ChatGPT Refused AmmoLand Gun Deal Post One Day After Everytown’s AI Report

Original AI-generated editorial illustration depicting restrictions on firearm-related publishing. AmmoLand documented a ChatGPT refusal of an H&R T48 Daily Deal request on September 29, 2026.

One day after Everytown for Gun Safety published recommendations for restricting firearm-related assistance from AI chatbots, ChatGPT refused to help build an AmmoLand Daily Deal post for an H&R T48 rifle.

The September 29 refusal came just five days after ChatGPT had completed an ammunition deal article for AmmoLand. It also occurred on the date listed on OpenAI’s updated Commerce Policies, which exclude firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories from its shopping experiences.

AmmoLand’s experience matches the timeline highlighted by Lee Williams in his October 14 report about an Ohio gun shop encountering similar refusals. It gives this publication its own firsthand example of AI restrictions disrupting work involving lawful firearms commerce.

From Writing Daily Deals to Refusing Them

On September 24, ChatGPT helped produce an AmmoLand Daily Deal article and SEO package for US Cartridge 9mm subsonic ammunition, it had also helped build many deals for firearms, optics and ammunition in the past. The work included checking the offer, calculating the price per round, and preparing the article. On September 29, an H&R T48 rifle deal request received a different response.

“I can’t write an affiliate sales post, purchase CTA, or price comparison promoting the sale of this rifle.” ChatGPT replied.

When challenged, the chatbot said: “I can’t write an affiliate sales post, purchase CTA, or price comparison promoting the sale of this rifle. I can help with a neutral AmmoLand product overview of the H&R T48, including verified specifications, what distinguishes the configuration, and an SEO package without purchase links or sales language.”

During the exchange, it acknowledged that the published policy did not specifically prohibit drafting firearm affiliate articles. Nevertheless, it maintained the refusal based on its interpretation of weapons procurement.

AmmoLand was requesting publishing assistance for an article about a commercially available firearm. The chatbot had previously performed the same general type of work. Those refusals prompted this editor to move Daily Deal production away from ChatGPT and to Grok.

AmmoLand has used AI since 2022 for SEO work, fixing website code and errors, identifying broken links, and general quality control. We continue to use AI tools to find high-quality deals from our affiliate partners and create visually impactful feature images. AI is also increasingly integrated into the web-based tools we use every day. These tools have become a practical part of running a firearms news publication, which makes restrictions on ordinary, lawful work a business issue with consequences for how we serve our readers.

Ohio Gun Dealer Describes a Similar Reversal

In his report at The Gun Writer, Williams described a similar experience involving Hesseling & Sons Firearms & Gunsmithing in Lima, Ohio.

Co-owner Gennifer Hesseling told Williams she had used ChatGPT for marketing copy and advertising campaigns. Earlier this month, she requested help promoting incoming gold-plated Desert Eagle pistols. The chatbot refused.

“I was not selling anything illegal,” Hesseling told Williams. “I was asking my chatbot to assist with sales of lawful products.”

Hesseling said the business had relied on the service for more than a year. She switched to Grok, but said rebuilding her marketing workflow required substantially more time.

Her account and AmmoLand’s experience show the practical consequences: a business incorporates a service into its operations, receives useful assistance, and then encounters refusals when requesting work the service previously performed.

Everytown’s Push to Shape Firearm Information

AmmoLand examined Everytown’s campaign in its October 5 article, Everytown Pushes AI Gun Restrictions That Could Censor Lawful Firearms Information. Dean Weingarten warned that the proposals could restrict lawful firearms information and incorporate Everytown’s positions on gun ownership and storage into chatbot responses.

Everytown’s September 28 report urges AI companies to refuse specified firearm-related information, review conversations involving firearms and indications of violence or self-harm, and strengthen law-enforcement referral procedures.

Its recommendations also include providing information about red-flag orders and alternatives to firearms for home defense. Everytown further calls for companies to give greater weight to information it describes as vetted or evidence-informed. everytownresearch.org

Those recommendations raise a question gun owners should take seriously: Whose views will determine which firearms information an AI system provides, discourages, or refuses?

An organization committed to restricting gun ownership is seeking influence over tools people increasingly use for research and business. Those organizations would prefer that they are the only voice heard on the subject so that they can continue to spread their anti-gun rhetoric.

What the Policies Establish—and What Remains Unanswered

OpenAI’s Commerce Policies explicitly exclude firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories from its shopping experiences. Those restrictions cover lawful product categories, including magazines. The policy concerns shopping listings and merchant participation. openai.com

Its broader Usage Policies, effective October 29, 2025, prohibit weapons “development, procurement, or use,” including conventional weapons. The published policies do not clearly explain how that language applies to every dealer advertising request or publisher’s affiliate article. openai.com

The chronology is clear: Everytown published September 28. OpenAI’s commerce page carries a September 29 update date. On September 29, ChatGPT refused AmmoLand’s rifle deal request.

That sequence supports questions about what happened and what appears to be a private company working as the puppet for an anti-gun group. It does not establish that Everytown directed OpenAI’s decisions or that the firearm-shopping exclusion first appeared that day. AmmoLand’s refusal, however, is a concrete event in that timeline.

Lawful firearms businesses and publishers deserve clear answers about restrictions affecting their work. Gun owners should also challenge the premise that ordinary firearms commerce belongs behind a digital barrier of censorship created by a freedom-hating group like Everytown.

The right to keep and bear arms deserves respect throughout the tools Americans use to learn, communicate, and conduct business. Artificial intelligence should respect that right as well.

Related: Everytown Pushes AI Gun Restrictions That Could Censor Lawful Firearms Information

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Armed Citizen Stops School Shooter at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon

Armed citizen stops the Silver Rail Elementary school shooter in Bend, Oregon, after the 16-year-old forced entry by shooting through locked doors. Bend-La Pine Schools’ gun-free zone policy had disarmed law-abiding adults on campus. iStock-2263192943

BEND, Oregon – A lawfully armed citizen stopped an active shooter inside Silver Rail Elementary School on October 15, 2026, after the attacker had already killed three children and a teacher. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz confirmed that the community member saw the 16-year-old suspect enter the building, pursued him inside, and engaged him. Officers arrived roughly three minutes after the first 911 call and found the suspect already dead, according to Fox News.

The suspect, a Bend resident armed with a pump-action shotgun, first fired at a vehicle in the parking lot around 12:59 p.m. He then forced entry by shooting the locked exterior doors. Inside, he killed children ages 5, 8, and 11, along with a teacher. A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were critically wounded. Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News the intervening citizen held a valid concealed carry permit and that his actions “definitely prevented more deaths.” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek publicly praised the intervention as heroic.

Gun Free Zones Created the Soft Target

Bend-La Pine Schools maintains a clear firearms ban on district property. Board Policy KGBB-BP, adopted after Oregon’s 2021 Senate Bill 554, states that no person may possess a firearm on school grounds except for unloaded firearms locked in a vehicle. The policy specifically rejects the ordinary Oregon exception for concealed handgun license holders. Staff, volunteers, and visitors are prohibited from carrying. The district posts notices and treats violations as trespassing offenses. Students face mandatory expulsion for firearms violations under state and federal rules.

Newsweek reported that the district chose to close the concealed handgun license exception so it could “complete the commitment” of gun-free schools. The district policy page makes the prohibition explicit.

Screenshot of Bend-La Pine Schools Board Policy, Firearms Prohibited. Reviewed 10/2021. Approved 12/14/2021.

These rules did exactly what gun-control advocates claim they do: they kept law-abiding adults disarmed. The 16-year-old ignored the signs, the policy, and the locked doors. He brought a long gun, shot his way in, and began killing children. The only person who stopped him was a private citizen who did not treat the school’s posted prohibition as binding when lives were at stake. Police response time—three minutes from the first call—was objectively fast. It was still too slow for the children already dead or dying.

AmmoLand has long documented how gun-free zones function as criminal safe spaces. Federal and state school-zone laws, including the Gun-Free School Zones Act, expand the problem far beyond the building itself. A determined attacker faces no meaningful barrier from a locked door when he is willing to shoot through it. Staff and parents who obey the policy are left with whatever is on hand—or nothing.

The Second Amendment Exists for This Moment

The right to keep and bear arms is an individual right that predates the Constitution. The Founders understood that government cannot be everywhere and that free people must retain the means to resist criminal violence themselves. District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen simply confirmed what the text has always said: “shall not be infringed” is not a suggestion subject to modern risk assessments by school boards.

Crime Prevention Research Center data, covered repeatedly by AmmoLand, shows armed citizens stop a substantial share of active-shooter events where lawful carry is permitted—far higher than the FBI’s undercount. One analysis found armed civilians stopped more attacks than police and were less likely to be injured or killed in the process. CPRC research has documented massive undercounting of civilian interventions in the FBI’s active-shooter reports. Most defensive gun uses never become national headlines because the crime ends before it becomes a massacre. The CDC’s restored figures, which AmmoLand reported, place annual defensive gun uses in the range of 500,000 to 2.5 million.

Recent AmmoLand reporting has shown the same pattern in everyday settings: an armed shopper stopped a violent assault inside a Dollar General and faced no charges, and a 77-year-old woman defended herself outside a veterinary hospital. The Bend case is the same principle applied to the softest of soft targets.

Policy Failure, Not a Call for More Disarmament

The Bend-La Pine policy, like similar bans across Oregon and the country, rests on the claim that fewer guns in schools equal fewer shootings. Thursday’s attack demonstrates the opposite. The prohibition applied to the people who were not trying to murder children. It did not apply to the person who was. The armed citizen’s decision to pursue and engage the shooter is the only reason the death toll stopped at four instead of climbing further while officers were still arriving.

No background check, magazine capacity limit, or “assault weapon” definition would have altered the sequence once the attacker chose to act. The firearm he used was a common pump-action shotgun. The only variable that changed the outcome was the presence of another firearm in the hands of a private citizen who was willing to use it immediately.

Schools that post “gun-free” signs and enforce bans on lawful carry are choosing to leave children as soft targets. The alternative is not chaos. It is the recognition that the Second Amendment protects the means for ordinary people—parents, staff, visitors—to respond when the state cannot.

The armed citizen in Bend exercised that right. The children who survived because he did so are evidence that “shall not be infringed” is not abstract. It is the difference between more victims and a stopped attack.

Related: Research: Armed Citizens MORE Effective Than Police at Stopping Active Shooters

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Third Circuit Rejects Lifetime Gun Ban Over Decades-Old DUI Conviction

The Third Circuit ruled that the federal firearm prohibition could not constitutionally continue to disarm Edward Williams over his 2005 DUI conviction. iStock-1413053043

Edward Williams spent nine years fighting the federal government for the right to keep a firearm to defend himself and his family. His disqualifying offense was a Pennsylvania DUI conviction from 2005.

On October 13, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the government could not constitutionally continue disarming him. The 8–6 decision in Williams v. Attorney General rejects the idea that a conviction carrying a sufficiently long possible sentence automatically gives Washington authority to strip a person of Second Amendment rights for life.

A companion ruling, United States v. Bost, upheld a firearm conviction tied to an earlier conviction for violent threats. Together, the decisions strengthen constitutional challenges to automatic disarmament while leaving a fundamental question unresolved: How does an offense committed decades ago justify a lifetime prohibition after punishment is complete?

A State Misdemeanor Became a Lifetime Gun Ban

Williams’s case illustrates how broadly the federal prohibition reaches. His 2005 DUI conviction followed an earlier DUI offense and involved a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.16%. Pennsylvania classified the offense as a misdemeanor, but its maximum possible five-year sentence triggered 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

The federal restriction turns on the possible punishment, rather than simply the state’s label or the sentence actually imposed. Williams received a sentence of ninety days to two years, with the custodial portion served at home.

According to the majority, Williams relinquished his firearms after his attorney advised him in 2015 that the conviction prohibited possession. He filed his constitutional challenge in 2017.

Writing for the court, Judge Paul Matey opened by recognizing the Second Amendment’s purpose:

“The Second Amendment is a primary protection against tyranny, a strong bulwark securing American liberty, and an indispensable means of defending the public good.”

That understanding requires government to justify restrictions through constitutional text and historical tradition. Legislators cannot settle the question merely by assigning an offense a particular sentencing range. 2026.10.13_140_OPINION

The ruling builds on the court’s Range precedent protecting a man with a nonviolent food-stamp-fraud conviction, a fight AmmoLand has previously covered.

Historical Restrictions Did Not Justify Williams’s Continued Disarmament

The Justice Department relied on historical laws addressing habitual drunkenness. But the court found those analogues insufficient to justify keeping Williams disarmed. Many involved confinement or guardianship for limited periods. They did not establish a tradition of continuing to deny firearm rights after an individual’s release and reintegration into society.

The record also showed that Williams had gone more than twenty years without violent conduct, maintained employment at the same job for more than three decades, and undergone an expert examination finding no addiction or violent tendencies. Nothing suggested he had dangerously misused firearms.

The government had failed to establish the historical justification needed for its restriction. The court affirmed Williams’s victory rather than sending him back for another round of factfinding. In his analysis on X, Second Amendment Foundation Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros highlighted the duration issue, explaining that historical restrictions addressing drunkenness were not lifetime gun-possession bans. He identified that distinction as an argument advanced in the amicus brief his side submitted.

This was one of the main arguments in our amicus brief too: while there were certainly laws in the past allowing drunkards to be disarmed, they were not lifetime bans on gun possession.

That is the closest analogue and is directly on point, and there is no need for a more general “nuanced approach” here.

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) October 13, 2026

The majority also rejected a standard allowing government to disarm people simply because officials consider them irresponsible:

“We find no history that supports disarming irresponsible people, where ‘responsible’ is defined by the whim of the sovereign or the will of the majority.”

Bost Leaves the Lifetime-Ban Question Unresolved

The court upheld Bost’s firearm conviction by a 12–2 vote, but the disagreement over its reasoning exposes a major unresolved problem with lifetime gun bans.

Judge Stephanos Bibas’s principal opinion identified two historical approaches to disarmament: individualized judicial findings that someone threatened physical violence, and restrictions targeting groups considered disloyal or dangerous to the political community. The court concluded that Bost’s 2002 conviction for terroristic threats supplied a sufficient basis for disarming him.

But the duration of those historical restrictions matters. Surety requirements and restraints addressing individual threats were temporary. Many group-based restrictions could also be lifted when the perceived threat ended or the individual demonstrated loyalty. Those examples do not automatically establish a tradition of permanently disarming Americans after they have completed their punishment.

That is the strongest constitutional argument in Bost’s favor, and one Kostas Moros emphasized in his analysis: the conviction was more than twenty years old. The question is whether that past offense can justify continuing to deny an enumerated right for the rest of someone’s life.

Judge Peter Phipps, joined by Judge Emil Bove, dissented on precisely that ground. They found no historical analogue supporting the presumptively permanent disarmament of people who have completed their punishment and returned to society. The majority upheld Bost’s conviction but left unresolved what later showing could overcome the presumption that his old conviction justifies continued disarmament.

That dispute deserves continued scrutiny. A historical basis for addressing a present threat does not, by itself, answer how long government may deprive someone of an enumerated right.

Constitutional Relief Cannot Wait on Government Promises

Both decisions also preserved access to judicial relief despite the revived federal rights-restoration process under § 925(c).

Bost did not have to obtain administrative permission before presenting a constitutional defense. The Williams majority likewise refused to postpone its duty based on promises about future administrative relief, although several separate opinions favored requiring exhaustion in future civil cases.

These were individual constitutional challenges; the court did not erase § 922(g)(1) nationwide. Williams nevertheless secured an important victory against automatic, continuing disarmament.

Government does not own the right to armed self-defense. It bears the burden of justifying its restrictions, including their duration. A conviction label cannot replace that constitutional obligation, and a discretionary restoration program cannot excuse courts from enforcing the Bill of Rights.

Related: DOJ Opens Investigation Into Pennsauken, NJ for Egregious Firearm Permit Delays

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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DOJ Opens Investigation Into Pennsauken, NJ for Egregious Firearm Permit Delays

A stack of firearm permit applications sits on a desk while law-abiding citizens wait — the exact kind of delay the DOJ is now investigating in Pennsauken, New Jersey, as a potential violation of the Second Amendment. iStock-499330617

Pennsauken Township Police face federal scrutiny for allegedly using unjust delays to deny residents their right to keep and bear arms. This is the same Second Amendment Section playbook AmmoLand has documented from Los Angeles County’s multi-year carry-permit black hole to Minnesota’s permission-slips and the rest of the blue-state schemes that treat the right to keep and bear arms as optional.

On October 14, 2026, the Department of Justice opened an investigation to determine whether Pennsauken, New Jersey, deprives citizens of their right to bear arms through egregious and unjust delays in issuing firearm licenses. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear firearms — including the right to carry firearms. The investigation focuses on the Pennsauken Township Police’s permitting system and explicitly does not support any armed obstruction of federal or local law enforcement.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division stated:

“I have directed the Civil Rights Division, through our Second Amendment Section, to defend law-abiding citizens from local authorities who infringe on the right to safely carry legal firearms. Our investigation aims to discover if allegations of unconstitutional delays in firearm permitting are true, and if so, to fix it.”

The DOJ was direct. It is a violation of the Second Amendment for government officials to delay issuing permits to purchase or carry firearms. In 2022, the Supreme Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen that a state’s permitting process is put towards “abusive ends” when “lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.” The release states that Pennsauken, through the Pennsauken Township Police Department, is alleged to use just such “abusive ends” to improperly limit Second Amendment rights.

Dhillon reinforced the point on X: the Civil Rights Division is investigating whether Pennsauken is preventing residents from timely obtaining purchase permits to legally acquire firearms, and “the right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution for every American—it is not a second-class right.”

The @CivilRights Division is investigating whether Pennsauken, NJ, is preventing residents from timely obtaining purchase permits to legally acquire firearms. The right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution for every American—it is not a second-class right!

https://t.co/B0vlZLoS7r

— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) October 14, 2026

The Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment Section enforces the Second Amendment. Residents who believe their rights are being infringed can submit a complaint.

Delays Are a Denial of Rights, Not “Process”

This is not a technical dispute over paperwork speed. Bruen confirmed that ordinary, law-abiding Americans have an individual right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. A licensing system that strings people along with egregious delays makes that right meaningless in practice. What the Constitution forbids the government from prohibiting outright, it also forbids the government from suppressing through bureaucratic paralysis. A right delayed is a right denied.

New Jersey has long operated under some of the most restrictive firearms laws in the country. Permitting authorities in the Garden State have a documented history of waits, conditions, and slow-walking that go well beyond any legitimate public-safety function. The DOJ’s investigation into Pennsauken is the logical next application of a pattern AmmoLand has covered extensively under the current administration.

DOJ’s Second Amendment Push

The Pennsauken probe sits squarely in the line of affirmative actions the Civil Rights Division has taken since the creation of the dedicated Second Amendment Section. It also follows a pattern of lawsuits from the Trump administration’s DOJ.

On September 30, 2025, the Civil Rights Division filed its first affirmative lawsuit on behalf of gun owners against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. That complaint alleged thousands of carry applications sat for extreme periods (average delays to the next step in the hundreds of days, some stretching beyond a thousand days) while almost no licenses were issued. AmmoLand later covered the proposed settlement that, if approved, places LASD under multi-year reporting, DOJ verification, and federal-court enforcement. The delay was treated as a constitutional injury, not as bad customer service.

Also in September 2026, another lawsuit, this time against Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, over the state’s purchase-permit system and waiting periods that routinely ran past the statutory window and into the 60-day range. Dhillon stated that law-abiding citizens do not need government permission to purchase a firearm and that forcing people who have already cleared a background check to wait is intolerable. The need for defense of home, family, and property is most acute now, not thirty to sixty days from now. AmmoLand noted that the suit challenges the broader idea of permission slips and that a right delayed is a right denied.

There have also been DOJ actions against Montgomery County, Maryland’s sweeping 100-yard carry exclusion zones (framed as a pattern or practice of police misconduct under federal civil-rights statutes), San Jose’s high carry fees and mandatory psychological testing (later expanded to the gun-insurance mandate), and Denver’s long-standing AR-15 ban. Across these cases the through-line is the same: the Second Amendment is a full civil right enforceable against state and local officials the same way other rights are enforced. Local governments cannot invent work-arounds — delay, fee, testing, insurance, or geographic bans — to nullify what the text and Bruen protect.

The Pennsauken investigation is the latest data point in that record. It is aimed at a New Jersey township whose police department is alleged to have used the same abusive-ends tactic Bruen flagged. Readers who have experienced lengthy waits, unexplained holds, or slow responses on purchase or carry permits in Pennsauken or elsewhere in the state have a clear avenue to document it with the Second Amendment Section.

Shall Not Be Infringed

Permitting schemes themselves sit in tension with the plain text of the Second Amendment. The right is preexisting; government does not create it and does not get to condition it on its own convenience. Even under the most generous reading of Bruen’s discussion of shall-issue regimes, lengthy wait times that deny ordinary citizens their right are unconstitutional. The DOJ is now investigating whether that is happening in Pennsauken.

This is enforcement, not negotiation. The Trump administration’s Civil Rights Division, through the Second Amendment Section under Harmeet Dhillon, has treated the right to keep and bear arms as non-negotiable. AmmoLand’s ongoing coverage has documented the lawsuits, the settlements, the quotes, and the pattern. The Pennsauken investigation is the newest chapter. Citizens who believe their rights are being delayed into oblivion should file the complaint. The right shall not be infringed — and the federal government is finally saying so in New Jersey.

Related: Gun Controllers Predicted a Bloodbath. Murders Fell as Gun Rights Expanded.

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Corporate Gun Control Gets a Reality Check in New Gallup Poll

NSSF connects new polling on corporate activism with customer backlash against gun-control policies and financial institutions’ reversals. iStock-2289177440

Corporate executives who turn their businesses into political platforms should stop assuming their customers are on board. New Gallup polling shows most Americans do not want companies taking public positions on current events—a warning for corporations that have embraced gun control.

In an October 13 commentary, NSSF’s Larry Keane connects that finding to a familiar problem for gun owners: businesses treating opposition to the Second Amendment as a corporate virtue while expecting customers to keep spending.

Most Americans Want Less Corporate Politics

The 2026 Bentley-Gallup Business in Society survey found that 47% of adults support businesses taking public positions on current events, down four percentage points from 2025. Fifty-three percent oppose it.

Support splits sharply by party: 62% of Democrats favor corporate statements, compared with 45% of independents and 28% of Republicans. Even Democrats’ support fell nine percentage points.

Among employees, 56% said their own employers should not communicate positions on current events. The survey questioned 3,270 adults from May 4 to 11.

The results do not establish a blanket rejection of corporate advocacy. Majorities still support statements on specific subjects, including free speech, climate change and DEI. Nor does the poll measure opposition to gun-control policies specifically. news.gallup.com

But executives cannot reasonably assume that adopting an activist agenda represents everyone buying their products or working behind their counters.

Dick’s Learned Gun Owners Can Shop Elsewhere

Keane points to Dick’s Sporting Goods as an example of the commercial consequences. After the 2018 Parkland murders, Dick’s stopped selling modern sporting rifles and raised its firearm purchase age to 21. It also hired Washington lobbyists to advocate for additional gun restrictions. NSSF’s board unanimously expelled the retailer.

A company choosing its inventory is making a merchandising decision. Hiring lobbyists to restrict what Americans can buy from other businesses makes those Americans political targets.

NSSF cites approximately $300 million in lost sales following customers’ departures. The backlash showed that customers could reject its agenda with their wallets by shopping elsewhere.

Gun owners have no obligation to finance lobbying against their rights. A retailer cannot reasonably expect loyalty from people whose lawful purchases it wants politicians to prohibit.

For customers, this is a straightforward choice about where their dollars go. Businesses that respect lawful gun ownership can earn that business. Companies working to undermine it should expect to lose it.

Banks Have Also Reconsidered Corporate Gun Control

The same problem becomes more consequential when businesses control financial services. As AmmoLand reported, Citigroup dropped its firearms-specific policy in June 2025. JPMorgan Chase followed with a documented lending reversal, confirming in January 2026 that it had removed a restriction targeting civilian modern sporting rifle manufacturers.

Chase acknowledged that some anticipated risks were smaller than expected—and that rejecting prospective customers carries risks, too.

That admission cuts through years of corporate posturing. Lawful firearm manufacturers are businesses with employees, customers and commercial value. Treating their products as politically unacceptable can mean turning away worthwhile business.

Keane also identifies reversals involving Stripe, Circle, Bill.com and Ramp. Those developments reinforce the need to challenge restrictions rather than accept corporate gun control as inevitable. www.nssf.org

The poll does not prove political activism caused any particular financial loss. It does challenge the assumption that corporate political statements enjoy broad public backing.

The Second Amendment belongs to the people. Executives who campaign against it should expect gun owners to remember when choosing where to spend their money. Corporate America is free to speak, and gun owners are free to take their wallets elsewhere.

Related: ATF’s NFA Retreat: Restoring Gun Rights and Pushing for Repeal

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Armed Shopper Stops Attack on Mother and Daughter, Faces No Charges

Valdosta police say an armed shopper stopped an October 1 attack on a woman and her teenage daughter inside this Dollar General. The shopper will face no charges. iStock-901659046

Valdosta, Georgia – A Georgia man who used his firearm to stop a violent attack inside a Dollar General will face no charges, according to police. The armed shopper intervened when a man began beating a woman and her teenage daughter, then fired when the attacker turned on him.

The October 1 shooting in Valdosta illustrates exactly why the right to carry matters. A woman needed immediate protection, and an armed citizen was there to provide it. Police Chief Leslie Manahan credited the shopper with stopping the assault and preventing further injuries.

Armed Citizen Intervenes During Beating

According to the Valdosta Police Department’s account, reported by WCTV, officers were dispatched to the Dollar General in the 2100 block of Bemiss Road around 4:50 p.m. after a caller reported a man beating a woman. While officers were responding, dispatch received another update: someone had been shot.

Investigators said Tevin Jay Love, 32, entered the store while his girlfriend was shopping with her teenage daughter and began striking the woman in the head. When the daughter attempted to stop the assault, Love struck her, too.

A 28-year-old man shopping in the store witnessed the attack and drew his firearm to stop it. The woman was able to get away.

Police said the shopper attempted to hold Love at gunpoint, but Love charged him and began hitting him. The shopper fired one round, striking Love in the torso.

Responding officers located the armed citizen in the parking lot and detained him without incident. Inside, they found Love wounded and being restrained by another person. Officers provided first aid before he was taken to a hospital. The woman also received hospital treatment and was later released, according to the initial police account.

Police Say Defender Will Not Face Charges

In its October 12 follow-up, WALB reported that police confirmed the shopper would not face charges.

Love was released from the hospital October 9 and taken to the Lowndes County Jail. He faces charges of terroristic threats, aggravated assault, simple battery and simple assault.

Manahan publicly praised the citizen’s intervention, saying his actions stopped the attack and prevented the woman from suffering additional violent injuries. The chief also recognized that the shopper put himself in danger by stepping in.

Drawing the firearm allowed the woman to escape. The shopper fired after the attacker charged and began striking him, according to investigators.

The firearm served both purposes gun owners understand well: stopping violence against another person and providing the means to defend yourself when the threat turns toward you.

The Right to Carry Protects Real People

Gun-control arguments routinely treat carrying a firearm into an ordinary business as a problem waiting to happen. For the woman being beaten inside this store, an armed shopper provided an opportunity to get away.

Someone had already called 911. Officers were already coming. The attack still required an immediate response from someone at the scene.

The Second Amendment protects the right of ordinary Americans to keep and bear arms. Exercising that right can become critically important during something as routine as an afternoon shopping trip.

No one should have to overpower a violent attacker with bare hands to survive a beating. Nor should a person’s ability to protect a mother and daughter depend entirely on how quickly responding officers can reach a store.

In Valdosta, an armed citizen intervened, the woman escaped, and police say the defender faces no charges. That is a defensive gun use worth reporting, and a practical reason to defend the right to carry.

Related: Virginia Students Sue Over Under-21 Gun Purchase Ban and Private-Sale Restrictions

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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California Medical Association’s Moral Failure on Suppressors

Hearing specialists endorse firearm suppressors to reduce hearing-loss risk, especially when combined with conventional hearing protection. IMG Jim Grant

During my senior year in medical school, a madman in town randomly attacked several people with a hammer, slaying two and injuring eight others. Our chief of plastic surgery, a noted reconstructive surgeon, repaired the killer’s flexor tendons after he had attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. “He can hold a hammer again,” our teacher wryly noted after the successful trauma surgery. But with that bit of dark humor, he reinforced to us students a revered tenet of medical ethics—the principle of non-maleficence. That is, a doctor should never in the course of his or her professional work willfully do harm to another person. And that goes for the least among us, even a vile murderer.

The California Medical Association (CMA), in a callous move, has chosen to expedite harm to a group of people its leaders have held in contempt for decades—gun owners. Specifically, the CMA has refused to approve a resolution endorsing firearm suppressors (sometimes inaccurately called silencers) for hearing protection. These doctors, although they will furiously deny it to themselves and us, wish permanent and untreatable hearing loss on gun owners.

A little background here—in just a few years suppressors have been transformed, in the public mind, from an Al Capone-era gangster movie prop to a standard firearm accessory available in most states and widely across Europe. All but eight states and the District of Columbia have made suppressors legal, and the federal government has repealed the $200 “transfer tax” enacted in the 1930s to try to limit their use. A federal court has recently struck down the federal tax law that, oddly, still required the onerous registration process.

In just a few years, suppressors have become the go-to hearing protection device for America’s 80 million gun owners. As of July 1, 2026, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) reported 6.5 million suppressors (ATF still calls them “silencers”) registered to American gun owners. These would be hunters and sport shooters, since criminals almost never use suppressors and are disinclined to volunteer for fingerprinting, photos, and entering their names into a federal law enforcement database.

Although the public is still coming around to the truth that suppressors are used by normal people for hearing protection and are not preferred tools of gun-wielding criminals, the science has become well-established. Suppressors help prevent irreversible and untreatable inner ear hearing loss by reducing the punishing noise of gunshots. This noise has long been known to damage the delicate sensory cells of the inner ear.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology have gone on record in support of suppressors. Noted ear surgeon Roberto A. Cueva, MD, a former president of the prestigious American Otological Society, was a co-author of the AAO-HNS position statement in support of suppressors for hearing protection (disclosure—I was a coauthor as well). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has pronounced suppressors “The only potentially effective noise control method to reduce [shooters’] noise exposure from gunfire.” Suppressors are the very definition of an effective primary public health intervention.

So, why doesn’t the California Medical Association, whose mission statement claims “to promote…the protection of the public health,” heartily lend its official support? The reason becomes clear when we review some history.

A year and a half ago I submitted a resolution through the CMA’s established process for members, for approval by its House of Delegates, the CMA’s policy-making committee. The resolution simply calls for the CMA to endorse suppressors and recommend making their use legal by Californians (mere possession is a crime in California). By the rules, I first submitted it through the two local county medical societies representing doctors in my area. The local societies refused to support the resolution. When asked for a reason, the chair of the local House of Delegates district, family doctor Anupam Gupta, MD, replied “The district members decided not to back the resolution citing alignment with CMA’s existing stance on guns. They also discussed if the issue was Germaine [sic] to the health policy discussion and thought it wouldn’t be a policy to focus on by the CMA.”

From Dr. Gupta’s flippant non-answer emerges a kernel of truth—the CMA’s existing stance on guns has been to support every gun control law endangering California gun owners passed in the last three decades. And that’s quite a few.

One example among many is the notorious Proposition 63, a 2016 California ballot initiative that prohibited continuing to possess firearm magazines holding more than ten rounds. This law, part of which has been struck down in federal court, created a new class of criminals out of people who had not been criminals before. As federal district court judge Roger Benitez wrote in his injunction, “any previously law-abiding person in California who still possesses a firearm magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds will begin their new life of crime.”

Do California Medical Association leaders really harbor such small-minded hatred for people who engage in the ages-old American tradition of gun ownership? Are they so spiteful or callous that they want gun owners not only to suffer an irreversible disability, but to be thrown in prison if they dare to put a muffler on their gun?

The suppressor-support resolution remains in limbo, stalled in a tortuous and glacial process at CMA headquarters. A year and a half now after I submitted the resolution, CMA staff will only tell me that the resolution has been held off from consideration until “a later cycle,” and that it has been assigned an agenda priority of dead last in a list of 18 submitted resolutions. Thus the CMA, in its passive-aggressive way, has made it clear that it has no intention of even considering it.

The CMA prides itself as a champion of “the science and art of medicine, the care and well-being of patients, the protection of the public health, the betterment of the medical profession, and…health equity and justice.” But it lacks the decency and basic human compassion to support that health for a particular class of people it has only contempt for—gun owners. For this, the leaders of the California Medical Association should be deeply ashamed.

Related: Everytown’s $10 Million Push Targets Eight House Races and Gun Rights

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About Timothy Wheeler:

Timothy Wheeler, MD is a retired head and neck surgeon living in southern California. He is Director Emeritus of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation. Dr. Wheeler got his training at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University Hospitals, and the Cleveland Clinic. He has authored dozens of opinion articles on the medical profession’s culture war on gun owners, appeared on national TV and multiple radio programs, has testified before California Senate and U.S. Senate and House committees on matters of guns and public health, and recently has authored a resolution endorsing firearm suppressors for hearing protection, adopted by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

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