James O’Keefe said a Florida judge removed firearm surrender provisions after law enforcement collected his guns from his West Palm Beach newsroom. iStock-901659046
A Florida judge has overturned the firearms prohibition placed on journalist James O’Keefe just one day after West Palm Beach police entered his newsroom headquarters and confiscated all of his firearms.
O’Keefe announced the victory on social media. “Judge Marie E. Mato has just OVERTURNED the firearms prohibition placed upon me in the state of Florida,” O’Keefe wrote. “Order forthcoming. At a hearing in Miami this morning, the Judge Mato stated: ‘Mr. O’Keefe you are free to pickup your firearms in West Palm Beach at the Sheriff’s Office.'”
Judge Marie E. Mato has just OVERTURNED the firearms prohibition placed upon me in the state of Florida.
Order forthcoming. At a hearing in Miami this morning, the Judge Mato stated:
“Mr. O’Keefe you are free to pickup your firearms in West Palm Beach at the Sheriff’s Office.”…
Judge Marie E. Mato acknowledged O’Keefe’s compliance with the prior order despite his objections. “I appreciate your compliance Mr. O’Keefe with this court’s order despite your objection,” Judge Mato said. “But I’m deleting those provisions.”
The episode stems from a bitter dispute between O’Keefe and Matthew Tyrmand, a former Project Veritas board member. In February 2026, O’Keefe released undercover footage in which Tyrmand allegedly admitted to being an FBI informant against conservative organizations and made statements about wanting to kill O’Keefe. The footage also showed Tyrmand having shot rifle bullets through a physical copy of O’Keefe’s book Breakthrough, through the image of O’Keefe’s heart on the cover.
Rather than face legal consequences for these statements, Tyrmand filed a domestic violence stalking temporary restraining order against O’Keefe in Miami-Dade family court. O’Keefe has described the move as a “heckler’s veto” and a form of legal harassment.
A Miami-Dade family court judge initially granted and later extended the restraining order. The order included a firearm surrender provision compelling O’Keefe to disclose and hand over all of his weapons. On the evening of April 23, West Palm Beach Police entered O’Keefe’s newsroom at his O’Keefe Media Group headquarters and physically confiscated all of his firearms. O’Keefe livestreamed and documented the entire event.
O’Keefe’s attorneys immediately sought emergency relief. They argued that Florida law and U.S. Supreme Court precedent do not permit firearm confiscation based on mere hunches without evidence of a credible direct threat. “In Florida law, it’s very clear, it’s consistent with what the Supreme Court has said about this,” O’Keefe’s attorney Benjamin Barr explained. “You can’t just deprive people of firearms based on hunches and guesses.”
The very next day, Judge Marie Mato held a hearing in Miami and reversed the firearms prohibition. She ordered O’Keefe’s guns returned to him at the West Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.
O’Keefe’s legal team called the ruling a Second Amendment victory, explicitly linking the case to the Supreme Court standard that firearm rights cannot be stripped absent a real, credible, demonstrated threat of violence. However, the broader restraining order remains in place. This includes First Amendment restrictions on O’Keefe’s continued investigative reporting. His team has filed an emergency appeal and emergency stay, citing the First Amendment.
O’Keefe has invoked landmark First Amendment cases including Near v. Minnesota and New York Times v. United States, calling the injunction unconstitutional prior restraint against a newsroom.
The broader Second Amendment community has raised concerns that red flag gun confiscation orders can be used to strip gun rights from people who have not committed any crime and against whom no credible direct threat has been established. Gun Owners of America and the Second Amendment Foundation have been extremely active in 2026, challenging firearm confiscations tied to restraining orders and red flag procedures.
The O’Keefe case serves as a stark reminder that threats to Second Amendment rights exist in every state, including those with reputations for being gun-friendly. Florida may have strong firearms protections on the books, but civil court mechanisms like temporary restraining orders can still be weaponized to strip law-abiding citizens of their constitutional rights without any criminal charge or conviction.
Gun owners across America should recognize that the battle for the Second Amendment is never truly won and that vigilance is required, whether you live in a red state or a blue state. The legal infrastructure for disarmament exists everywhere, and only constant pushback prevents it from being used against you.
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.
Attorneys in one of three cases challenging registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles have filed for summary judgment. It’s the latest move to remove NFA restrictions. Image Duncan Johnson
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act (NFA) have filed a motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Covington Division, one of three legal actions now in progress seeking to undo registration requirements for short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and suppressors (“silencers”).
The case is known as Roberts v. ATF, and it is supported by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), which is involved as a plaintiff in a separate legal action known as Brown v. ATF. There is also a third case supported by SAF, known as Jensen v. ATF.
All three legal actions are grounded in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed last summer, which eliminated the $200 tax on certain classes of firearms, including SBRs and suppressors.
According to SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, “We have the best opportunity in almost a century to end the registration scheme for silencers and short-barreled rifles under the NFA.”
Gottlieb said SAF has seized the moment—a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” in his words—to support three separate cases challenging the NFA all at the same time. He expressed confidence that SAF and other plaintiffs will prevail.
The cast of characters includes quite a lineup.
In the Brown case, filed in Missouri, plaintiffs, in addition to SAF, are Chris Brown, for whom the case is named, plus Allen Mayville, Prime Protection STL, the National Rifle Association, American Suppressor Association, and the Firearms Policy Coalition.
In the Jensen case, filed in Texas, plaintiffs are John Jensen, for whom the case is named, plus the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, FPC Action Foundation, Hot Shots Custom, the Texas State Rifle Association, plus citizens Jeremy Neusch and David Lynn Smith.
The Roberts case involves T.J. Roberts, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), the American Suppressor Association Foundation, Buckeye Firearms Association, Center for Human Liberty, Meridian Ordnance, and Zachary Cockrell. JPFO is a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.
At stake in all of these cases is the chance to erase a registration requirement dating back to the 1930s, when the National Firearms Act was passed. Because the $200 tax was eliminated by Trump’s legislation last year, the requirement should be null because the tax justifying registration no longer exists.
Attorney Bill Sack, SAF director of Legal Operations, said in a prepared statement, “As we’ve stated in each of our three National Firearms Act challenges, Congress lacks the authority to continue requiring the registration of protected arms under the NFA. The Court has everything they need to put this case to bed and end this infringement on the rights of Americans nationwide.”
Back in August 2025, when SAF and its partners filed the Brown case, SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut explained the principle behind each lawsuit.
“The National Firearms Act’s registration scheme only exists to ensure that the tax on NFA firearms was paid,” Kraut said. “With Congress removing the tax on silencers, short-barreled firearms, and ‘any other weapons,’ the continued inclusion of these items in the NFA serves no purpose, except continuing to retain an impermissible hurdle to the exercise of one’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We look forward to relegating this unconstitutional law to the history books.”
The motion for summary judgment in the Roberts case is just the latest strategic step in the process. With cases in three separate circuits, it should be impossible for the Supreme Court to ignore, should these cases advance to that level.
In February, the NRA noted in a statement about the Roberts case, “The complaint also asserts that the NFA’s registration regime for suppressors and short-barreled rifles violates the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has established that any regulation on arms-bearing conduct must be consistent with our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. And, the complaint argues, there is no tradition that supports the NFA’s registration regime for protected arms such as suppressors and short-barreled rifles.”
Under federal law, a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches, or certain firearms made from rifles with an overall length under 26 inches, is treated as a short-barreled rifle and remains subject to the NFA’s registration regime. Plaintiffs argue that SBRs are protected arms commonly possessed for lawful purposes and that the government cannot keep a tax-enforcement registration scheme in place after Congress reduced the relevant tax to zero.
Last August, Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association, noted, “The National Firearms Act has been a weight around the neck of law-abiding gun owners for nearly a century. With the elimination of the excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs through the One Big Beautiful Bill, our lawsuit challenges the NFA as an unconstitutional registry of now untaxed firearms. Common sense and the law are on our side, and we look forward to fighting on behalf of all Americans in Federal Court.”
Likewise, NRA’s John Cummerford stated, “Congress took a major step by eliminating the NFA tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms through the OBBB, and we’re proud to work alongside other leading Second Amendment organizations to finish the job.”
FPC President Brandon Combs called the NFA a “tyrannical abomination.” He said the law violates the Second Amendment and asserted, “Congress never had the lawful authority to pass it in the first place.”
Any case, or all three cases combined, successfully challenging the constitutionality of the NFA would literally set the gun control movement on its ears, and dramatically change the legal landscape where the Second Amendment is concerned. This is what makes these cases so important, and why both sides in the gun rights v. gun control battle are watching them closely.
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.
A suspect allegedly passed through California’s strict gun-control system, reached an equally restrictive Washington, D.C., and attacked a protected political event. So why are gun-control advocates demanding more restrictions on everyone else? iStock-876515334
Washington, D.C., has spent more than a century proving the same lesson the gun-control lobby refuses to learn: criminals, assassins, and would-be killers do not stop because a city council, legislature, or Congress passed another weapons law.
The latest reminder came at the Washington Hilton, the same hotel where John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
During the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 25, 2026, a suspect allegedly tried to breach security while President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Cabinet officials, journalists, and other guests were inside. According to Reuters, the hotel said the event was operating under strict Secret Service protocols when the suspect bypassed a checkpoint on the floor above the dinner and opened fire with a shotgun. A Secret Service agent was wounded, reportedly protected by a ballistic vest, and the suspect was arrested before reaching the ballroom.
The gun control crowd responded the same way it always does. They demanded more restrictions on the people who did not commit the crime.
“In an analysis, CNN’s Brian Stelter insinuated that nobody will consider tougher gun laws to prevent such an incident,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He should have looked at the facts before going off half-cocked.”
Gottlieb pointed out that the suspect reportedly purchased the shotgun and a handgun from two different California gun stores. The Washington Post, citing an FBI affidavit, reported that the suspect legally purchased the firearms in California in 2023 and 2025.
“He had to pass two California background checks and endure two separate waiting periods,” Gottlieb said. “It is widely known California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and the suspect was able to complete his legal purchases. Just what more does Stelter think could be done?”
California already has the background checks, waiting periods, gun restrictions, ammunition restrictions, and political class the anti-gun movement keeps trying to impose everywhere else. Washington, D.C., already has the registration laws, carry restrictions, and gun control bureaucracy they insist will make people safe.
Yet a determined attacker still allegedly traveled across the country with weapons, showed up at a protected political event, and tried to get past armed security in the nation’s capital.
Even Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche resisted the media’s rush to turn the attack into another legislative gun-control push. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan pressed Blanche about whether the federal government should consider new rules after the suspect reportedly traveled from California to D.C. by train with multiple weapons.
“Look, this isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms,” Blanche said.
When Brennan continued pressing the train-travel angle, Blanche again pushed back.
“I don’t think the narrative here is about changing laws or making our laws more restrictive,” he said. “This is about law enforcement who are doing their jobs and a suspect who tried to do something and failed miserably.”
Even after an armed attack at a high-profile political event in Washington, D.C., the acting attorney general was not willing to pretend another layer of gun laws was the obvious answer. Blanche said investigators were still working to determine how the suspect got the guns, whether he got them legally, and what additional federal charges may apply. But he made clear the immediate lesson was not “pass another gun law.” The immediate lesson was that Secret Service and law enforcement stopped the attack before the suspect got near the President or anyone else in the room.
Washington, D.C., already has the kind of gun laws they keep demanding for the rest of the country. D.C. law generally requires firearms to be registered. No person or organization in the District may possess or control a firearm without a valid registration certificate, subject to limited exceptions. D.C. law also makes it illegal to carry a pistol openly or concealed in the District without a D.C. carry license.
So what exactly did those laws stop?
They did not stop a determined attacker from showing up armed. They did not stop him from trying to get past security. They did not stop the first shot. What stopped him, according to the available reporting, was not a registration certificate, a carry ban, a waiting period, or a background check. It was armed people already on scene, ready to meet violent force with immediate force.
Gun control advocates treat the law-abiding citizen as the problem because the law-abiding citizen is the only person their laws can reliably control. The criminal who is willing to commit attempted murder, attack federal officers, or target a public event is not deterred by a paperwork requirement.
If the suspect purchased firearms legally in California, then he already passed through the very system gun-control activists claim will prevent these attacks.
California’s gun laws did not stop him. D.C.’s gun laws did not stop him. Armed, prepared people did.
Assassination attempts of U.S. Presidents in Washington, D.C. are unfortunately nothing new. Gun laws have always disarmed the law-abiding, while allowing violent criminals like John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and John Hinckley Jr. to commit horrible crimes.
President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, inside the old City of Washington. The city had already enacted an 1858 ordinance prohibiting the concealed carrying of pistols, dirks, Bowie knives, and other dangerous weapons. Yet John Wilkes Booth still carried a pistol into the theater and murdered the President.
President James A. Garfield was shot in 1881 at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. By then, the District had a 1871 law prohibiting the carrying of concealed deadly or dangerous weapons, including pistols, within the District. Yet Charles Guiteau still carried a revolver and shot the President.
President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 outside the Washington Hilton. By that time, D.C. had already adopted one of the harshest handgun-control schemes in the country. Yet John Hinckley Jr. still got a revolver to the scene and nearly killed a President.
Another interesting note is that the first two would also have been immune from magazine restrictions, semi-auto bans, and numerous other proposed gun control legislation. A person determined to commit violence will do so by any means necessary, gun control or no.
Now, in 2026, the Washington Hilton is again the scene of a violent attack in a city already buried under layers of gun laws.
The pattern is hard to miss.
Gun control does not disarm violent criminals. It disarms the peaceable. It creates soft targets. It tells ordinary citizens to obey, wait, hide, and hope someone else with a gun arrives in time.
Gottlieb put the focus where it belongs: on the attacker and on the hateful political climate surrounding the attempt.
“President Trump referred to the suspect as a ‘whack job’ and after reading his manifesto, that description seems appropriate,” Gottlieb observed. “That’s not to suggest this guy should be allowed to plead insanity, because his writings show he was in complete control of his faculties. He appears to be someone consumed by the vile, hate-filled rhetoric that’s been used against Donald Trump for more than ten years. This was not some spur-of-the-moment act.”
That point is worth sitting with. Tens of millions of American gun owners went through that weekend without shooting anyone, threatening anyone, or attempting to assassinate anyone. They did what they do every day: went to work, raised their families, carried responsibly where legal, and harmed no one.
“Tens of millions of gun owners—people whose rights too many in the media seem to disdain—didn’t hurt anyone Saturday night,” Gottlieb said. “We watched in shock with everyone else, as a California teacher, obviously overwhelmed by fanatical anti-Trump demagoguery, attempt to kill people. He will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but what about those who continue to spread their invective, hoping some harm comes to the president?”
That is the conversation media figures do not want to have. It is easier to blame guns than to examine a political culture that has spent years painting Donald Trump and his supporters as existential threats who must be stopped by any means necessary.
When the threat is seconds away, the answer is not another ordinance, another registration rule, another carry restriction, another waiting period, or another politician promising that the next law will work where the last hundred failed. The answer is immediate armed resistance from someone capable of stopping the threat before more innocent people are hurt.
At the Washington Hilton, that role fell to armed federal law enforcement. In the rest of America, it is often the armed citizen, the concealed carrier, the homeowner, the store clerk, the church volunteer, or the parent who refuses to be helpless.
That is why the Second Amendment matters. It is not a government-granted privilege for ideal conditions. It is a constitutional protection for the real world, where police cannot be everywhere, security checkpoints can be breached, and violent criminals do not care what the statute book says.
Proponents of gun control should stop hiding behind the claim that one more law, another infringement, or restriction is what they are looking for. They will not be satisfied until they have banned civilian ownership entirely.
The gun-control lobby will look at Washington, D.C., and demand more of what failed. Gun owners should look at the same facts and draw the obvious conclusion: laws that burden only the law-abiding do not stop evil men. Armed, prepared people do.
That was true in 1865. It was true in 1881. It was true in 1981. And it is still true today.
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.
I Voted sticker on a 30-round AR-15 magazine. IMG Jim Grant
“Virginia adopted an amendment to the Commonwealth’s constitution … allowing the state legislature to redraw the congressional map and swing up to four House of Representatives seats to Democrats — if the courts don’t step in to block the plan after the voters have spoken,” Democracy Docket reported Wednesday. “Republicans launched multiple legal challenges to the referendum that remain pending in state courts. In a pair of cases, the Supreme Court of Virginia decided to allow the referendum to go forward while the legal challenges were pending, while litigation in a third has only recently begun.”
“The ballot measure gives the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election,” Fox News reported when announcing election results. “It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.”
If the Constitutionality of the measure is upheld, the power of Democrats, already engaging in a feeding frenzy of for citizen disarmament edicts, will be increased exponentially in the Old Dominion, with far-reaching effects on the Republic as a whole. And it didn’t have to be this way.
Per NBC News, the amendment passed 51.5% to 48.5% with under 3.1 million votes cast. Roughly (97.22% of expected votes were in at time of publication), 1.6 million voted Democrat and 1.5 million voted Republican.
Per the Independent Voter Project, there are over 1.8 million registered Republicans in Virginia, and over 1million “Independents.”. And per Ammo.com’s “Gun Ownership by State,” 44.6% of households in Virginia own a gun.
Clearly, had more Republicans and gun owners been engaged and voted, the results – and the resulting dangers they pose in terms of “gun laws,” would have been very different. Then again, had a Get Out the Vote effort, sufficient to the task,been seriously mounted instead of ignored, the election that put Abigail Spanberger in power could also have been turned around, and the referendum would never have been advanced. This makes it fair to ask NRA “reform” board members if extraordinary efforts (outside of standard campaign mailers and social media posts) were made and resources expended to mobilize the membership, including bringing in grassroots coordinators from more secure and politically quieter “red” states to assist and lead. (Association management has proven in the past it can temporarily house “essential employees” when it serves their interests.)
Ultimately, though, the decision to vote or not, and claiming our rights and fulfilling our duties as fully enfranchised members of the Republic, is up to us and can’t be blamed on others for not encouraging us strongly enough. “Profiles in apathy” is and has been a real and pervasive threat, as has been citizenship malpractice.
It’s fair to wonder how many who won’t even do the bare minimum now, when things are easy, are prepared to face real and extended risks and losses should gun prohibitionist majorities become politically undefeatable, and that brings to mind two other threats most recognized “gun rights influencers” are unwilling to recognize.
The other is something very few gun commentators with a national voice have been willing to speak out on, with furious backlash from louder “gun establishment” voices trying to torpedo the discussion when it escapes the echo chamber: The immigration threat.
As Constitutional attorney (and two-time consecutive “Top Voice of the Second Amendment” Gundie Award winner Mark W. Smith of Four Boxes Diner cautions us in a new video titled “ BREAKING NEWS! DYSTOPIAN VIRGINIA REFERENDUM IS 2A NIGHTMARE!”:
“There is no more important issue to our Second Amendment movement than dealing with foreign born immigrants that will vote for the Democrats and a vote for the Democrats every single time is a vote for more gun control.”
He even quotes a paragraph I’ve been citing for years from a 2019 article in The New York Times, “How Voters Turned Virginia from Deep Red to Solid Blue”:
“Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,” said Vijay Katkuri, 38, a software engineer from southern India, explaining why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections… Mr. Katkuri’s vote — the first of his life — helped flip a longtime Republican State Senate district and deliver the Virginia statehouse to the Democratic Party for the first time in a generation… Once the heart of the confederacy, Virginia is now the land of Indian grocery stores, Korean churches and Diwali festivals… One in 10 people eligible to vote in the state were born outside the United States, up from one in 28 in 1990.
All of these—the results of the past Virginia election, the results of the redistricting referendum, the results of the upcoming primaries and midterm elections, and the willingness of membership gun groups to acknowledge the existential threat posed by cultural terraforming, have been or will be directly influenced by individual gun owner choices and actions. As will what comes after, if the choice is to do nothing.
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
The Supreme Court’s current docket and related lower-court litigation could shape the next phase of Second Amendment law after Bruen. iStock-2264399815
The 2025–2026 Supreme Court term marks a decisive juncture in the post-Bruen era. While administrative agencies and state legislatures have sought to circumvent the High Court’s mandates through regulatory “lawfare,” the current docket presents a fundamental challenge to these tactics. The Court is already considering major Second Amendment questions involving public carry and prohibited-person statutes, while pending cert petitions and lower-court litigation could tee up the next fights over common-use arms and NFA registration.
The current Supreme Court docket and related lower-court litigation could define the next phase of post-Bruen Second Amendment law: public carry, prohibited-person statutes, common-use arms, and the future of NFA registration after the tax was reduced to zero.
Key Firearms Cases: 2025–2026 Supreme Court Term
Case Synopses and Legal Analysis
I. The “Sensitive Places” Doctrine and Public Carry
Synopsis: Petitioners challenge Hawaii’s Act 52, which establishes a “default rule” prohibiting the carrying of firearms on all private property open to the public unless the owner provides express authorization.
Legal Analysis: This “Vampire Rule” effectively nullifies the right to “bear” arms by rendering it a presumptive trespass. The Court is tasked with deciding if such a broad-brush designation violates the standard set in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). The case could also give the Court another opportunity to address how lower courts should weigh Founding-era and Reconstruction-era history when applying Bruen.
II. The Scope of “The People” and Prohibited Persons
Synopsis: These cases represent a pincer movement against the categorical disarmament of citizens under § 922(g). United States v. Mitchell involves a § 922(g)(1) felon-in-possession prosecution where the predicate felony was a prior § 922(g)(3) unlawful-user firearms conviction. The government has asked the Court to hold the case pending Hemani.
Legal Analysis: Following United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 574 (2024), the government must prove a “history and tradition” for disarming individuals. In Hemani, the Court is exploring whether “habitual use” of a substance, absent a showing of physical dangerousness, is a constitutionally sufficient basis for total disarmament. This will determine whether the Second Amendment’s protections extend to all “People” who are not demonstrably “dangerous” to others.
Synopsis: Viramontes v. Cook County challenges Cook County’s ban on so-called “assault weapons,” including AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles. The petition asks whether these commonly owned firearms are protected “arms” under the Second Amendment and whether local governments may ban them by labeling them unusually dangerous or militaristic. The case remains at the certiorari stage, meaning the Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear it. If review is granted, Viramontes could become a major vehicle for deciding whether bans on modern semiautomatic rifles can survive Heller, Bruen, and the “common use” doctrine.
Legal Analysis: This case provides the Court an opportunity to reinforce the “Common Use” test established in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). It aims to settle the debate finally: modern semi-automatic rifles are “arms” protected by the Second Amendment text, regardless of aesthetic features or administrative labels.
Related Lower-Court NFA Litigation – The NFA and the Administrative State
Roberts v. ATF, No. 2:26-cv-91-SCM — filed Feb. 26, 2026, in the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Synopsis: I serve as counsel of record in this pivotal litigation filed on behalf of the Buckeye Firearms Association, alongside a broad coalition including the American Suppressor Association Foundation (ASAF), Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), and individual citizens.
Legal Analysis: We submit that the ATF has exceeded its statutory authority under the National Firearms Act (NFA). Specifically, we argue that the NFA’s registration requirements for Short Barreled Rifles (SBRs) and suppressors, historically justified as a tax-collection mechanism—are unconstitutional now that the associated excise taxes have been zeroed out. In a post-Chevron environment, the administrative state lacks the “taxing power” cover to maintain a registry of constitutionally protected hardware.
Conclusion: The Front Lines of Liberty
For the American firearm owner, the landscape has shifted from defending the existence of the right to policing the boundaries of government power. Furthermore, the precedent in NRA v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175 (2024), now acts as a vital shield, preventing state regulators from using administrative coercion to bankrupt the very organizations fighting these legal battles.
As Justice Thomas noted in Bruen, the Second Amendment is not a “second-class right.” The decisions expected in mid-2026 will likely cement this principle, ensuring that constitutional guarantees are not subjected to the whims of the administrative state.
“As the Supreme Court moves toward its final releases of the 2025–2026 term, the landscape of the Second Amendment is shifting in real-time. I will be monitoring the High Court’s orders and opinion drops daily, providing legal analysis and comprehensive follow-up articles as each of these landmark decisions is handed down. Stay tuned as we break down what these rulings mean for your rights, your hardware, and the future of American liberty.”
Sean Maloney is a criminal defense attorney, co-founder of Second Call Defense, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is a nationally recognized speaker on critical topics, including the Second Amendment, self-defense, the use of lethal force, and concealed carry. Sean has worked on numerous use-of-force and self-defense cases and has personally trained hundreds of civilians to respond safely and legally to life-threatening situations. He is a passionate advocate for restoring the cultural legitimacy of the Second Amendment and promoting personal responsibility in self-defense.
Former President Donald Trump’s “battle cry” was “Make America Great Again.” What’s wrong with a great America? iStock-485335286
Some Second Amendment supporters claim that President Trump has not done anything to support Second Amendment rights. They say: The ATF still exists! The National Firearms Act of 1934 has not been repealed! The Gun Control Act of 1968 has not been repealed!
Those actions are not within the ability of the President of the United States to accomplish by executive action, at least not in a constitutional republic. A very slim majority of Republicans exists in the House. Fewer than the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster exist in the Senate. This means statutory change is very difficult to accomplish. A few Republican members of the House and the Senate are not reliable supporters of the Second Amendment. Such numbers are all it takes to make legislative passage extremely difficult.
In the face of such difficulties, President Trump has accomplished significant positive change in his second term. Supporters can make a strong case that Trump’s second-term record is the most aggressively pro-Second Amendment record of any modern administration.
It is not surprising that the Republic did not see any significant challenge to rights protected by the Second Amendment until a generation after the ratification of the Bill of Rights. A couple of laws restricting concealed carry were passed in 1813. The Kentucky law was struck down as unconstitutional by the state supreme court, leaving the Louisiana law as an outlier for another decade. After the Founding generation had passed away, the infringements on the Second Amendment started being passed.
Here are some of the actions the Trump Administration has taken to restore Second Amendment rights in the United States. Two are statutory. The rest have been done with administrative authority:
April 7, 2025 – Trump DOJ repeals the Zero Tolerance policy by the ATF. The ATF announces plans to revise the policy on stabilizing braces and the definition of “engaged in the business by ATF.
Whether one agrees with every Trump policy or not, his administration has moved faster and more directly on Second Amendment issues than any recent Republican administration.
The above is not a complete list. There have been several amicus briefs filed in Second Amendment cases by the administration to restore Second Amendment rights. Feel free to add any accomplishments not listed in the comments.
When a fundamental constitutional right has been trampled in the dirt for over a hundred years, it is understandable for supporters to be anxious to see the right completely restored, immediately. Unfortunately, such is impossible without destroying the structure of the Republic inherent in the ordered liberty of the Constitution. If the Constitution is destroyed, the Second Amendment is not guaranteed. Is there more the Trump administration can do? Yes, absolutely. Are we going to see significant improvements?
Yes, absolutely. Will we see enormous statutory changes? No, unless the Republicans hold the House and the Senate in the midterms, and probably not unless they gain seats in both.
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.
History Shows Pistols Were Common in Revolutionary America iStock-2158871985
Pistols were commonly owned in America at the time of the Revolution. Clayton Cramer & Joseph Edward Olson lay out extensive evidence in their paper.
Numerous people claim that pistols were not common during the American Revolution. This is done to imply concealed arms were not included in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Clayton Cramer and Joseph Edward Olson published a paper outlining extensive evidence of pistol ownership at the time of the American Revolution. The paper was published in the Willamette Law Review on June 3, 2008, pages 699-722.
In early America, pistols were distinguished from guns or firearms. The distinction between pistols and guns, and by extension firearms, persisted in common usage until 1828. One of the most telling pieces of evidence showing the commonality of pistols is the accounting of the weapons turned in to General Gage after the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred on April 19, 1775.
On April 23, 1775, General Gage offered to allow Boston residents to leave if they surrendered their arms. Boston, through the selectmen, voted to accept the offer. By April 27, the people had delivered over 3,400 weapons. From the paper:
As an incentive, General Gage offered passes to leave Boston to all who turned in their weapons, because no weapons or ammunition were allowed to leave Boston. On April 27th, the people delivered to the selectman 1778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses.
Aside from the bayonets, pistols accounted for over 25% of the weapons turned in. This was probably an undercount, because pistols are easier to hide than the other weapons. After telling the Bostonians the weapons would be returned to them, General Gage confiscated them some months later.
The paper goes on to show numerous examples of pistols being offered for sale, pistols in estates, pistol powder for sale, and remnants of pistols found from the era.
In addition, at least one law exempted pistols from the regulation of long guns, the opposite of what is generally seen today. Boston banned people from leaving unattended loaded firearms in buildings because of fire hazards. There was no law banning the carry of loaded firearms. The usage of the time separated firearms from pistols. The ban may not have included a prohibition on leaving loaded pistols in houses. Pocket pistols were mentioned in an account from 1772. There were many concealable arms during the revolutionary period. No evidence of laws against the carry of concealed weapons has been found from this period.
The paper is worth reading for any Second Amendment supporter. It shows handguns were in common use at the time of the revolution, and into the early Republic. Clayton Cramer is well known for his meticulous historical research.
Pistols, while not as common as long guns during the American Revolution, were common and readily used. The story of Samuel Whittemore during the battle of Lexington and Concord is an illustration.
Samuel Whittemore learned of the British attack and armed himself with his prized sword and pistols, grabbed his trusty musket, and went to defend his home. By this point, Whittemore was at least 78, possibly as old as 80. He found a position to hide and observe the British advance and when they got close enough he revealed himself and shot one of the soldiers at nearly point blank range. With no time to reload Whittemore drew his pistols and killed two more soldiers.
Whittemore was shot, clubbed, and bayonetted at least 13 times. Against all odds, he survived and lived for two more decades.
Modern handguns were estimated to account for 27% of the privately owned firearms in the United States in 1945, according to figures in Gary Kleck’s highly acclaimed book, Point Blank. As America has become more urban, handguns have become more popular. In 2023, handguns made up 54% of the firearms added to the private stock in the USA that year.
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.
