Gun-Control Groups Tell Court Americans Have No Right to Body Armor

The fight over New York’s body armor ban has now produced a clear picture of both sides.

Body armor is at the center of a federal Second Amendment challenge to New York’s ban on ordinary citizens buying protective gear. iStock-2247234200

On one side are gun owners, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Armored Republic, arguing that body armor is exactly the type of arms the Second Amendment has always protected: defensive equipment for free citizens.

On the other side are New York Attorney General Letitia James, Brady, Giffords Law Center, and Everytown for Gun Safety, arguing that ordinary Americans can be blocked from buying armor unless they are a special class of citizen.

Heeter v. James is a federal lawsuit challenging New York’s body armor ban in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. AmmoLand previously covered the plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motion, where they argued New York criminalized the purchase and acquisition of defensive gear that falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment.

New York’s law does not simply punish violent criminals who wear armor during crimes. It blocks the sale, purchase, and acquisition of body armor by ordinary citizens unless they fit into one of the state’s “eligible professions.” Albany has decided that police, military personnel, security guards, and other approved categories may protect themselves from gunfire, while everyone else must remain exposed to gunfire.

Brady, Giffords, and Everytown: Armor Is Not Protected

On April 29, 2026, Brady, Giffords Law Center, and Everytown filed an amicus brief supporting New York’s defense of the ban. Their argument is exactly what gun owners should expect from the modern gun control lobby. First, they claim body armor is not a “bearable arm.” Then they claim it is not in common civilian use for lawful self-defense. Then they drag in mass shooters to justify stripping law-abiding Americans of protective equipment.

The brief argues that body armor is not protected by the Second Amendment because it is not a weapon used to injure or kill. That argument tries to rewrite Heller by pretending that “arms” means only offensive weapons, even though the historical understanding of “arms” includes defensive armor. AmmoLand has already covered that point in this case: the plaintiffs cited Heller’s discussion of “weapons of offence, or armour of defence.”

The gun control groups want the court to believe body armor becomes “dangerous” because a criminal might wear it while committing a violent act. By that logic, running shoes are dangerous if a bank robber uses them to flee, and a locked door is dangerous if a fugitive hides behind it.

Body armor does not shoot, stab, slash, or explode. It protects the person wearing it. Calling armor dangerous because it can stop a bullet is a confession that the anti-gun movement is not merely interested in disarming citizens. It wants citizens easier to hurt.

The Mass-Shooter Argument Is the Same Old Gun Control Play

The anti-gun brief leans hard on the 2022 Buffalo supermarket murders, where the killer wore body armor. No one should minimize that evil. The killer murdered innocent people, and retired Buffalo police officer Aaron Salter Jr. died heroically trying to stop him.

But constitutional rights do not disappear because a murderer misused a lawful item.

The Brady/Giffords/Everytown brief cites the Buffalo attack and claims that 28 mass shooters over the past 45 years wore body armor, including at least 17 after 2009. The brief also argues that the Buffalo murderer’s armor helped him survive Salter’s defensive gunfire and continue the attack.

That is emotional ammunition, not a limiting constitutional principle.

Criminals have used cars, phones, backpacks, computers, clothing, and cash to help commit crimes. The answer is to punish criminals, not ban peaceable citizens from owning ordinary defensive tools. New York could have targeted violent criminal misuse of body armor. Instead, it chose to ration protection by profession and create a ban for ordinary people.

The anti-gun side also argues that even assuming 55,000 civilian body armor units were sold in 2022, that would represent only a tiny share of the national population and therefore is not “commonplace.”

That is a rigged argument. Government buyers dominate the armor market; many companies have long favored government and law-enforcement sales, and states like New York are actively trying to suppress civilian access. The government should not be allowed to choke off access to defensive gear and then cite reduced access as proof that the gear is uncommon.

Armored Republic Fires Back

Armored Republic’s amicus brief, filed April 7, 2026, gives the court the sharper constitutional answer.

The brief argues that New York’s law is backward because the state requires many able-bodied male residents ages 17 to 45 to report for militia service if summoned by the governor in cases of invasion, disaster, insurrection, riot, breach of the peace, or imminent danger, while also forbidding most of those citizens from acquiring body armor that could protect them in those exact conditions.

New York wants the power to call ordinary citizens into danger, but not the humility to let those same citizens buy armor that may keep them alive. The state wants the obligation of citizenship without the rights of citizenship.

Armored Republic describes the result as a system where the favored organized militia receives state-furnished body armor, while the disfavored unorganized militia is legally compelled to serve, punished for not appearing, and forbidden from acquiring the same protection on its own.

That is the kind of two-tier system anti-gun politicians always seem to build. The government gets the guns. Government gets the armor. Government gets the exemptions. The citizen gets the jail cell.

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“The People” Does Not Mean “The Professionals”

Armored Republic’s brief hammers home another point at the center of this case: the Second Amendment protects the people, not merely police, soldiers, and state-approved professionals.

The brief argues New York is trying to replace “the people” with “the professionals,” noting that taxi drivers, janitors, farmers, fishermen, construction workers, and the unemployed are just as much part of “the people” as attorneys, physicians, and police officers.

The Second Amendment is not a government-employee privilege. It is not a benefit package for badge holders. It is not a safety program for politically favored job titles.

The right belongs to the people.

New York’s body armor ban treats ordinary citizens as a lower class: good enough to obey, good enough to be taxed, good enough to be summoned in an emergency, but not good enough to buy a plate carrier or armor panel without Albany’s permission.

Body Armor Belongs at the Center of the Second Amendment

Armored Republic also makes a strong Miller/Heller argument. Under United States v. Miller, the Second Amendment protects arms with a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, including ordinary military equipment. Armored Republic argues that body armor is not merely in common private use, but is standard modern equipment for citizen-soldiers responding to a call to duty.

The company also says its own sales of body armor products to American civilians exceed 2.5 million, which it argues is enough by itself to establish common use.

That undercuts the gun-control lobby’s attempt to portray civilian armor ownership as some fringe activity. Millions of Americans understand what New York refuses to admit: armor is defensive gear. It is useful precisely because government cannot guarantee your safety.

AmmoLand has covered this fight from the beginning. In 2024, we reported on Armored Republic’s challenge to New York’s ban, including the law’s carveouts for favored professions and its criminal penalties for unauthorized possession, sale, or transfer.

AmmoLand also covered the case after Judge John Sinatra allowed the challenge to proceed, making clear that New York’s law was not just a fight over body armor, but part of a broader attempt to decide which citizens may protect themselves.

Bigger Than Body Armor

Gun owners should pay close attention to this case. The anti-gun lobby’s theory is not limited to body armor. Their argument is that courts should narrow the word “arms,” exclude useful modern defensive tools, and then let the government decide which civilians have a “need” for protection.

That same logic can be used against magazines, optics, suppressors, braces, parts, accessories, ammunition, and anything else anti-gun states want to push outside the Second Amendment.

New York’s position is simple: trust the state, stay vulnerable, and let politicians decide who deserves protection.

The Second Amendment says something very different: “shall not be infringed.”

A free citizen does not need a permission slip to buy a rifle. He does not need a permission slip to buy a magazine. He should not need a permission slip to buy armor that may save his life when the government fails to protect him.

Body armor is not the problem. Criminals are the problem. Politicians who punish the law-abiding for the actions of criminals are the problem.

New York’s body armor ban should fall.

Heeter v. James Challenges New York Body Armor Ban Under the Second Amendment

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States Move to Protect Suppressor Owners as NFA Tax Falls to $0

Are suppressors part of your home defense kit? img Travis Pike

In 1934, the National Firearms Act (NFA) was passed by Congress. The bill, which became law, was a consolation prize for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) administration. The primary purpose of licensing and registration of all handguns had been stripped from the bill because of lobbying by the NRA and Second Amendment supporters. One item left on the bill was an absurdly high tax on silencers/suppressors.

The $200 tax was punishingly high. Using the first federal minimum wage adopted a few years later in 1938, it equaled roughly four to five months of full-time wages.

Silencers had never been involved much in crime. No serious reason is included in legislative history for the inclusion of silencers in the NFA. Their ban was part of the hysteria of the time. The new Attorney General, Homer Cummings, conflated guns and crime. The NFA was his grab for power within the FDR administration.

In 1934, when what was left of the National Firearms Act made silencers unaffordable except for the very rich, the law was relatively limited. It only applied to silencers that had crossed state lines. If you made your own silencer, it was not involved in interstate commerce, so the federal law did not apply. It was the middle of the depression, and people were too concerned with having enough to eat and a roof over their heads to be worried about a silly new federal law.

All of that changed over the next 50 years. The Interstate Commerce clause and the National Firearms Act of 1934 were expanded far beyond their original boundaries. Short-barreled rifles came to include pistols with shoulder stocks. Short-barreled shotguns came to include revolvers with shot cartridges and smoothbores. The Interstate Commerce Clause came to include almost everything. Bureaucracies became the dominant force in most people’s lives.

Many states came to mirror federal law about silencers and other items regulated by the National Firearms Act. This served two purposes. It tied state and federal law together so that court challenges had to overcome both state and federal defenses. It provided a way for state and local law officials to prosecute people for what had been made a crime by the National Firearms Act.

By 2000, inflation had eroded the insanely high $200 tax on silencer ownership to the merely extreme one week’s minimum wage. The truth about silencers and their many beneficial uses was being exposed.

By 2020, the fight to restore Second Amendment rights was in full swing in the courts. In 2025, Congress reduced the NFA making and transfer tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs to $0, while leaving the federal registration structure in place. In 2026, several lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of the NFA’s inclusion of silencers, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns.

If the federal law is removed, state laws that reinforced the NFA create a trap. If a law requires compliance with an NFA rule which no longer exists, hundreds of thousands could become felons overnight, without any action on their part. Fortunately, several states are taking action to prevent this legal disaster.

Texas eliminated its requirement to comply with the federal law on silencers in 2021. Mississippi passed a similar bill in 2023, which is contingent on the state of federal silencer law.

Montana passed a bill eliminating the federal requirement in 2025. Here is the Montana provision:

45-8-336. Possession of silencer. (1) A person commits the offense of possession of a silencer if the person possesses, manufactures, transports, buys, or sells a silencer and has the purpose to use it to commit an offense or knows that another person has such a purpose.

South Dakota eliminated the requirement for federal compliance in 2026. Other states have bills in progress. They are:

Arizona SB1069 in process.

Missouri has a bill in progress, SB273.

Ohio has Senate Bill 214 in process.

The trend is moving in the right direction. Congress has already reduced the NFA tax burden on suppressors to $0, lawsuits are now attacking the remaining registration scheme, and several states are cleaning up laws that made suppressor ownership depend on federal NFA paperwork.

Gun owners should not confuse a $0 tax with full deregulation. Suppressors remain inside the federal NFA framework unless and until Congress or the courts remove them. That is why state-level reform matters. Anti-gun lawmakers built layers of state and federal restrictions over decades. Removing one layer is progress, but the work is not done.

Restoration of rights protected by the Second Amendment is happening, but it all takes time.

The information above is not comprehensive. State laws are changing rapidly.  Use the comments to add information about bills and statutes not mentioned in the article.

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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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Gun Control and their Delusions of Freedom

Po Murray says gun-control advocates should reclaim the term “gun control.” That honesty should also extend to the policy results. iStock-1365229422

Po Murray lives in Newtown, Connecticut. She is the cofounder of the Newtown Action Alliance, one of the gun control groups formed in the aftermath of the heinous murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. From what I could tell, Ms. Murray is cut from the same cloth as the rest: heavy on the emotions; light on the facts.

On April 14, Ms. Murray posted “Reclaiming ‘Gun Control’: Why We Need Safety, Prevention, and Control” on Substack.

“I embraced the language many in our movement adopted,” she wrote. I spoke about “gun safety” and “gun violence prevention” because we were told these terms would resonate more broadly, reduce polarization, and help us reach people who might otherwise shut down when they heard ‘gun control.’”

She has come to a new conclusion: Strip away the euphemisms; call it what it is.

Good idea! Now let’s apply the same thinking to assault weapons, large capacity magazines, and gun violence.

Ms. Murray continues: “I no longer believe this is a choice between one set of words or another. I believe we need all of them, and we need to use them more intentionally.

“At the same time, we need to be clear about what this work is ultimately about. It is about freedom. Not abstract freedom, but the freedom to live our daily lives without fear. The freedom to send our children to school, to gather in our communities, to worship, to work, and to simply exist without the constant threat of gun violence.”

There is no such thing as freedom to live our lives without fear. There is also no right to live “without the constant threat of ‘gun violence.’”

No government or society on earth could make such promises. Life is not sanitized for our protection.

It is, however, quite possible to live a long and productive life without the “constant threat of gun violence.” Simply ignore the blow-up bogeymen and papier-mâché tigers created by gun control fans.

Better, do some independent research. It’s like firing a howitzer into a house of cards.

Washington state got on the gun control bandwagon about 12 years ago and has been going gangbusters ever since.

In 2015, Seattle’s murder rate was 3.49 per 100,000 population. In 2020, it had risen to 7.16 per 100,000 population, more than twice the 2015 rate. After about 2021, homicide rates began falling. Seattle’s rate rose seven percent.

No fudging here: Population courts were verified with the U.S. Census Bureau; offense counts were sourced from state statistics and individual law enforcement agencies. Our data is spin-free.

By all the data, gun control does not work. At best, it’s irrelevant; at worst, it’s a joke.

Over the years, I have compared the gun-grabbers’ remedies to the snake oil nostrums hawked by fast-talking hucksters in the Old West traveling medicine shows. How else would you describe measures that ignore virtually every factor impacting this so-called ‘epidemic’ or can’t be enforced because critical information is missing, and it’s a violation of federal law to gather it?

A point to consider: In 2016, voters in Nevada barely passed a referendum in favor of universal background checks. Only one county in Nevada passed the referendum, but that one county was Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.

Everytown for Gun Safety volunteered to assist Nevada legislators in drafting a bill. It eventually passed. But Everytown screwed up: they didn’t check to see who processed the background checks and specified running all inquiries through the FBI’s NICS system.

Unfortunately for the ban fans, the state of Nevada had set up its processing when the background check system was first being implemented. The state’s choice was the Nevada Department of Public Safety.

The FBI refused to take over processing, so the state had to wait two years for the next legislative session to set things right.

Did the gun control zealots take their lumps and retire to consider their error? Nope: they sued the governor and state attorney general because they refused to implement a law that could literally not be enforced.

As Po Murray said, this is all about freedom. Just not the freedom she envisions.

ATF Rolls Back Biden-Era Gun Rules in Major Reform Package

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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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Maryland Supreme Court Limits Montgomery County Gun Carry Ban

The Supreme Court of Maryland ruled that Montgomery County exceeded its authority with key portions of its firearms ordinance. iStock-1327766990

The Supreme Court of Maryland handed Maryland Shall Issue and other challengers a significant, but not total, victory in their challenge to Montgomery County’s sweeping firearms ordinance. The lawsuit was commenced in 2021.

On April 28, 2026, on x.com, Maryland Shall Issue posted this:

The Supreme Court of Maryland issued its decision today in our challenge to the Montgomery County ordinance that basically banned carry by permit holders through out the County. On that issue we completely prevailed and the County lost. Specifically the Court held that the…

— Maryland Shall Issue (@MD_Shall_Issue) April 28, 2026

In 2021, Montgomery County, Maryland, the State’s most populous county, enacted an ordinance that severely infringed on rights protected by the Second Amendment. Maryland has a significant set of preemption statutes that prevent local governments from interfering with state firearms law.

Maryland Shall Issue filed two lawsuits challenging the ordinance in different ways: one in federal court and the other in state court. In December of 2023, the Circuit Court for Montgomery County granted Summary Judgement in favor of the Shall Issue lawsuit in state court. The County appealed the ruling to the Appellate Court of Maryland. On January 24, 2025, the Appellate Court ruled the Circuit Court had erred and remanded the case back to the Circuit Court. The case, now named Montgomery County v. Engage Armament, was appealed by Maryland Shall Issue to the Maryland Supreme Court.

The post by Maryland Shall Issue explaining the Maryland Supreme Court’s ruling quotes the Court on the County ordinance. The Supreme Court wrote this:

 “is not a local law because of its application to holders of State-issued wear-and-carry permits traveling on public highways who cross within 100 yards of a place of public assembly.”

The Court did not treat that portion as a valid local ordinance. It held that, as currently constructed, § 57-11(a) is not a “local law” because it burdens state-issued wear-and-carry permit holders traveling on public highways through Montgomery County.

The “local ordinance” banning concealed carry within 100 yards of a “place of public assembly” effectively banned it. 

Most major roads and highways transited through areas within 100 yards of the multitude of places the County ordinance designated as places of public assembly.

Maryland Shall Issue also posted that the Maryland Supreme Court ruled Montgomery County’s ban on “ghost guns” was preempted by Maryland law  “to the extent it includes firearms that have been serialized in compliance with federal and State law.”

On the ghost-gun provisions, the Court held that Montgomery County cannot refuse to recognize firearms serialized by federally licensed firearms dealers in compliance with federal and state law. The Court also noted that the County disavowed any reading of its ordinance that would bar transport of an unserialized firearm for the purpose of serialization. 

The Maryland Supreme Court was reported to have ruled that a section of the County’s ordinance was preempted, as the County attempted to ban a: 

 “broad swath of otherwise lawful (and constitutionally protected) conduct by adults merely because it occurs in the presence of a minor, without any apparent connection to whether that activity might result in minors gaining unsupervised access to those firearms.” 

Exactly which parts of the Montgomery County ordinance remain in effect after the Maryland Supreme Court ruling is unclear at this time. 

In the federal appeal, the Fourth Circuit had scheduled an argument for January 23, 2024, but removed the case from the argument calendar. The Maryland Supreme Court later noted that the Fourth Circuit granted Montgomery County’s motion to hold the appeal in abeyance pending the state-court decision.

ATF’s 34-Rule Reform Package Is a Start, Not a Finish Line for Gun Owners

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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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Everytown’s EveryShot AI Shows Why Gun Statistics Need Human Scrutiny

The New York City Comptroller recommends dropping ShotSpotter, a controversial gunshot detection system with an alarming failure rate. iStock-1342530364

In March of 2025, Everytown, the activist organization created with considerable funding from multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, launched a website called EveryShot. EveryShot is an artificial intelligence tool using ChatGPT-40 mini to search for and list, according to Everytown, a collection of incidents in the 50 U.S. states involving shootings with a firearm or the brandishing of a firearm. Specifically excluded are BB guns, pellet guns, toy guns, or events that are fictional. A filter is used to exclude duplicates. The tool often shows multiple sources for a single event. The tool can flag events when there is uncertainty or discrepancies the flag brings the attention of a human for review. The tool updates the database twice a week.

In the Terms of Use, Everytown states the results can be “incomplete, inaccurate, offensive, or otherwise unpredictable”.  In this correspondent’s use of the tool, such a description is correct.

The tool has been developed by Everytown. Everytown is strongly biased toward greater political control over the ownership and use of firearms. It is not surprising there are no categories of firearms use under the categories of  “Intent” listed as s justified homicides.  There is no category of “Incident Type” listed as self-defense.

In “Relationship to Shooter” there are no categories for “gang member”, “criminal”, “drug dealer”, or even “stranger” or “attacker”. There are only Self, Friend, various family members, Intimate Partner, Bystander, and “Not Reported”.

The description of the sources limits them to occurring in “one of the 50 US states”; the District of Columbia, a United States federal territory, is included.

As an experiment, this correspondent chose to look at all the incidents reported under the categories  of Firearm Type – “Machine Gun” and Firearm Ownership – “Legal”. Such incidents are extremely rare. EveryShot reported six incidents from January 1 through April 21.

It appeared to this reporter that EveryShot was mistaken in all six incidents. In all six incidents, the “machine gun” was an illegally possessed firearm. Three of the incidents explicitly identified the illegal machine gun as a “Glock switch”. One incident identified the offending firearm(s) as “illegal conversion devices”. One incident did not identify the firearm, except as a “machine gun”, but there was a charge of “felon in possession,” which indicated the firearm was illegally owned. The sixth incident identified the firearm as a MAC 11, but careful reading showed it to be Masterpiece Arms Grim Reaper, a semi-automatic replica of the MAC. In that case, the firearm itself was not a machine gun, and it was illegal for the person to possess it, as they were charged with being a felon in possession.

Here are the links to each of the six incidents:

• January 20, 2026 –Michigan City Indiana, Glock Switch, shots fired. Illegal possession.
• January 29, 2026 – Elkhart, Indiana, Twins Arrested for Machine Gun possession, Glock switch, and illegal possession.
• February 11, 2026 –  Listed as Endicott, NY (actually Montgomery County, PA.) MAC 11. No mention of conversion. Masterpiece Arms Grim Reaper firearm, not a machine gun. Illegal possession.
• February 19, 2026 – Waco Texas, illegal conversion devices
• March 6, 2026 – Laredo, Texas, shots fired, Glock switch
• March 30, 2026 –  Gray’s Hill, SC, Possession of a machine gun, felon in possession, no explanation of the offending firearm.

There are other quirks in the EveryShot AI engine. Under “Brandishing,” the engine lists 92 incidents. 92 are listed under “fatal”, 0 incidents are listed under non-fatal, and 0 incidents are listed under “other”.  The engine must have more categories than “fatal”, “non-fatal”, and “other”, because total incidents are listed as 1,560, many times greater than the total of “fatal”, “non-fatal”, and “other”, which only comes to 92. Categories available other than the three mentioned were not obvious.

Such are the quirks that EveryTown warns against as potential flaws in the EveryShot AI construct.

This does not mean EveryShot is useless. It means the numbers are, at best, a flawed program’s interpretation of news stories, which are highly biased by the way the searches are constructed.

Another reason to be cautious is this: It is not disputed that the most common fatalities involving firearms in the USA are suicides. They account for about two-thirds of all fatalities involving firearms. Because of the limitations of the publicly available data from the sources used by EveryShot, suicides only account for about 9% of fatalities by firearm. It appears that suicides are not covered by the media anywhere near completely.

If you use EveryShot, be aware of the limitations. Keep in mind the cautions put forward by Everytown about its use. Do not consider the statistics to be factual or accurate, because the EverShot AI has many limitations.

ATF’s 34-Rule Reform Package Is a Start, Not a Finish Line for Gun Owners

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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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ATF’s 34-Rule Reform Package Is a Start, Not a Finish Line for Gun Owners

DOJ and ATF announced a 34-rule reform package aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on gun owners and the firearms industry. AmmoLand was present for the signing. IMG Jim Grant

Yesterday, United States Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche invited AmmoLand News to witness the signing of the most comprehensive Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rules package in the agency’s history.

The rules were substantial. They included eliminating the need to mark National Firearms Act (NFA) items when built from an existing receiver. Another change allows Gun Control Act (GCA) firearms to be shipped directly to a buyer’s door from a federal firearms licensee (FFL) in the same state. Many companies, such as Palmetto State Armory (PSA), have a network of FFLs in each state to ship suppressors to purchasers’ doors. It wouldn’t be a heavy lift to use those same FFLs for GCA firearms.

These changes were mostly positive. Newly confirmed Robert Cekada signed each rules package just minutes after being confirmed by the Senate.

The signing of the 34 rules marks the first step in reforming a Bureau many view as out of control. Although the changes were positive, a few changes were missing from the initial rules. The most noticeable missing change was a modification to the frames and receiver rule.

Court cases around the country have been paused for months, awaiting a new rule. Many believed it would be unveiled yesterday. That did not happen. Earlier this month, Justice Department lawyers stated that the ATF would not change the frames-and-receiver rule. They quickly backpedaled, then told opposition lawyers that the rule is still under review and that a new rule would be forthcoming.

Another welcome change is that the ATF’s secret database of out-of-business records will no longer be kept forever. There will be a fixed period of time before these records in Martinsburg, West Virginia, will be destroyed. We do not yet know what that time period will be. It appears that the ATF’s top brass have not decided. Gun owners want the immediate destruction of the database. They view it as an illegal gun registry that is expressly forbidden by Congress.

Sources inside the ATF said they wanted to push further, but wanted to make sure they could defend their actions in court and politically.

The ATF and DOJ did not address the killing of Bryan Malinowski. On March 19, 2024, ATF agents raided Malinowski’s home and killed him. The airport executive for Little Rock airport was a lifelong firearms collector and sold guns from his private collection at gun shows. The ATF believed he might be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms without an FFL. The raid was to gather evidence to use against him, but ended up in tragedy.

To date, no one has been held responsible for the botched raid, raising concerns from the firearms community about the history of lack of accountability inside the ATF dating back to the 80’s with botched raids at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

The ATF’s proposed changes show a willingness to work with the firearms community and industry, a major shift from the past. Two years ago, AmmoLand News was supposed to attend a meeting at ATF headquarters, only to have our invitations revoked the morning of the proposed meeting.

This time, not only was AmmoLand News invited, but so were representatives from Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), National Associations for Gun Rights (NAGR), National Rifle Associations (NRA), American Suppressor Association (ASA), and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).

Whether the changes will continue remains to be seen. President Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify,” and that is exactly what AmmoLand News plans on doing.

ATF Rolls Back Biden-Era Gun Rules in Major Reform Package

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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 @right2bear or at www.crumpy.com.

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Denial of Gun Licenses to Political Opposition in Germany Has Chilling Historic Precedent

German ‘Waffenbesitzkarte für Sportschützen,’ a firearms possession card for sport shooters, shown with ammunition for handguns and long guns. iStock-1208764235

“Saxony’s Interior Ministry wants to revoke hunting licenses of AfD [Alternative for Germany] supporters,” Berliner Zeitung reported Sunday. “Anyone in Saxony who is an AfD member or attends party events risks losing their firearms license. A new decree now reverses the burden of proof.”

“Saxony’s Interior Ministry confirmed the existence of the measure, issued last July, but declined to publish it, describing it as an ‘internal document,’” RT explained, noting the reason was the AfD Party has been classified as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization due to its “anti-immigration platform and oppos[ition to] sanctions on Russia and support for Ukraine.” A challenge to that designation was rejected on appeal, showing the establishment fears a rapidly growing populist movement that reflects voter dissatisfaction with current government policies.

The requirement to “demonstrate reliability” and burden of proof is on AfD members “to show clear distancing from the party’s positions,” the report explains, further noting, “simply having no criminal record is insufficient.”

That such prior restraints can be codified into “law” is made inevitable by German weapons laws, among the strictest in Europe, which do not recognize a right to keep and bear arms, but instead read like a wish list for U.S. gun prohibitionists to template off of.

Disarming anyone disfavored by the state is one of the oldest power guarantors devised by governments, and this happening in Germany recalls another set of laws imposed within the lifetimes of people still living. From the  Nazi Weapons Law of November 11, 1938, Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons:

“Jews (§ 5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt 1, p. 1332) are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.”

That AfD, characterized by its critics as Nazis and neo-Nazis, is now being discriminated against with a virtual clone of Nazi Weapons Law, is a valid point to make, and one the political establishment and its media propagandists will, naturally, not admit to. And that’s reflected by Democrats increasingly employing Antifa-type slurs and smearing Republicans in general, and MAGA supporters in particular, as “Nazis” and “fascists.”

What’s being buried in those lies are two inconvenient truths.

The late UK Liberal Party supporter George Watson definitively debunked the former in his landmark Hitler and the Socialist Dream, documenting:

“It is now clear beyond all reasonable doubt that Hitler and his associates believed they were socialists, and that others, including democratic socialists, thought so too.”

And The Misinformation Antidote does the same with Benito Mussolini:

“Do not imagine that by tearing up my membership card in the Socialist Party you can forbid my socialist faith or prevent me from continuing to work for the cause of socialism and the revolution”

As the Founders’ Republic approaches its midterm elections and Semiquincentennial, it’s important to note the Framers rejected European tyranny and brought forth instead a form of government centered on the individual that included what the collectivists deceptively promise but never deliver: the most egalitarian power-sharing arrangement ever devised. That, of course, was the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

As it stands now, there appears to be a good chance unthinking and uninformed heirs of liberty, that is, useful idiots, stand ready to demand a new and dangerous era of socialist collectivism through a “tyranny of the majority.” Who thinks for a minute a Democrat supermajority — with the unchallengeable ability to pass whatever gun edicts they want and have them upheld by a packed Supreme Court — won’t make disarming political opposition, that is, “extremists,” a priority?

Virginia State Police Admit Spanberger Gun Law Conflicts With Court Order

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About David Codrea:

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.

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