped grounds
• All other HOA-maintained outdoor spaces

Can a South Carolina HOA Ban Firearms?

The email goes on to say residents may lawfully possess firearms inside their private residences, and may even transport firearms to and from their vehicles, as long as it is not “displayed, handled, or carried” through the common areas more than what is “reasonably necessary”.

A serious question arises about the HOA’s authority to do this and/or what is required by state law in order to do this.

HOAs can make rules for people who live in the property covered by the HOA. The HOA cannot impose criminal penalties. They may impose fines or sanctions, such as limiting access to HOA facilities.

South Carolina Has Strict Gun-Ban Sign Requirements

Private property owners can ban people who are not owners from bringing firearms onto the private property.  South Carolina Code § 23-31-235 (2025) concerns signs that are required to be posted in order to prohibit the carrying of concealable weapons, whether openly or concealed.

In order to be enforceable by law, the signs must meet particular criteria. For buildings, signs must be posted at all entrances. If there is a door, the signs need to be eight inches by twelve inches tall. The letters on the sign need to be in black, one-inch-tall letters. The sign needs to include a seven inch diameter circle with the black silhouette of a handgun and a diagonal line which runs from the upper left to the lower right of the circle.  When a door does not exist, the sign has to be 36 inches wide by 48 inches tall.

WMBF reported that no signs meeting South Carolina’s statutory requirements were visibly posted at Forest Pines Condominiums. A resident likewise said there were no firearms-prohibition signs at the pool, clubhouse, or elsewhere in the development.

The absence of compliant signs raises questions about whether the HOA has provided the notice required to pursue a firearms-related trespass charge under South Carolina law. It does not necessarily invalidate the HOA policy or prevent civil enforcement against residents. Whether the association may impose fines, suspend access to amenities, or otherwise sanction owners depends on the authority granted by Forest Pines’ recorded declaration, bylaws, and other governing documents.

Those documents are especially important because condominium owners generally possess an ownership interest and access rights in the development’s common elements. Without reviewing them, it is impossible to determine conclusively whether the HOA may prohibit residents from carrying firearms on sidewalks, in parking areas, or while retrieving their mail.

Florida HOA Faced Similar Backlash

A Florida HOA was recently warned by Florida Attorney General Uthmeier HOA policies banning firearms from common areas were a violation of Florida law. The Florida HOA announced the policy in May of 2026. Florida law is not the same as South Carolina law.

The South Carolina AG does not appear to have issued a statement on the Horry County HOA firearms ban as of this writing.

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About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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Supreme Court Rules Federal Drug-User Gun Ban Falls in US v. Hemani

“A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court just told the anti-gun movement and the U.S. Solicitor General that being a marijuana user alone provides no legal basis to strip an American of his fundamental Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms — and in doing so, the Court strengthened the Bruen pro-2A “text first, history second” methodology.” – Professor Mark W. Smith, Four Boxes Diner Host

The Supreme Court has unanimously held that being a regular marijuana user, without more, provides no basis for stripping an American of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

In United States v. Hemani, every member of the Court agreed that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) — the federal statute disarming “unlawful users” of controlled substances — cannot constitutionally be applied to Mr. Hemani, whose only offense was habitual marijuana use. A 9-0 judgment is rare in this corner of the law, and the federal government lost big time.

The U.S. Solicitor General, John Sauer, pressed this prosecution all the way to the Supreme Court over the loud objection of Second Amendment advocates and scholars. I was one of those 2A supporters who warned that the facts were bad and posed a significant risk to Second Amendment law.

Luckily for Team 2A, the gamble backfired, and Second Amendment jurisprudence is stronger for it.

The Nutshell Version

Strip away the doctrinal scaffolding, and Hemani is a reaffirmation of a basic principle developing in Second Amendment law: if the government wants to disarm someone, it must provide individualized evidence— in a legal proceeding — that the person poses a physical violent danger to himself or to others. An abstract statistical claim that a class of people tends toward bad behavior is insufficient. A regulatory inconvenience argument is not enough. A post-hoc historical analogy conjured up in litigation is not enough.

What the government needs is a genuine, well-established tradition of disarming people who pose the specific kind of threat it says that a particular defendant poses — and that tradition must be closely connected to the modern restriction it seeks to defend.

There is a second doctrinal takeaway hiding near the end of the opinion that deserves to be foregrounded: the Court made clear it will not accept the government’s litigation-driven attempts to recharacterize a statute enacted for one purpose as having been enacted for an entirely different purpose—in an attempt to shoehorn the modern law it into a historical tradition of firearm regulation. That kind of post-hoc rationalization is exactly the move that the government’s defense of § 922(g)(3) required, and the attempt was rejected by the Court.

A Case the Department of Justice Should Not Have Brought

Ali Hemani was convicted of possessing a firearm while being a regular marijuana user. Under § 922(g)(3), an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” is a Prohibited Person who can face more than a decade in prison for the mere possession of a gun. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, held that disarming Mr. Hemani on those facts violated the Second Amendment, and the government — having lost — chose to take the fight upstairs to SCOTUS. I opposed that decision in the strongest terms.

Several former Justice Department lawyers now sit on the Supreme Court, and the bloc least sympathetic to drug offenders could have joined the Justices least sympathetic to the Second Amendment to manufacture an anti-gun precedent we would have lived with for a generation. Sauer pushed anyway. Amazingly and thankfully, he lost, and he lost unanimously.

That outcome deserves credit on its own terms. Bad facts here did not make bad law. When a Court faces an unsympathetic defendant — and a habitual marijuana user in possession of a firearm is not going to command a great deal of public sympathy — the temptation to cut corners on doctrine in order to reach the comfortable result is real. But the Court rejected the government’s position anyway. And, that is what principled adjudication looks like.

Who Won — and, More Important, How

There are two questions to ask of any Supreme Court decision: who won, and how. The second matters more, because the methodology is what binds the lower courts across the next thousand cases.

As an application of Bruen, the majority opinion is good — better than good, in places. The Court did not merely rule for Hemani; Justice Gorsuch, writing for the Court, restated the Bruen framework with a rigor that should end a debate festering since 2024. After United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), a chorus on both sides insisted the Court had quietly loosened New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) — that the government now need only gesture at history and the courts would rubber-stamp the result. I argued the contrary in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Hemani vindicates my reading. With Hemani, the Court tightened the Bruen methodology.

On the specific historical analogues the government offered here — primarily laws targeting habitual drunkards — the Court engaged seriously with the “why.” It rejected the government’s very generalized claim that drug users, like drunkards, are dangerous as a class. More specifically, it examined what the historical drunkard laws were actually about and found that they were not primarily concerned with the danger drunkards posed. They were concerned with something more like mental incapacity — the inability to exercise sound judgment, to manage one’s affairs, to participate responsibly in civic life. That is a fundamentally different rationale than the dangerousness theory the government pressed in Hemani, and the Court refused to let the government paper over that gap. The historical analogue has to be closely connected to the modern restriction in purpose, not just in surface appearance.

Danger Is the Dividing Line

Again and again, the opinion returns to a single principle: America’s historical tradition of firearms regulation permits disarming a person only when he has been found to be a violent danger to himself or others. Not a danger to “democracy,” not a regulatory inconvenience — a physical, violent danger, established through some legal formal process.

That last point is where the Court emphasizes process. The opinion draws a sharp line between § 922(g)(3) and the provisions that survive precisely because they demand process before the right is lost:

“Certain other provisions of section 922 — such as subsection (1), disarming convicted felons, and subsection (4), disarming any person adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution — involve some manner of pre-deprivation process before an individual’s Second Amendment rights are lost. For that reason they differ from section (g)(3) here, and nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt upon them.”

“Pre-deprivation process.” Read those words carefully.

The Court places substantial weight on the availability of pre-deprivation hearings under the historical habitual drunkard laws — and their absence under § 922(g)(3) — as part of what makes the modern statute constitutionally deficient. I will note, in fairness to the government, that this argument has some tension at its edges: if the disqualifying feature of § 922(g)(3) is simply that one routinely uses any amount of a controlled substance unlawfully, and if that were itself a legitimate basis for disqualification, it is not obvious what pre-deprivation process would look like. What hearing establishes that you regularly smoked marijuana? That said, the Court’s point stands as a structural matter: the historical analogues that survived involved some individualized legal determination before the right was extinguished, and this statute does not.

Those words are also aimed squarely at red-flag regimes that confiscate firearms before any finding of dangerousness. And Justice Gorsuch closed the historical escape hatch on the 1791/1868 question:

“As in Bruen, we do not need to decide today whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 or when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. For reasons explored below, the government cannot establish that the Second Amendment at either point in time permitted anything like its prosecution here.”

Either date, the government loses. There is no tradition of disarming people merely for using an intoxicating substance.

“All Americans” and a Signal on the AR-15 Fight

Two further passages from the opinion deserve attention. The Court wrote that the Second Amendment secures the rights of “all Americans” — language I do not read as accidental. It quietly forecloses the fringe argument that illegal aliens belong to “the people” of the Second Amendment, a theory that was never going to command five votes. And a concurrence by Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, is revealing for what it omits. They register their disagreement with Bruen’s methodology, yet say not a word against District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) — the decision protecting arms “in common use” and casting out only those that are “dangerous and unusual.” Even the Court’s two most skeptical members left Heller untouched. For the AR-15 cases now climbing toward review, that silence is a tell.

What Hemani Does Not Decide — And What That Means

This is Hemani’s most important caveat, and it deserves honest treatment: this decision is much more in line with Rahimi as simply an application of Bruen than it is a case that breaks new doctrinal ground. The Court was careful to cabin its holding. In footnote 3, it declines once again to resolve whether 1791 or 1868 is the controlling historical period. In footnote 6, it expressly cautions that its conclusions about § 922(g)(3) should not be read to imply any problem with § 922(g)(1) or (g)(4), because those provisions involve pre-deprivation hearings. And at page 18 of the opinion, the Court pointedly leaves open the possibility that other methods of disarmament may be constitutional — particularly for people who use far more dangerous drugs than Mr. Hemani did.

The Bottom Line

So where does this leave us? I see no path by which the Supreme Court that rules 9-0 in Hemani, but then turns around and upholds Hawaii’s no-carry default rule in Wolford v. Lopez. We may well take two Second Amendment victories from this term. But the bigger lesson is structural. The government built this case to test the limits of Bruen and Rahimi, and the Court answered by reinforcing both in a gun-rights friendly way.

It refused to accept surface-level historical analogues. It refused to let the government recharacterize statutes after the fact to manufacture a historical fit. It demanded individualized process before rights are extinguished. And it did all of this unanimously.

To conclude, amazingly bad facts here did not make bad law. Every lawful gun owner in America woke up today with a stronger right than he held yesterday, and every pro-Second Amendment lawyer litigating the next case now has a unanimous opinion to cite. In short, a great day for the Second Amendment.

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About Mark W Smith

Constitutional attorney and bestselling author Mark W. Smith hosts the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment channel on Youtube and Rumble; is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar; and his Second Amendment scholarship has been cited by many attorneys and judges, including by attorneys in legal briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Smith’s most recent book is ISRAEL DISARMED: What the October 7 Attack Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms and he has lectured at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Princeton University, the Wharton School at U. Penn, and Oxford University. He is a frequent speaker at the Federalist Society’s Annual National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C.

• @fourboxesdiner
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Suppressors Are Protected Arms, Fifth Circuit Rules in Major 2A Case

The Fifth Circuit ruled that suppressors are Second Amendment “Arms,” even as it upheld Brennan Comeaux’s NFA conviction. IMG Jim Grant

The Fifth Circuit just gave gun owners a major Second Amendment win on suppressors, even though the man who brought the case still lost.

In United States v. Brennan James Comeaux, the court affirmed Comeaux’s conviction for possessing an unregistered silencer under the National Firearms Act. That part is not the victory. The victory is what the court said on the way there: suppressors are “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment.

Comeaux was charged after deputies searched his home and found firearms and suspected silencers. ATF determined the devices were suppressors, and Comeaux admitted he had manufactured and possessed them. He challenged the NFA’s registration requirement, arguing that the law violated the Second Amendment both on its face and as applied to him.

The district court rejected his argument, treating suppressors as “dangerous and unusual weapons” outside the Second Amendment. The Fifth Circuit rejected that theory. “Silencers are ‘Arms,’” the panel held.

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The court explained that suppressors reduce loudness, lower the risk of hearing damage, reduce recoil, eliminate muzzle blast, increase accuracy, and allow faster follow-up shots. Suppressors make firearms safer, more controllable, and more effective for lawful self-defense. That is exactly why millions of gun owners want them.

The government argued that suppressors are not protected because a firearm can technically function without one and because suppressors were not historically tied to founding-era militia service. The Fifth Circuit said that is not the test. Under Bruen, an arm does not have to be “necessary” to make a gun fire. It must facilitate armed self-defense.

That is a massive rejection of the anti-suppressor narrative. Suppressors are not Hollywood assassin tools, used by criminals. They are safety devices. They protect hearing, reduce blast, improve control, and make shooting less abusive to the shooter and everyone nearby. In much of the world, suppressors are treated as normal safety equipment. In America, the government shoved them into the NFA and spent decades pretending they were too dangerous for ordinary citizens.

BREAKING: 5th Circuit rules that suppressors ARE protected arms!

That means no state in the fifth circuit can ban suppressors, and we’re one step closer to the Supreme Court holding the same! https://t.co/wCm6GBhDr5 pic.twitter.com/mAcvoo8c9D

— American Suppressor Association (@AmSuppressor) June 18, 2026

Comeaux changes the legal battlefield. The ruling also creates a direct split with the Ninth Circuit.

Just weeks ago, in United States v. DeBorba, the Ninth Circuit held that suppressors are not protected “arms” because they are optional accessories and not necessary to the ordinary operation of a firearm. The Fifth Circuit has now said the opposite. Suppressors are protected because they help a firearm serve its core lawful purpose.

In the Ninth Circuit, gun control lawyers will point to DeBorba and say suppressors are outside the Second Amendment altogether. In the Fifth Circuit, gun owners can now point to Comeaux and say the Constitution covers them. That kind of direct disagreement is exactly the sort of issue that eventually draws Supreme Court attention.

Gun owners should not overread the decision. Comeaux does not legalize unregistered suppressors. It does not strike down the NFA. It does not mean the ATF registry disappeared overnight.

Comeaux still lost because the panel said it was bound by United States v. Peterson, another Fifth Circuit suppressor case.

Peterson treated the NFA’s suppressor registration system as a presumptively lawful “shall-issue” regime unless the challenger shows abuse, such as exorbitant fees, long delays, arbitrary denials, or some other evidence that the system is being used to burden the right. Comeaux did not build that record, so his conviction was affirmed.

That also explains how Comeaux changes Peterson. If Peterson were decided today, the Fifth Circuit could no longer dodge the threshold question by assuming suppressors might be protected. Comeaux answers that question. Suppressors are arms. But Peterson’s result likely would not change unless the challenger made a stronger record showing that the NFA process itself burdens the right.

Judge Edith Brown Clement, joined by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, made the next fight crystal clear. She agreed that suppressors are protected arms but warned that Peterson wrongly turned Bruen’s footnote about shall-issue carry permits into a new hurdle for gun owners. Clement did not mince words: “Peterson ought to be revisited.” In her view, courts should be applying text, history, and tradition, not inventing a half-step that lets the government escape real constitutional scrutiny. That is where this fight is headed.

The NFA survived today, but the government’s favorite anti-suppressor argument did not. The Fifth Circuit said suppressors are not outside the Second Amendment just because politicians and bureaucrats say so.

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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3D Printed Guns Are Going Mainstream, and Gun Control Can’t Keep Up

3D printed guns are moving from online subculture to mainstream firearms debate as DIY builders continue to outpace gun control efforts. iStock-2191244801

In the rolling hills of Appalachia, a man named Yeezy, online handle YZY_PRINTS, sits in his workshop surrounded by plastic and metal. Sheriffs show up at his door one day, not with cuffs but paperwork. He’s got an AR-15 leaning nearby, just in case. No raid. No drama. Just the everyday tension of a guy who prints his own guns and isn’t shy about saying why.

That scene comes straight from a recent Rolling Stone profile that dropped this week. The piece paints a vivid picture of the “plastic revolution” in firearms. What was once the domain of tinkerers and underground forums has exploded into something bigger. Thousands now participate worldwide. Hundreds in the U.S. alone design, test, and share new models at breakneck speed. And it’s not just fringe anymore. It’s going mainstream.

A decade ago, building a functional firearm at home meant serious machining skills, a full shop, and deep pockets. Today? A decent 3D printer, some filament, and freely available CAD files can get you started. The lower receiver, the serialized heart of many guns, emerges from layers of plastic. Bolt on real parts, and you’ve got something that shoots. Reliable enough for range days. Untraceable by design. Legal for personal use in most states.

The Rolling Stone story highlights how far this has come. Yeezy’s “Glong”, a pistol frame that doubles as a bong, might sound like a meme. But it shows the creativity bubbling up. Designers iterate fast. Online repositories host thousands of files. Communities stress-test them, fix flaws, and release updates. New printers handle tougher materials. Print times drop. Durability climbs. What started with the single-shot Liberator pistol has evolved into working MP5 clones, suppressors, and more.

Critics freak out, of course. They call them “ghost guns” and warn of criminals, kids, and extremists arming up without background checks. Law enforcement in places like New York and California pours resources into specialized units. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s team displays seized printed guns like trophies. They push new laws, sue repositories, and pressure printer companies. Some stats show 3D-printed pieces turning up at crime scenes, though numbers vary and context matters. A 2024 NYPD figure cited in the article put 3D-printed guns at a fraction of the number of “ghost gun” recoveries.

But here’s the thing the hand-wringers miss. Most of this activity stays legal. Hobbyists aren’t flooding streets with crime guns en masse. The drivers? Ideology and access. People across the spectrum, left, right, libertarian, share a core belief: the right to bear arms shouldn’t depend on government permission slips.

Yeezy himself mixes far-left memes with hardcore 2A advocacy. He sees printing as empowerment. If authorities target certain groups, plastic levels the field.

That democratizing effect is hard to overstate. Traditional gunsmithing demanded apprenticeship and expensive tools. Now, a working-class kid with a $300 printer can experiment. Veterans, preppers, and enthusiasts in restrictive states; they all tap the same open-source ecosystem. Forums buzz with troubleshooting threads. Designers compete for robust, easy-to-print models. It’s innovation at the speed of the internet, not bureaucratic rule-making.

Of course, risks exist. Bad actors can misuse anything. But the same goes for cars, knives, or fertilizer. Banning files or printers won’t stop determined people. It just drives the community further underground or offshore. Early Liberator designs circulated despite takedowns. Today’s repositories prove resilient. As one prosecutor admitted in the Rolling Stone piece, creators keep outsmarting regulations.

Recent court fights underscore the tension. The Supreme Court has weighed in on ghost gun kits, affirming some regulatory power. Yet core principles hold: individuals can make their own firearms for personal use without serialization in most of the country. Only a handful of states ban 3D-printed guns outright. Enforcement remains patchy. Printed frames often blend with factory parts, complicating detection. Metal detectors? Not always reliable for polymer-heavy builds.

This shift echoes broader tech disruptions. Remember when home computing seemed exotic? Or when file-sharing upended music? Guns follow suit. The cat’s out of the bag. Printers get cheaper and better every year. Materials improve. Knowledge spreads freely. You don’t need a machine shop anymore; just curiosity and patience.

For Second Amendment supporters, that’s the point. The Founders never intended self-defense to require a federal license or corporate middleman. In an era of eroding trust, pandemic lockdowns, surveillance, and politicized enforcement, DIY capability feels like insurance. Yeezy’s backyard range tests capture that raw appeal. Bang after bang from a gun the government doesn’t officially know exists. Empowering. Liberating.

Skeptics point to tragedies. High-profile cases grab headlines, like the one involving a printed suppressor. But data doesn’t support claims of an epidemic overwhelming law enforcement. Many “ghost guns” come from kits or milling, not pure printing. Hobbyists dominate the scene, not street gangs. Police units admit most printed guns they encounter aren’t tied to violence. The real threat, some argue, gets exaggerated to justify broader controls.

Meanwhile, the community grows. Social media amplifies it. YouTube tutorials (before they get yanked) teach basics. Merch like Yeezy’s “It Was Never About Hunting” shirts signals the cultural moment. Even in blue cities, interest persists underground. In red states, it flourishes openly. Cross-political alliances form around shared principles of autonomy.

Looking ahead, expect more evolution. Hybrid builds combining printed and machined parts. Better alloys for high-stress components. AI-assisted design tools are speeding iteration. Regulators will scramble with new rules, lawsuits, and international pressure on file hosts. But technology outpaces policy. Printers will enter more homes. Files will mirror across decentralized networks. The genie won’t go back in the bottle.

The Rolling Stone article captures the human side through Yeezy’s story. A guy from tough roots who found power in creation. His politics might differ from yours, or mine, but the underlying drive resonates with millions who value self-reliance. In Trump’s America—or any administration’s—the idea that citizens can arm themselves without permission strikes a chord.

3D gun making isn’t a fad. It’s mainstreaming because it solves real barriers: cost, availability, bureaucracy. It puts capability back in individual hands. For better or worse, that’s the future. Debates will rage in courts and Congress. But in garages and workshops across the country, printers keep humming. Frames take shape. Freedom, one layer at a time.

Ghost Gun Crackdowns Expose the Dirty Secret of Gun Control

CTRLPEW Expands Federal Lawsuit, Accuses California Of Policing 3D Gun Speech In Florida

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

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The Survey Says: Dems Largely Dismissive of 2A Threat

A new AP/NORC survey reinforces the notion that Democrats treat the Second Amendment as a regulated privilege, rather than protective of a fundamental right. IMG Jim Grant

A new poll by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on personal freedoms and whether they are under threat reveals once again that Democrats are largely dismissive of any peril facing the Second Amendment, at the same time party leaders have been leading the charge to erode the right to keep and bear arms (RKBA).

According to The Independent, the survey revealed, “Democrats were more inclined to see a greater threat to freedom of speech, with about six in 10 believing it faces a “major threat,” compared to four in 10 independents and roughly one-third of Republicans.”

“Conversely,” The Independent added, “Republicans expressed greater concern about the right to keep and bear arms; while most Americans consider this right important, about 8 in 10 Republicans agreed, compared with 4 in 10 Democrats and 50% of independents.”

Coincidentally, Democrats and their media allies have lately been reacting positively to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s signing of several gun control measures, almost uniformly described as “gun violence prevention legislation” (WDBJ) or “gun safety laws” (WSLS) while critics insist they won’t actually prevent violent crime or make anyone safer.

Naturally, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions declared in its headline, “Virginia Governor Spanberger Signs Historic Gun Violence Prevention Bills into Law.”

Only the Richmond Times-Dispatch accurately described what Spanberger signed as “gun control” legislation.

But it is exactly the kind of legislative erosion of rights protected by the Second Amendment which the recent AP/NORC poll says are raising more alarms among conservatives and independents.

According to the poll, only 21 percent of Democrats think gun rights are under a major threat, while 36 percent think the Second Amendment is under a “minor” threat, and 42 percent don’t believe any threat exists.

Conversely—and this is what gun voters should keep in mind as November approaches—40 percent of Republicans say the Second Amendment is under a “major threat,” and 41 percent believe it is under a “minor threat.” Only 19 percent of Republican poll respondents think gun rights are under no threat at all.

Among Independents, 34 percent say RKBA faces a major threat, 35 percent believe it is under a “minor threat” while 28 percent do not perceive any threat, according to the AP/NORC poll.

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Translation: Democrats blithely disregard the importance of Second Amendment rights to tens of millions of their fellow citizens, and as illustrated by the actions of Democrat-controlled legislatures, the right to keep and bear arms is treated more like a government-regulated privilege.

For example, among the bills Spanberger signed, according to WDBJ, are:

• HB969 (Delegate Marcia Price), which “establishes the Virginia Gun Violence Prevention Center Workgroup to create the infrastructure to make Virginia a national leader in gun violence prevention.”
• HB217 (Delegate Dan Helmer), SB749 (Senator Saddam Salim), which “Protect Virginia families, law enforcement, and communities by prohibiting the future sale of assault-style weapons.”
• HB871 (Delegate Mark Downey), SB348 (Senator Jennifer Boysko), which “Requires safe storage of firearms to protect children and prevent theft.”

Historically, there is nothing to suggest that criminals will abide by these or any other gun control bills Spanberger signed. But it made good headline fodder for the Virginia media.

Overall, 35 percent of AP/NORC poll respondents say the right to keep and bear arms is extremely important, and 22 percent believe it is “very important.” Another 24 percent believe the RKBA is “somewhat important” while 11 percent say the Second Amendment is “not very important” and only 7 percent believe it is “not important at all.”

As noted by The Independent, “only about one-third of respondents or fewer felt these rights were secure from potential threats.”

Polling on gun rights has always been interesting. A few years ago, Gallup polled America to learn that 56 percent of U.S. adults said gun laws should be stricter, while 31 percent believed they should stay the same and 12 percent favored less strict gun laws.

Last December, Legal Reader published the results of a poll showing only 28 percent of Republicans/conservatives supported stricter laws, while 86 percent of “Democrat-leaning” people want tougher laws, further reinforcing the notion that Democrats are the party of gun control.

What all of these surveys fail to clarify is that constitutional rights are not subject to public opinion polls. Rights specifically mentioned and protected by the Constitution would only be up for grabs if the country were to hold a Constitutional Convention. The entire Bill of Rights would be on the table, like it or not.

The true value of such surveys is that they repeatedly and consistently reveal which political party is stronger on individual rights, including the Second Amendment, and which party fails that test.

Maryland Court Finds Gun Possession Alone Not Enough For Police Stop

Why the Third Circuit Is Sitting on the Cheeseman and Koons Cases — They’re Waiting for SCOTUS

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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